Astronomoms

Science Topics on BBC Women's Hour

2011-01-20T11:39:00.000-05:00

BBC Women's Hour - Listen again
2011 is the International year of Chemistry - If girls do better than boys at A level Chemistry, why don't more young girls dream of a truly exhilarating career in science. How can we change this? Dr Patricia Fara, a science historian from Clare College Cambridge discusses.
Discussion starts at 34 minutes 20 seconds -http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00xhgms/Womans_Hour_18_01_2011

American equal rights campaigner, Sylvia Ann Hewlett says that evidence gathered across Europe suggests that offering women a lengthy absence from work harms their career.
Discussion starts at 24 minutes 20 seconds - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00xhgms/Womans_Hour_18_01_2011

(taken from UKRC GetSET Women News)

Bedtime story book: Earth to Stella

2011-01-11T06:15:00.000-05:00

Bedtime reading has an important role in our life, and we're frequent visitors to our local library to increase the diversity of the books we read. I'm naturally attracted to kids books about space, and so we read quite a few. Anyway to cut a long story short, I thought it would be nice to review some of them.

Right now we're reading "Earth to Stella" by Simon Puttock and Phillip Hopman (Amazon UK link, Amazon USA link). I don't intend to provide an exhaustive review, but here's list of my likes and dislikes:

Likes

1. The main character is a girl. Having a (imaginary) space adventure. That's unusual - and you won't be surprised that I like it. The picture of Stella in her bedroom shows this is no passing interest either - she has a lot of space toys in her room.

2. The relationship between the girl and her father comes across as genuine and loving. He joins in her imaginary adventure providing messages from "Earth to Stella"

3. I love that her bouncing on the moon ends with "Earth to Stella: no jumping on the bed". It's just cute.

3. There's real scientific information about what the stars look like close up, and that they have different colours.

Dislikes

1. A comet is described as "zooming past with a fiery tail" (and on the page after the correct description of stars). OK this is an imaginary space flight, but I think that's a missed chance to stick in a bit more real science.

2. The bug aliens are a bit weird. Again it's imaginary, but where do they come from?

In summary I mostly like this one, and it does have some real scientific information.

In researching this post (OK by Googling "Earth to Stella"!) I found this list of reviews of children's books by the (US) National Space Society. Looks like a useful resource.

What can men do to help?

2011-01-11T06:01:00.001-05:00

While I'm here, looks like the AAS women's session happened yesterday. I found this nice summary over at "Rocket Scientista" of the discussion which focussed on one of my favourite topics: "What can men do to help?".

While I think the experience for men of being in the minority at the womens sessions may be an eye opener for them at how much you notice being just one of a small number of your gender in a room (and I wish more of them would come and experience it), I would love for those meetings to be more representative, as (like Rocket Scientista) I don't think anything is going to change until more men care about the problem too.

Elementary Parenting

2011-01-11T05:57:00.000-05:00

A nice post over at the AAS Women in Astronomy Blog by Hannah discussing how much easier parenting is when your kids are elementary school aged: "Elementary Parenting".

This is nice to hear. My oldest will start school in September, and while we'll have a little one in the house for quite some time to come (since the youngest is still just 10 months old), it's nice to know an easier life may be around the corner.

To be honest from this side though school looks more complicated than preschool: we'll have to get her there on time every day. We'll need to sort out after school care, and something different for all the many holidays. I'm sure we'll sort it out, and this might just be fear of the unknown, but it certainly looks more complicated. And I don't think the cost savings will be huge (from the UK) since we get quite a big subsidy for the over 3s already (15 hours free care during the school year). For us it was that transition which made a big difference to our pockets.

Two is hard

2010-12-21T04:55:00.003-05:00

Well it's been a long time, and I hate blogs that are just lists of excuses, but I have to say two kids is hard... much harder than one! I'm also loosing interest in anonymous blogging - I find it actually reduces what I can say as I don't want to give too much away. And every (female) astronomer I've met knows who I am anyway so it seems a bit pointless! So I'm not sure where this blog is going in the future, if anywhere......

Anyway enough of that, here's a update:

First the good news - after a wonderful 6 months maternity leave I'm back at work and getting busy with several exciting projects. I can confirm (anecdotally) the increase in productivity pregnant women have second time round - I have 4 (first author) papers published in the last year. I won another grant for 2 more years funding, so I got a promotion and a payrise (still a postdoc, but now a better paid one!). All this makes things look a whole lot rosier.

More good news - despite a slightly bumpy ride, and the annoyance that the new baby can't go to the same nursery as my older daughter the childcare situation is pretty good. The baby is within walking distance, so instead of the mammoth pumping I did for my first baby I just wander over there at lunchtime to nurse. I have been able to get away with no trips away from him yet (and he's 10 months old) with the help of my wonderful husband and parents who have come with me and the baby on a couple of trips I couldn't get out of. Oh and my new grant allows me to claim childcare for conferences, so we have a couple of big trips planned bringing both kids with us (last year for that before my daughter starts school in September - how time flies!).

And the bad you probably know. Funding for astronomy is decreasing or flat. No-one has jobs. I have two years, but my husband's postdoc officially ends this summer. I've been a postdoc for 5 1/2 years so the clock is ticking pretty loudly on my career. Yada yada. The only advice is to try to wait it out - funny thing is it just seems to keep getting worse.....

So the only solution is good research. With that I'v got to get on with work. An exciting paper in the draft phase - my favourite part of research. :)

Oh and Merry Christmas!

Doubting

2010-03-09T05:43:00.003-05:00

A recent study presented at the last AAS meeting shows that 60% of female astronomers suffer from impostor syndrome, the (unjustified) "fear of being exposed by colleagues for a lack of knowledge or ability". In comparison, 47% of male astronomers say they suffer from this. Since these fears could be a factor leading people away from astronomy, it may be one of the many things explaining why so few women make it all the way.

I would be curious to see the results of such a study for mother-astronomers. If it's so easy to doubt oneself in general (even half of our male colleagues do it, apparently!), it's probably worse when you add on top of it all the worries and concerns of juggling babies and research.

Coming back to work after maternity leave is both thrilling and deadly stressful. After being away from work, there's the joy of getting back into it, but also the (self-imposed in my case) pressure of performing extra well to make up for the lost time. I find myself in meetings sometimes, wanting to contribute to the discussion, show that I'm back in business, but blanking out because baby didn't sleep well and I'm tired, or because I worry about x or y baby-related thing.

When this happens I get home afterward, and while I play with the kids, I find myself worrying about work, how I need to do more. Impostor syndrome at work, impostor syndrome at home.

