Mica's First Fish!

Mica has officially caught her first fish (well, mostly)! We took the canoe out on the Charles River this weekend and, despite a slight drizzle, managed to catch two fish on the good 'ol Spongebob fishing rod. It was great fun and Daddy was very proud of his little girl.
In other updates things are coming down to the wire here-- one month to go. I've finished classes (woohoo!) and now am just working on my thesis which still involves going into school every day but at a slower and less stressed pace. The kids' room is finally in order and the crib is set up. Eric and I have been practicing out hypnobirthing and it's amazing how fast he's able to put me to sleep with this technique. The whole idea is super relaxation and more or less guided hypnosis. I'm excited to see how it works for the real thing!

Mica's First Fishes from Sarah Reed on Vimeo.

Mother's Day 2010

It's mother's day and I'm 7 months pregnant. I've spent 8 hours at work so far today (sunday), so it has not been the best mother's day. I still love being a mother, though. I think it's a good thing that I don't really want to be here. That I'd rather be home with my family. I'm a few days from being done with classes, possibly forever, and I'm very happy about it. Mica has been playing a lot of "house" lately and especially loves to play that she's the mom and I'm the baby. She "drops me off at school" and says "Sorry honey, I need to go to work, I'll pick you up at the end of the day!" Sometimes I pretend to cry and she comes over to comfort me. Other times I'm strong and happy and say "Ok Mommy, have a good day at work!" Is that sad or cute? I can't quite decide. I'm excited for this new one to join our family and to watch another being grow. That's really the joy of motherhood I think: being there to witness the process-- good and bad. We still have a lot of prep to do to get ready for this baby. All that has been put on hold while I've been in school. But baby is coming whether we're ready or not!

A new short video...plus pictures...

Spring is officially here and we're happy for it. (I say that even though snow is forecast for tonight, but we'll just ignore that part..) I have 3.5 weeks of classes left and I'm so excited! The end is in sight. I'll still have to finish my thesis, but that's doable. Eric recently got picked up to be the local rep for a big reel company (in addition to Beulah, the flyrod company he's been rep-ing for and doing great) so he's on his way to being a super flyfishing rep. Mica's doing great and says she's excited for the new baby on the way. She's been working a bit these days on "constructive ways to deal with her frustration." I'm getting bigger by the minute and I'm excited to not have to haul myself around so much once classes are over.

Enjoy the video and pictures!

Daddy and Mica sleeping plus more from Sarah Reed on Vimeo.

New Video

Here's some new video from this winter. I've taken to setting up the video camera and trying to catch more of a "real life" picture than just the funny moments. The result is that the clips tend to go on a bit longer and are quite as exciting, but I think they're still cute. Feel free to fast forward...

Mica Winter 2010 from Sarah Reed on Vimeo.

New Video

Here's some new video from this winter. I've taken to setting up the video camera and trying to catch more of a "real life" picture than just the funny moments. The result is that the clips tend to go on a bit longer and are quite as exciting, but I think they're still cute. Feel free to fast forward...

Mica's Drawing

Mica is a drawing fanatic and her skills have really been getting good! The colored picture above is a poster she made for the class that my lab mate teaches: Toy Design. Specifically the poster says: 2.00B Toy Design, with her signature happy spiders floating around. She did 90% of the drawing-- I only had to help her on a couple of the letters! It's been fun to see it posted up around the school (slightly photoshopped to make it a bit more legible).
The other one is something she drew while I was making breakfast the other morning. I have definitely seen comics with similar style :)

Classes started

Classes officially began last week. I'm TAing one class, which I'll also be taking. And I'm the lab instructor for another class-- for which I'm getting course credit. The class I'm taking is another Product Design class, similar to the one I took my first semester here-- but this time it will be more Industrial Design (aesthetics) focused, and almost all grad students instead of all undergrads. The project theme this year is products relating to MIT in honor of MIT's 150th anniversary next year. At first I was uninspired by the theme but, with further thought, I think it might be a fitting way to end my time here (at least my time taking classes-- I'll probably have to come back in the fall to write my thesis). I've had very mixed emotions about this place, but lately I've been trying to appreciate all that it is and has given me. We toured the MIT museum last week and here are some highlight pictures from the trip.