These are bad days, but fortunately it's not always like this. A comment on a previous post expresses very well one of my believes about the work/family duality: if I'm happy at work, it benefits everyone, including my kids. Most of the time I'm able to convince myself that my colleagues are understanding, that I don't need to prove myself all the time, that as long as I do my best I can't ask more of myself; I throw the impostor syndrome out of the window. But it takes a constant effort to not let it creep back, doubting is so easy.

I liked reading the results of this study. Because I recognized myself, and because I now know that it's such a widespread phenomenon. Why didn't I know before? Because we're expected to be tough, and we put on a facade most of the time. But really, that's not helping anyone, actually it's probably doing more harm than good. We need to break this vicious circle! So let's make a first baby step here - if you're reading this and it sounds familiar at all, let us know, because everybody likes to know that they're not alone with their problems and worries. At least I know I do!

Congratulations!

2010-02-23T15:11:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to Astronomum on the birth of her beautiful new baby! We wish you all the best, and look forward to hear about your adventures as a two time astronomom!

We now have five kids between the three of us, including three babies less than a year old - hopefully we will be able to keep these posts coming!

Childcare!

2010-02-08T04:42:00.003-05:00

I'm happy to report that things have suddenly taken a turn for the better: we have found some childcare for Baby!

It was a slightly bumpy road to get there. Since nurseries are practically non existent here, which makes the few of them completely overbooked, we really had only two options (1) hire a nanny at home, (2) bring the baby to a "family nursery" (i.e. a woman who takes care of 2-4 kids in her own home). Option (1) was good because it is very convenient, and you get a say in the person you hire, but it's insanely expensive. Option (2) is much more within our budget, but it's the luck of the draw. We had found a person we could have hired as a nanny, and after much work we were offered a place in a family nursery, but we were not comfortable at all with the place or the woman (no specific reason, just gut feeling). So it was between the option we didn't like but could afford, or the option we liked but that would have sucked my entire salary. Talk about a choice... I think this is an example of a situation where the expression "catch 22" applies!

But then we lucked out. A new family nursery opened, a wonderful woman who decided to retire early to take care of children instead. We met with her, and immediately knew that this was exactly what we needed, it feels like she will be the cool young grandma that the kids don't have because we live so far from family. Baby started there right away, and we're now working on the transition. Because it took so long to find childcare, she is now old enough to have separation anxiety, to we have to take our time easing her in.

This means that in no time I'll be back at work full time, while feeling great that the kids are well taken care of. That feeling is priceless, I realize I had it at my previous job, without knowing it until we were put in this uncomfortable situation.

So last week I had my first full day in the office, uninterrupted, without Baby. It felt great. And that day I had a breakthrough with my research, nothing that will make the headlines, but I managed to do something I had been struggling with for a long time. That made for an absolutely wonderful day. Things are really looking up!

6 months later...

2010-01-19T07:27:00.005-05:00

Signing back in after a while. Since I last wrote in June, Nr.2 was born, we moved to another country, and I started a new job. Hopefully this will be enough to forgive my silence on this blog!

Let's go back to last June where I left this off. I was getting a lot of work done at the end of my pregnancy, which was making me very happy. Then of course something had to go wrong: my computer died, which virtually put me on maternity leave earlier that I had thought. There were some difficulties with getting the computer fixed, and I only got it back a few days before my due date (I had a "baby or computer first" bet going on!), at which point I was a bit too tired and anxious to do any real work. Then the birth went well - I was again lucky enough to be able to have a totally natural delivery, which means the recovery was quick. Fantastic baby, very awake during the day, good sleeper at night, couldn't ask for more. Big brother wonderful with little sister.

The summer went well, but flew right by too quickly. I will hopefully have time in the coming weeks to write more about my maternity leave, and about how the fears I described in an earlier post proved to be mostly unfounded. I was able to take a good break from work, which was a life saver since we did have to prepare at the same time to move abroad to start postdoc nr.2.

Said move went as good as can be, I guess, considering the inevitable problems with moving to another country with two young kids. Maternity leave lasted 16 weeks, so I went straight to the new job when Baby was 3.5 months old. Boyfriend and I had an agreement with our bosses that we could work half of the time from home until Baby was 6 months old, at which point she was supposed to get into daycare. That went pretty well, she was such an easy baby that we could actually get some work done with her around.

And then the problems started. That will be another post in itself, because there is a lot to say about living in a country where women are expected to stay at home with their kids, so childcare is almost impossible to find. The daycare spot we were promised long ago for Baby was refused to us in the end, so we still don't have any help of any kind with her. Our bosses are wonderfully supportive, but we are both nonetheless starting to feel frustrated not to be able to work more.

We have come to realize that we were living in a kind of bubble - the past 2 years were wonderful; Nr.1 had a great daycare and was thriving, we had good jobs, lived in a really nice place, and still had time to relax, travel, do activities... There were of course ups and downs, but mostly I wasn't finding that combining work and motherhood was especially difficult. The reality hit us in the face suddenly, like waking up after a good dream. I don't know if it's having 2 kids instead of 1, living in a place that is slowly changing but where the system still mostly does not support the working mothers, or if it's because our responsibilities at work are ever greater and the pressure increasing toward landing some real jobs soon. Whatever it is, it's definitely a whole new game now.

But I don't want to sound too dark - all in all, we are still very happy. Baby is still the most wonderful, easy little thing, and my heart melts when I see how she and her big brother are already so fond of each other. Work is extremely stimulating (just wish I had more time for it!), very happy about it. Everything just takes more effort. And there definitely isn't that much time left for anything other that taking care of kids and working... hopefully there will be at least a little bit for blogging!

Pink Stinks

2010-01-05T04:39:00.002-05:00

Came across this website recently: Pink Stinks. Looks like a good resource for Mothers (and Fathers) of girls. My daughter does claim (at 2 1/2) that pink is her favourite colour - and I do sometime wonder where that comes from. Most of the clothes she is given as gifts are pink, although we tend to favour more neutral colours, and now with a boy on the way I'm kicking myself that more of the baby clothes weren't neutral. Oh well!

A Minor Inconvenience of Early Pregnancy

2009-12-02T05:58:00.006-05:00

(Note: this was written on July 24th 2009, but I've delayed posting until I told all my friends and family about the new baby, since my "annonymity" here is extremely suspect! And in fact this excuse is now a poor one too - what can I say - life happens!)

With both little one, and now little one number 2 (expected this spring) I have suffered from what most people would call minor morning sickness for most of the first trimester. First time around this started around week 7 and went on until week 14 or so, and comprised mostly severe sensitivity to smells (no malls, grocery stores, or takeout were possible, and walking down the street was exciting!), constant mild nausea, increased motion sickness, and vomiting 3-4 mornings every week (for 7 weeks!). I remember clearly being so miserable around week 8 that I begged the doctor to see me, sure there was something wrong. She had nothing useful to say, but showed me an ultrasound image of little one's heart beating, and told me that it was OK to live off potato chips for weeks if that was all I could keep down. The baby would take all the useful nutrients she said, and I could cope with a few weeks of poor nutrition! That all made me feel much better, and is something I'm keeping with me.

This time around everything started much earlier. Almost as soon as we found out I was pregnant the vomiting started. So far I've had less issues with motion sickness, but I had a couple of weeks when I vomited every morning, and occasionally during the day. I've been very worried that it's still so early too - imagining the horrors ahead of me. The worst of the vomit coincided with little one having stomach flu, so I may have had a bit of both - I think the only time I'll ever be even slightly happy that little one was vomiting! Things came to a head one evening of our recent trip away where I struggled through dinner and then vomited spectacularly outside the restaurant. Not good form! Since then I've been feeling much better. Yesterday (8 weeks exactly) was a bad day - vomit both in the morning, and evening (following a smelly bus ride home), and today I feel quite ropey, but no vomit yet.

The point of blogging about this though is to comment on the impact this has on my work. It's very hard to get the energy together to "mess around" with astronomy when all this is going on. I've been doing much better this time than I did the first time when it was all such a shock that being pregnant - before I was supposed to even tell anyone - would make be feel so bad. Most books describe all this as a "minor inconvenience" of early pregnancy. There is also in general very little sympathy. Either you hide it because you don't want people to know, or they're so happy to learn you're pregnant that the fact that you're green and can't eat isn't noticed. Somehow you're not supposed to complain because "it will pass", and after all you're making a baby. The only helpful reading I've found on the subject is in the book "Pregnancy Sucks" (Amazon Link) which I happened across by accident during this period in my first pregnancy. This book is funny, and will probably make you feel better.

After many weeks of dealing with this I can now also give my advice. Accupressure travel bands really seem to work. It might be in my head - but I'll take it. Also if I eat bread sticks (or crackers) and cheese before getting out of bed in the morning that seems to help a lot - and anyway vomiting recently chewed plain food is much more pleasant than vomiting on an empty stomach. I suggest avoiding crepes with nutella and banana, and cherry tomatos. These are not fun coming in other direction. In fact avoid anything acidic or with much of a flavour. And it will pass. Venting about it online might help too...

August 26th Update: I'm just now about 14 weeks, and this pretty much seems to have passed. I've actually even had a couple of mostly nausea free weeks (but not vomit free - this time I have had some odd spells of "stealth vomit" where without warning I just throw up. That was new!). I've even been managing to get a lot of work done. A couple of papers (finally) at the submission stage, and some other very interesting projects going well.

Jan 5th Update: Now just a few weeks from my due date and I have to say this pregnancy has been *much* more productive than the last one. I have submitted 3 papers (still working their way through the referee process) and have another close to submission. I'm really hoping for a few more weeks to finish stuff up a bit more before taking my leave.

And one last update: AstroMaman and AstronomyMommy are both busy with their adorable babies now roughly 6 and 8 months old respectively.

She's an Astronomer Forum

2009-09-23T05:25:00.004-04:00

Starting quietly (for now) is the She's an Astronomer Forum, part of the IYA2009 Cornerstone project. The project aims to raise issues related to gender equity in astronomy; the forum is the place they provide for us all to discuss those issues.

7 Depressing Strategies

2009-09-23T05:17:00.002-04:00

How do you make the best of a bad situation? Women in the US often cannot afford to even take of the federally mandated minimum 12 weeks leave after the birth of their children. This article from the US News Money section cites that US women offered the federal minimum take an average of 6 weeks off after the birth of their baby (to put this in perspective, most women are not given medical permission to exercise until at least 6 weeks after this major physical event), while those with paid leave take an average of 10.5 weeks.

Never-mind say authors Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio, we'll tell you how to cope with going back to work with a baby who cannot yet hold their head up - they review their book in the article. Interestingly most of their suggestions seem to be completely at odds with the statistics quoted above them. They suggest you aim to be completely out of the loop for "several weeks", but to keep in touch towards the end of your leave. They advise you spend time during your leave finding good childcare, commenting that this can often take up to 6 months.

We're not the only ones

2009-09-14T07:35:00.005-04:00

Kim Clijsters, belgian tennis player and mother of one, won the US open yesterday. With an 18-month old, she's only the third mother to ever win a major tournament. Talk about another profession where balancing work and family life is difficult! We astronomers don't have to stay in super physical shape post-baby to stay competitive in our field, but finally submitting that paper can certainly feel as good and rewarding (and be as exhausting!) as winning a major sporting event. I hope I win my own "US open" soon...

Amazing Picture of the ISS

2009-09-02T06:30:00.005-04:00

Thanks to The Bad Astronomer for posting some amazing pictures of the International Space Station taken by Ralf Vandebergh (from the ground using just a 10 inch telescope, and manual tracking). I just had to share. Mr. Vandenbergh must have an amazingly steady hand, and huge reserved of patience! The one I reproduce above also shows as an inset the Space Shuttle approaching the ISS.

When I was hosting star gazing parties fairly often (as a graduate student) I would enjoy nights when the ISS was going to be visibly passing overhead. (You can find such information for any given location on Heaven's Above). I was always amused to see the many skeptics, some of whom clearly had trouble believing I could know such a thing. We would go out onto the deck just a few minutes before the scheduled pass - usually after much persuading on my part. Then came the waiting, and the doubting (on their part, not mine). Finally the ISS would appear lit up by the Sun as a moving bring spot, arc over the sky and disappear (when it passed into the Earth's shadow). After that I always got a lot more respect.

Paid Parental Leave in Different Countries

2009-08-28T04:49:00.004-04:00

Thanks to Women in Astronomy for pointing out this work illustrating the different levels of paid parental leave guaranteed in 18 different countries. I wanted to reproduce the figure here. I think I've already made my opinions of the US federal minimum of 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave quite clear. This kind of makes my point for me I think!

I'm not sure why Canada was left of - 52 weeks of paid leave would put them right in among the Scandinavian countries! Way to go Canada!

Owl Babies - dealing with Mum being away.

2009-08-26T04:55:00.004-04:00

The favourite book in our house right now is "Owl Babies", by Martin Waddell. We read this pretty much every night, and it never fails to produce smiles of delight in little one when the owl babies' mother flies home. It occurred to me while reading it last night that since this book is actually a great tool for helping children deal with time when their Mummy must travel for work I should share it here. (AstroMaman already posted one of the tools they use in their house when one parent has to be away in Counting Days.)

In the story the owl babies wake up to find their Mummy is gone. They think about where she's gone (probably out hunting to get them food) and they try to deal with their worries as they wait for her to come home (what if she got eaten by a fox). Just as they are giving up hope, in she flies (to the delight of both the owl babies and my little one). "What's all the fuss, you knew I'd come back" she says. The owl babies agree - and finish "I love my Mummy". At the moment we only have this as a library book, but I think I'll be buying it to keep soon.