This is a sculpture in which the balls continuously spill out of the nozzel and then are sucked back down a hole in the base. Really creepy.

Cute Robot.

This was a display about a group that is studying how abalone shells are made and how to synthesize them since they are so amazingly cool.

For those who don't know, the square root of negative 1 is an imaginary number. I think it's funny.

Feeling pregnant today

So here's my first baby bump picture. Not the prettiest and I sure don't look big, but I was feeling it today. Some days I barely remember that I'm pregnant. Some days it's blatantly obvious. I started prenatal yoga last week and that helped with the hip issues a lot-- at least for that night. I can feel lots of kicking already. Got a long way to go...
We had a nice weekend of a visit to the aquarium, dinner with family and another 4 yr. old birthday party! Eric was plying the fishing trade again this weekend, and working damn hard at at.

Mommy Mica weekend

Eric went to his first Fishing Convention with Buelah this weekend, and although I only got to see him for about 4 sleeping hours last night, it sounds like it went really well. How could it go bad--he got to talk fishing for 4 days straight?!
Mica and I had a great weekend to ourselves (mostly). We swam, walked and visited with friends and cousins. We have been struggling a bit with clingy-ness, especially when I'm trying to cook dinner, and then subsequently refusing to eat. She just talks so much! I know it's a good thing that she's so verbal, but being home alone with her it's pretty exhausting. I'm not sure if I should worry or get worked up over her not eating -- as with most of these child rearing issues, probably not.
Pregnancy is going well. I've got a solid belly going on now and the hip pain as started to kick in.I'm starting prenatal yoga this week and I've started swimming twice a week, so hopefully those will help.

More skiing video!!

These are courtesy of Michelle Reed and taken at Sunday River this past weekend. In the first one Mica is the littlest grommet in the back of the line of 4, swinging her left arm to keep her going.

Oh, and a fun short video from Costa Rica

Pictures from Costa Rica

Since I can only post 5 photos at a time I chosen my 5 favorite photos from the trip. I also strongly recommend going to Eric's website for some really gorgeous photos of the wedding we attended: www.ericreedphotography.com.

Martin Luther King Day Weekend

This weekend we made our second annual trek up to Sunday River to stay with Michelle and Rhodes. Rhodes' family has a beautiful house up there and Sunday River has been my favorite east coast mountain since high school. Mica spent a half day in Ski School. I think we didn't prep her quite well enough for the fact that we were not going to be there while she skied. Apparently she spent much of the time looking for us and when we did come back (an hour before the class was supposed to be over) she didn't appear to be having much fun. But when we ask her if she had fun she says yes, so who knows. I'm taking her to hopefully buy some skis of her own (used) today so we don't have to keep shelling out money for rentals. These should last her a few years. Eric, Rhodes and I had a great time riding the mountain too. No powder unfortunately, but lots of fast groomers. Baby liked all the bouncing :)

Holiday Fun

It's been an exciting few weeks here in Reed-ville. I'll have to keep this post short, though, because our office where I sit and write this is about 40 degrees and I can only just barely feel my toes. In short we: 1) went out to western Mass for x-mas and Mica's birthday and had a present-licious good time, 2) flew down to Costa Rica for 10 days for our dear friends David and Julie's wedding and lots of romping in the surf and pool, 3) came back and got Mica on skis for the first time!
The visuals are going to be a bit backward since the first thing I've got ready is the video of her skiing. So here it is. She loved skiing-- almost as much as we loved watching her ski! She especially loved the hot chocolate at break time and the magic carpet ride up each run.

Mica's First Time Skiing from Sarah Reed on Vimeo.

I will write in more detail and post Costa Rica pictures when I get somewhere warmer!