Galileoscopes

2009-08-26T04:42:00.006-04:00

This year is the International year of Astronomy (IYA2009). The project sponsors a number of cornerstone projects, one of which is close to my heart - She's an Astronomer. Another neat cornerstone project is the Galileoscope. This is a low cost, high quality telescope designed to make astronomy accessible to all. I've been meaning to get one (although a bit turned off by the high shipping cost to Europe, which for one telescope is more than the cost itself!), but I thought I'd write a quick blog post about it as a reminder to get around to doing this.

What prompted the post this morning is that I just noticed Phil Plait (The Bad Astronomer) just wrote a review about his Galileoscopes which arrived this week. He includes a useful link to simpler assembly instructions than are included in the box.

Breast Feeding is Offensive

2009-08-06T06:31:00.001-04:00

Just wanted to share this blog post from Green Kiddos, which pokes fun at the whole "breastfeeding is offensive" argument.

A really pretty galaxy

2009-07-27T04:51:00.004-04:00

Just wanted to point out today's Astronomy Picture of the Day. A really pretty galaxy shown beautifully by the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Baby Gaps and Paying for Maternity Leave

2009-07-23T08:29:00.004-04:00

A couple of interesting posts recently over at Female Science Professor which are very relevant here at present since 2/3 authors (not me!) are out on Maternity Leave.

In the first Baby Gap FSP muses on the impact a noticeable "baby gap" can have on your career. At some level this was something I worked quite hard to avoid when I had little one (early 2007). I managed to get both 2007 and 2008 first author papers out (2008 - just under the wire!). One of the comments mentioned the issue of a delayed baby gap, which I may be facing in 2009 (despite 2 first author papers *so close* to being submitted - the referee process can be so long I may miss the end of the year). FSP's post itself doesn't bother me, although her comment that

The lack of a baby gap on my CV is more owing to luck than to anything superhuman that I did

followed by a list of several superhuman things (in my opinion) including being organised enough to have projects close to finishing up, being able to persuade someone to give her a light teaching load, and finding ways to work while the baby was sleeping (instead of sleeping herself, which might have been my choice!).

But some of the comments (as uaual) are truly depressing reading. I do not explain that I had a baby in my CV, however I have recently put in several fellowship applications that ask for the number of years of full time research positions (excluding breaks) that I have worked since getting my PhD. In this case I can take off 3 months (oh lucky me) for the birth of little one making me eligible for some of the fellowships which have strict time limits for 3 months longer. I'm not sure what the right way to deal with it is. On the one hand I had a baby and I continued to be productive afterwards, which surely shows that I'm dedicated to this profession. On the other hand I had a baby - which clearly shows (see below) that I don't care about this profession....

In her second post, Paying for It, FSP debates the issue of who should be paying for maternity leave, particularly for students and postdocs payed (in the US) directly from research grants. In my opinion this is not at all tricky to determine. Society benefits when people have children, therefore society should pay. I truly believe the US is scandalous in having a "laugh in your face" 12 weeks of mandatory *unpaid* maternity leave. That's it. I was lucky when I had little one in the US that at my place of work I was considered a university employee, despite being a postdoc, so I did get 12 weeks at something like 75% pay (although a close friend in slightly different circumstances did not count and therefore got 12 weeks upaid - or nothing). I did later learn to my surprise that my maternity pay came out of the research grant, which ran out before the end of my contract resulting in a 3 month unpaid gap (some of which I filled) between jobs. So ultimately I paid for it later.

Again the post itself is pretty mild, but the comments get quite wild. This one is very eye-opening:

I would say that postdocs shouldn't get babies in the first place: they should work very hard in order to be able to compete to get that sought after job at a good university. Taking a maternity/paternity break as a postcdoc (or PhD student for that matter) is essentially saying that you don't really care much about your research.

Later he explains he's a 45 year old father of a toddler, and he appears to be based in the UK. I really hope he's not an astronomer. What an attitude.

I hear a lot that during the postdoc years is a bad time to have kids, but I've never seen it put so bluntly that clearly some people see it as not taking the job seriously. I really hope this guy is in the minority.

Stomach Flu and a Well Deserved Break (not at the same time!)

2009-07-20T09:02:00.003-04:00

Well it's been an exciting couple of weeks in the "Astronomum" household. Little one got an unprecedented 12 1/2 days off daycare! It started with some vomiting - resulting in the classic 48 hour ban from the nursery. Little one clearly was sick, although not seriously, so I decided that we'd just make the most of it, and we actually had a lovely day out visiting our city sponsored bunnies (still makes me smile!).

This "ban" of course ended on a Friday afternoon - the weekend before a (completely planned) week long break in another city. Little one and I hung out together (and some of the time with her grandparents) while my husband attended a scientific conference. It was a truly lovely break, and I enjoyed spending a lot of time with little one and seeing all the funny things she gets up to.

Now it's back to work, and serious paper writing. Unfortunately I have to be on the job market for serious yet again this year and I need to deal with my "poor" publication record (instead of griping about it). So I really shouldn't be sitting her writing this!

"But Aren't you on Maternity Leave?"

2009-07-16T11:35:00.001-04:00

I recently submitted a proposal for a substantial amount of time on a telescope that I've never used before - so it took me awhile to put together. Combined with caring for Little One, it meant for some very busy days. My husband and family were supportive during the process, but somewhat puzzled at the whole thing; when I explained what I was doing, I got a nod and then the question:

"But aren't you on maternity leave?"

Then I explained that I was, but that one can only ask for time to look at this part of the sky once a year. "But why not wait until next year?" Then I explained that the people I was working with could work best on this together in the coming year. "So let me get this straight. You're writing a proposal on your maternity leave that will give you more work to do during your maternity leave?"

To this, I could only answer "yes".

I see two reasons why I keep having this conversation: either I am going about my maternity leave all wrong, or maternity leaves in academia are very different from those in the rest of society. I think it's a bit of both.

What would happen if I did wait a year to propose? I could go on about how the scientific community doesn't take a break when I do, or about how I'll need more publications to get that next grant... but all in all, not much would happen. So why did I do it? Part of me really does think that the sky will fall if I don't stay connected to my research. But part of me also craves the intellectual stimulation and community that were a big part of my pre-motherhood routine. I like being on maternity leave, but I miss my old life sometimes...

I think that I still need to work on balancing astronomy and motherhood.

Congratulations "AstroMaman"!

2009-07-13T11:48:00.004-04:00

Congratulations to AstroMaman, who welcomed her second child recently. We wish her and her family all the best. Enjoy you new arrival, AstroMaman, and we hope that you'll share your experiences balancing astronomy and two little ones with us!

Thank Goodness for Nametags

2009-06-26T17:17:00.002-04:00

I made my first attempt at balancing work and motherhood: with Little One at about 6 weeks of age, I attended part of a conference. The most complicated part was timing feedings and arranging childcare while I chaired a session late in the day, when Little One is fussiest.

I had it all worked out... I had found a quiet place to nurse at the conference site, and my sister was to bring Little One there so that I could nurse during the coffee break before the session I had to chair. That would give me about 2.5 hours before I had to feed next, enough time to chair the session.

The execution of the plan was not as smooth as it could have been, though: it turned out that Little One was quite hungry (ergo upset) just before I fed her, and in my rush I decided not to take off my blouse (nursing tank underneath), but just to unbutton it. Little One fed enthusiastically, and finished about 5 minutes before I had to chair the session... leaving a huge milk stain right down the front of my shirt at chest height. What to do?

Then I remembered my nametag, which was on a lanyard for this conference. I shortened the lanyard a bit, and it covered the stain perfectly. I was able to chair the session without revealing my wet blouse and Little One slept until I got back. So all is well that ends well.

I can honestly say that this is the first time that I have been thankful for nametags at conferences. I also learned to always take off my outer layer when nursing at a conference, or else to bring a change of clothes :)

Looking like an Astronomer

2009-06-26T06:12:00.003-04:00

I've been having my 15 minutes of (very minor) fame this week. I'm not sure how to blog about the details of all this while remaining anonymous. I might give up on that next week as it will all get much more interesting, but for now I'll remain cryptic and just tell you that for some reason there was interest in writing about me as a role model for women in science in the local and university papers - so I had to have my photo taken.

So obviously I made some effort to not look like the stereotype of a scientist. I wore a dress, and jewelry and even (shock horror) make-up. I think I did a good job. The photographer for the local paper commented that I didn't look how he expected. In his own slightly sexist way he went on to comment about how it was weird that his picture of a scientist was an old guy with white hair. He said I look nothing like Patrick Moore and that's a surprise according to him.

There was a builder in the kitchen/common room the day I was having my photos taken and he was obviously curious and asked the reason for all the attention. I explained to him and he looked a bit taken aback. "Women in science he said.... hmmmm.... you're not one of these doctors are you?". I said I did have a doctorate in astronomy. Obviously something he didn't expect either.

As women in science we are surrounded mostly by men who are quite used to our presence (in their own way). It doesn't take much to be reminded though that to the vast majority of the public the idea of women doing science is still totally alien.

Observations at the science museum

2009-06-21T02:44:00.003-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, we took our son for a day trip to the national science museum of this country, which is not too far from where we live. Perhaps "museum" is not the best word, it's the kind of place that is filled with hand-on games and activities that teach you something about science. You know the kind I'm talking about. This one was very impressive, especially for the size of the country. It's also almost exclusively about physics and math, so Boyfriend and I were like kids at Disneyland. They had some of the usual stuff, but some very cool things too I had never seen before. We all had a really good time.

While I was there, I couldn't help to put on my "gender in science bias" glasses, and I saw things that surprised me. Mostly, there were a lot more boys than girls around. There weren't that many young children there, at 4.5 years Chatton was one of the youngest, mostly 8-16 year olds I would say. There were so many teenage boys, that it really made you wonder where they had put all the girls. Perhaps there was just a gigantic school group of boys (but again, where were the girls taken to, gender-separated schools are really not the thing around here), or is it possible that parents will tend to go to a place like that more if they have boys than if they have girls? I'm not sure what was going on, I'd like to go back another time and see if I observe the same thing. But wouldn't it be very sad if for some reason girls were on average deprived of such experiences, where science is just about having fun?

I also had the feeling that girls (and women) were more attracted to the math and geometry kind of activities than the more physics-related ones. But again, I would need more data to support that observation.

No matter what, Chatton had an amazing time there, we had to work hard to convince him to leave after more than five hours. He obviously didn't get much from the physical concepts behind the games, but still he was exposed to all of it and enjoyed every second of it. Isn't that what we should do to get people excited about science - and especially girls! I really hope then that my observation is wrong...

iPlug

2009-06-14T08:08:00.002-04:00

I love Apple. I've actually never owned a PC, and have been a convert since buying my first laptop with my har won savings in graduate school (one year a laptop the next have my wisdom teeth out). Anyway I always thought the plugs Mac makes are quite ingenious. It's the same in any country apart from a neat little bit you can interchange which goes into the plug socket (and which I'm sure has a cool name). Great I thought - if/when I move country all I have to do is buy that little bit.

But Apple, ever after their "iMonopoly" only sell those little bits in packs of 6 including every an adapter for every region - and that pack costs something like $30. That's right - you spend money to buy again the same plug adapter that came with your computer (along with one for every other region in the world - but still). You can't buy them separately.

But postdocs - ever ingenious - have come up with a solution. We move around a lot - all over the world. And we buy computers often. After our transatlantic move I had 2 US plugs, but not the kind I needed.... I offered to swap (via dept. wide email) - and within minutes (literally) had 3 offers. You can't use more than one at a time I suppose. In the end the person didn't even want my spare US adapter. But recently another postdoc asked for it. Well not so recently I suppose, but I recently got around to finding it and giving it to her. And in return - I am to get a European adapter. Somehow this neatness and recycling has given me so much satisfaction I wanted to blog about it - plus I'm stuck on a plane going to a conference (without little one) so I have time on my hands!

Since moving I have bought a new computer - so now I have 2 UK plugs. I'm sure one day this will be useful and I will swap with a grateful postdoc just moving into the country, or perhaps a frequently travelling Mac loving astronomer.

The Birth Survey and Pre-Natal Yoga

2009-06-07T10:18:00.004-04:00

I don't think I have ever blogged before about how much I appreciated and valued my experiences with prenatal yoga. I attended pre-natal yoga classes once or twice a week throughout my entire pregnancy. Because we have moved since little one was born, I have not kept in touch with any of the women I met in the yoga classes, but their friendship was extremely valuable to me while pregnant and in the early weeks/months of little one's life. In fact I liked pre-natal yoga so much that now I find ordinary yoga a little too impersonal and rushed most of the time.

I found that pre-natal yoga was not only good for my pregnant body, but also my mind. Each session I attended started with each woman introducing herself, her stage of pregnancy and talking about the symptoms she was experiencing. The teacher would both start and end with helpful information about treating symptoms, and other useful hints. I credit pre-natal yoga (and Ina May) with giving me the strength and courage to go for a natural childbirth. It also helped me get through the rough weeks of morning (and all day) sickness at the beginning of my pregnancy.

My favourite pre-natal yoga teacher has a blog which I still keep up with. On her blog this week she featured The Birth Survey which just seems like such a good idea that I also wanted to mention it. The idea is that women (in the USA) can input their experiences with prenatal and childbirth providers. The eventual aim is to have a database of experiences which pregnant women can then use to inform their choices over where to deliver and who to have take care of them during pregnancy. It is quite a long survey, but you can save and return to it later.

Handbags in Space - What?

2009-06-02T11:18:00.003-04:00

I'm really not sure what to make of this one. Handbags in Space. Luis Vuitton is featuring astronauts Sally Ride, Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin in his latest handbag adverts. Huh?!

Silence is the Enemy

2009-06-02T11:12:00.004-04:00

Just wanted to support the "Silence is the Enemy" Campaign. Lucky for me I have no personal experience, or even know of anyone with any personal experience of the horrifying crimes of rape or sexual assuault. I find it difficult to even think about - let alone talk about, and that's the point of the campaign.

It's all written much more eloquently than I could manage in other places.

For example:

Bad Astronomy
Two Women Blogging
An the initiator of the campaign at The Intersection

Postdoc Life from the Other Side

2009-06-01T10:32:00.004-04:00

Quite a lot of this blog so far has been about the postdoc experience - fairly natural since two of us are postdocs, and our newest member only recently stopped being one.

Over at Female Science Professor today is a post about the new NSF rules which require a statement on how postdocs will be mentored to be included in any proposal including a request for postdoc funding.

I appreciate that NSF is trying with this list, but I don't think it'll change anything. I bet FemaleScienceProfessor is a great postdoc supervisor, but her comments about the new list hi-light for me how this will be taken by the vast majority of profs - just another hoop to jump through, and not really important at all.

Her comments on Item 2 are particularly annoying to me - I hear this all the time - that academic staff just don't know how to help their students find jobs outside of academia. Yet they are willing to (passively or otherwise) support a system that will dump the majority of young scientists out of academia into this situation.... hmmm. You must all have past students and postdocs who've been through this experience before - why not connect them with your current students and postdocs to help in the mentoring process. It's not only in parenting that it can (and arguably should) "take a village".

I think the postdoc system has to change, and will in the coming years. How it will happen and what can be done to help the change come smoothly I do not know. I can't even figure out how to get myself out of it at the moment! But it'll be interesting to see what the research scientist career path looks like 50 years from now (I'll be 80 - not totally unrealistic I hope). At least it's better now - except perhaps for some of the well connected young white males - than it was 50 years ago!

For some suggestions for change I recommend you look through the State of the Profession white papers from the Astro 2010 review process which you can find here.

Is it hopeless?

2009-05-26T05:05:00.005-04:00

Over at Women in Astronomy they posted in the weekly STATUS newsletter a review of a seminar given by Prof. Katheryn Johnston last week summarizing some results from the social and psychological science research along with her personal perspective on why women progress so slow in science. I recommend you check out her slides which are posted here: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/kathryn_johnston.pdf.

I actually think I've seen this presentation before, but something in it really hit a cord this morning and I'm feeling pretty down about the whole thing.

Check out these two figures below taken from Prof. Johnston's presentation.

This first one is used to illustrate one depressing point - if the spotlight is not kept on the issue then no progress is made. I believe we're in a phase in which the vast majority of people think the problem is fixed. The graph in fact supports that. At the American Astronomical Society meeting this January the Women's lunch was given over to a panel discussion on the topic of if the women's group was even needed any more (the answer thankfully was yes). I also think most people are well intentioned and believe they know about this problem and are sensitive to it. But they also think that as scientists they should objectively pick the best person for the job.... funny how that's so often a man....

This second excerpt from Prof. Johnston's presentations illustrates that point. The figure is from a Nature commentary on why so few women (compared to the number of applicants) were winning a prestigous medical fellowship. The authors of the paper tried to objectively rate young scientist's impact score (based on number of papers, citations etc.). They then plot this against a peer reviewed measure of the scientist's competence. Only the very best of the women (measured by the "objective" impact) were rated as competent as any of the men.

This is something I've worried about for a long time. Obviously women succeed. Even women with children succeed. But I suspect they are only the best of the best. Most of us cannot hope to compete with them - and shouldn't have to.

Why did this hit a cord this morning. Well I think it's because I'm beginning to develop a "reasonable suspicion" that this has happened to me.... but it's so hard to judge when it's you personally. It's so hard for me to say "I'm as good, or better, than that person" in any objective way..... I don't want to look (or be) bitter, or self serving. However there are some objective measures.... I can look at my citation index. Lately I keep hearing (generally as friendly advice on how to get a job) that my publication rate is not "good enough". I agree it could be better, but I'm proud of the impact I've had in terms of some significantly cited papers, and I have 2 almost complete papers in the pipeline I should be working on now (instead of blogging about this I suppose!). Anyway my anecdotal evidence is that I applied for a job recently, and since I know people close to the hiring committee I got some inside information. My "average publication history" was the reason I was given for not being on the shortlist. Those interviewed apparently had "fantastic" publication records, and "several more years" of experience than me.... This all seemed very reasonable, until I found out who they hired and looked him up. We have comparable citation indexes, and I have slightly more experience. If I'm fair he has a few more papers than me - but a lot of them are large collaboration papers while most of mine are first or second author......hmmm.... OK so maybe I was being told a "kind" reason for my failure in this case, but it does make me wonder what I actually have to do to get a job....

A very good week

2009-05-22T07:59:00.004-04:00

This may sound trivial, but I'm very excited about this and have to share it: it's 2pm on Friday and I have actually managed to cross off everything from my "to do" list of the week! I've been making these lists every Monday morning for a few years now, to get my mind back into work mode after the weekend, and this is the first time I ever accomplish everything I was planning to do by Friday.
This is exactly the kind of productive, successful weeks I need right now - hurray! So I'm giving myself a pat on the back, and will reward myself by leaving work earlier than usual to do a little bit of much needed baby shopping :-)

Famous Astronomoms: Venetia Phair

2009-05-22T06:54:00.005-04:00

The second entry into my Famous Astronomoms series feels a bit like a cheat, since she's not very famous, and also arguably not really an astronomer. But I check - she was definitely a mom, and I think her story is interesting so I wanted to include it.

You will be forgiven for not knowing who Venetia Phair is, especially as her only contribution to astronomy was made almost 80 years ago under her maiden name of Venetia Burney. Venetia Burney, in March 1930, was an 11 year old Oxford school girl who was the first person to suggest the name "Pluto" for the recently discovered planet. She benefited from making this suggestion to her grandfather, who happened to know an Oxford Professor of Astronomy (Herbert Hall Turner). I'm not surprised that Venetia's grandfather thought her idea brilliant enough to put it in a quick note to Turner which he dropped at his house on the way to the library (my little one's grandfather has already suggested she's a genius), but it is perhaps surprising that Turner also thought the idea good enough to merit telegramming it to the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, and that the staff there (including Clyde Tombaugh - the discoverer of the planet) liked it enough to adopt it.

This picture shows Venetia Burney age 11 around the time she named Pluto.

Venetia got widespread fame at the time for her suggestion, and a prize of £5 from her grandfather (a lot of money in 1930). Even before the recent fuss about the demotion of Pluto from a major planet there was some renewed interest in Mrs. Phair's story, with some BBC press. She also has an asteroid named after her (6235 Burney) and an instrument on board the New Horizons spacecraft (currently enroute to Pluto).

In 2006 the IAU voted to demote Pluto to a dwarf planet (rather than risk having to make perhaps dozens of outer solar system objects planets). Venetia Phair was quoted on this of saying "At my age, I've been largely indifferent to [the debate]; though I suppose I would prefer it to remain a planet", and also commented on the slight irony that interest in Pluto seems to have gotten larger after it was demoted.

Venetia Phair did not become a professional astronomer, but she did go on to work in a STEM field - studying Mathematics at Cambridge University. For a while she worked as a chartered accountant, and then as a teacher of economics and mathematics at a girls school (first in London, later in Sussex). It appears that she continued to work after her marriage in 1947, switching to teaching only in 1950. This would have been relatively unusual in the UK at the time. She only retired as a teacher in the 1980s, which is consistent with her working until past the UK state retirement age of 60 (for women). It is not commented at which point during this her son was born, but clearly she was a working mother for at least part of the time.

Venetia Phair passed away on April 30th this year, age 90. There is a more extensive obituary of her in the Daily Telegraph Science Obituaries. She is survived by her son.

Gro Baby Diapers

2009-05-21T06:19:00.003-04:00

OK - so it's odd to blog about diapers right after blogging about our adventures in potty training, but I really want to try these "Gro Baby" diapers either with little one or with (hypothetical) next baby. The beauty of cloth is that you can re-use them with future children, or even pass them down (well cleaned of course) like other baby stuff, so it doesn't really matter that we're nearly done with diapering (fingers crossed). Some people even sell their used cloth diapers online recovering much of their initial cost. But I digress.

Gro Baby are having a giveaway for people who blog either their opinions about these new diapers, or that they'd like to try them. So I apologise for using the blog in this way, but I really do want to try these diapers.

They look quite similar to the bumGenius one size we use, but the thing which really intrigues me is that you don't have to wash the whole diaper every time. The absorbent part lies on top of the outer shell (instead of in a pocket) so you can remove just that bit to wash. When I first learned about pocket diapers that's how I thought they worked, and I was disappointed to find out you had to wash the whole thing each time. Now I'm used to that system, and I wonder if having the absorbent bit right next to the skin will cause the same kind of nappy rash we got with prefolds. I like that the pocket liner acts like the outer layer in a disposable nappy - moving the wetness away from the skin.

So basically I'm intrigued to try these out and see. Let's hope the Giveaway they are having isn't too good to be true and I actually will now get one to try!

Adventures in Potty Training

2009-05-20T09:03:00.004-04:00

Little one is almost 27 months and we have decided to start potty training. This is all helped by her desire to wear the "big girl pants" (cloth training pants) which I got for her on a recent trip to the US (much cheaper over there than here!).

Transitions always seem to be more work that I expect. I remember my delight at starting to feed solid food quickly souring on the realisation that this was just an extra thing to be fitted into every day. Of course now she's weaned and can feed herself it's all much less work - but it was a long trip from there to here. Transitions to crawling and walking were much the same - initial delight at the new skill changed quickly to a realisation that life would never be the same again and would involve a lot more running around on my part!

These transitions also seem to happen when they happen - regardless of how much you do or do not want them. Little one decided for herself when to stop nursing luckilly before the point I thought she was too old. She also just switched to a big girl bed one night - and never looked back.

So I'm approaching potty training somewhat cautiously. I'm not really sure that anything I do will help much. I do not want to spend much dealing with nappies (diapers), but I'm very anxious about what it means to take a potty trained toddler out for the day - or on a long car journey....

So far the entire experience has been a huge roller coaster of success and failure. Had I written this post last Thursday I would have been saying how hopeless it all looked. At that point little one had been in the training pants for 3 days straight with absolutely no success at using the potty - although some impressive stats on how long she hold in her pee at nursery! If it wasn't for her insistence on wearing pants (and the fact that since we cloth diaper at some level a dirty diaper or dirty training pants and clothing are about equal) I would have given up for a while. But Friday was a huge success - no "accidents" all day, and both pee and poop in the potty. She got a lot of stickers on Friday night! Then came a weekend of peeing and pooping in her pants, followed by a successful day at nursery again on Monday. This led to a lot of wondering if maybe she'll get it at nursery (perhaps because of peer pressure, and a much more fixed routine) but not at home.... and then she used the potty at home! So Monday night I was thinking we almost had it. But then yesterday was completely unsuccessful altogether. Who knows what today will bring! It's adding a whole new dimension of excitement to life, along with many more conversations about wee wee and poo poo than I would have thought possible.

We really do live in a galaxy!

2009-05-20T09:00:00.002-04:00

I saw this wonderful time lapse movie over at Bad Astronomy and just had to share.

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

Spectacular! I'd love to see this, but I'd never have the patience to sit out all night to do so.

Will I really get a maternity leave?

2009-05-15T15:14:00.005-04:00

Technically, yes. My institution gives me 16 weeks at full pay, and nobody is taking that away from me. But will that mean that I can put work completely on the side and focus on baby during these 16 weeks? Well, that's another question...

I am now about a month away from my due date, and still desperately trying to finish off a couple of research projects. It's not so much a countdown until the moment when I will get to meet my daughther, but more like keeping track of how much working time I have left. This could very well be the last time I'm ever pregnant, so I'm starting to be frustrated to be so obsessed with work deadlines, rather than focussing on the little person inside me. Something has to change soon though, because at this point we have no name for baby, not a single baby item in the house, and obviously haven't even thought of starting to pack a bag for the hospital!

On the other hand, I've been telling myself it's okay to be focussing on work right now, because when baby comes, I can put all of that aside, and focus on her for the next 3.5 months. But I'm really starting to wonder if that will be possible. I'm sure that throughout my maternity leave I'll keep finding in my inbox papers to review, problems to address, data to deal with, etc. And I know I will feel guilty if I don't deal with these things, because this is really a kind of job that never stops. Even though I would be in my right not to do anything work-related for 16 weeks, I know I won't be able to do it. Because it would feel so unnatural after so many years never really taking a break and because, as understanding and supportive as my colleagues/collaborators/friends are, they are in that set of mind too and will expect me to still be responding to work requests.

So I'm sad and conflicted about this. This is my one chance to have a little break from work, which in itself would be wonderful. But it's also a very special time when our family will grow from 3 to 4, a time we should spend together making memories, free of any nagging work problems. Even if I dared shutting off my email and tried ignoring work problems, I know they would keep running in the back of my mind nonetheless. This is why I say that I doubt I will get the real carefree maternity leave I'm dreaming about, in good part by my own twisted fault.

This all makes me again so glad we had Chatton mid-way through our PhDs when we were comparatively so carefree, and so admiring of women who have children as young faculty, when responsibilities and worries must be even worse that mine right now!

Oh you're an Astronomer - that's interesting!

2009-05-08T09:19:00.002-04:00

One of the things I love about being an Astronomer is that pretty much everyone is interested in what you do - this gives a real opening to educate about science, and frankly it's just fun to have a job everyone thinks is "cool".

One of the things I hate about being an Astronomer is that pretty much everyone is interested in what you do - this has led to some very sticky airplane/taxi ride conversations about why Einstein is wrong, or how my science education has closed my mind to alternative theories etc. etc. Also I'm a bit scared of the effect on hairdressers who I do still want to make me look nice - generally an area I try to stay away from when getting my haircut!

These kinds of conversations have come up a lot recently as I've just got back from a long trip - there's nothing like long airplane/taxi rides to stimulate conversation with strangers. I would say I had two of the first kind, and only one of the second, so that's not bad.

On the first long plane ride my neighbour was clearly dying to ask a question after he got out of me what I do. I managed to be unfriendly enough that he waited until almost the end of the flight (showing great tact on his behalf - I needed to get some work done and enjoy my "alone" time) and then we had a nice conversation about the Big Bang and how Physics can't explain things right back to it yet since we can't yet reconcile quantum mechanics and strong gravity. A risky area, but I think it went well. Also I broke some misconceptions by working on my latest crochet project during the flight - he seemed unreasonably impressed that astrophysics and crochet are not mutually exclusive.

The second conversation did not go so well. Probably didn't help that it happened right at the end of my journey when all I wanted to do was collapse in my hotel room. I had a taxi driver with probably the smallest amount of tact I've ever seen in a person (and that's saying a lot given how much time I spend with astronomers) who really wanted to educate me about how my science training has closed my mind to the fact that Einstein must be wrong about gravity. I don't actually remember much about the conversation - except that it left me wanting to remind myself what Einstein had to say about time dilation in gravitational fields and learn more about experiments on Earth which try to test this. His complaints has something to do with that and involved spouting equations to me at midnight local time while I struggled to stay awake.

Proving that not all taxi drivers are tactless was conversation number three. Also at the end of a long journey - but one in which I slept much more - and was on the way home to little one, already putting me in a much better mood. We had a nice conversation about how the size of the Milky Way makes it unlikely that aliens have actually visited Earth, even if they (in my opinion) are quite likely to exist somewhere. I think I managed to confuse him with my "oreo cookie", western Europe size comparison (if the solar system is an oreo cookie, the Milky Way is the size of western Europe - or North America if you prefer), but he seemed happy with the conversation and complemented me on my clear explanations. That taxi ride ended very amicably - and I learned that in his opinion I could sell electronics, and probably even "cheeky stuff" like extended warrentees (his other job was as a manager in an electronics store), so I'll think about that as an alternative career!

Congratulations "AstronomyMommy"!

2009-05-08T08:14:00.001-04:00

Just wanted to post congratulations to "AstronomyMommy" who I happen to know just had her baby - a little girl - on the due date I believe! I don't expect we'll be hearing much from AstronomyMommy for a little while, but once she gets settled in I look forward to reading her insights in the journey of motherhood. Welcome to "the club" AstronomyMommy!

One Crazy Toddler Filled Morning

2009-04-28T09:00:00.004-04:00

I'm sure I'm not alone among parents in sometimes having mornings which tax my energy to the limit and leave me wanting a nap by 9am. Today was one such morning.

Lately mornings are fringed with uncertainty about when little one will decide it's time to get up.... generally the range is about 6-7.30am which isn't too bad I suppose.... the beginning of the range is much sooner than I or my husband would like to get up - resulting in one of us getting a "lie in" while the other one gets up. But these morning do leave more time to get ready. If I get a lie in little one is usually dressed and has had breakfast by the time I am up and going leaving much more time for all the other details. Or if I get up I get an extra 1 1/2 hours to fit everything in. When little one gets up later we get more time in bed which I always appreciate, but we do tend to rush around a bit to get out the door by 8.25am (my goal to make it to nursery by 8.45am).

This morning little one got up late. At some point in the night she made her way into our bed and kicked my husband out - and waking up when I was ready next to a sleeping toddler was quite pleasant... The first hint of trouble was her not wanting breakfast. By the time I persuaded her to toast and jam my husband got up and was in the shower. I ate my breakfast with little one - while the cat proceeded to wee next to her litter box. Had to tidy that up, and make a mental note to clean the litter before leaving - presumably this was a "hint" from the cat that the litter was a bit smelly. Went to have my shower while husband took little one for a change of diaper and clothes. Next problem - as I get out of the shower I hear screams of "want red trousers.... want red trousers..." (little one's pyjamas).... get dressed and emerge as husband gives up the battle - little one dressed in only a T-shirt she says she "not like" and a clean diaper.... try to persuade her to the pink trousers husband picked out. No go. Offer alternatives (as husband has already done). Refuse "red trousers" on principle (even though they could be either play trouser for pyjamas). Try "new" purple trousers which seem like a go (so I go upstairs to retrieve them) but by the time I'm back they're no good either. Notice laundry basket of little one's clothes not yet put away and suggest she pick something while I make our lunches. Make lunches - little on comes into kitchen with purple dress which I'm allowed to put on her. Continue making lunch while little one comes into kitchen with AquaDraw mat and spreads on the floor. Demands I play with her. Now it's about 8.10am. Suggest little one help me by putting lunch by the door while I clear up - she prefers AquaDraw. Draw round her as she lies on the mat. Clean up. Put lunch by door. Husband puts laundry in washing machine and turns it on. Little one demands raisins I'm putting into container for her going home snack. I say no. She gets it off counter while I'm not looking and eats it anyway. Clean out cat litter. Now it's time to go. Suggest little one would like tights (it's not that warm). Find pink tights in laundry basket - no go. Find red tights - no go. Give up and put pink tights in little one's bag for nursery. Clear at this point this is all delaying tactics to avoid going to nursery for the day. Put on my coat, and try jumper and/or coat for little one. She lies on the sofa and demands she wants to be "cold". Put on my shoes and pick up bags. Little one gets hint - doesn't want to stay in the house alone, but wants to "walk" to nursery (instead of going in the pushchair). Won't put on shoes. I tell her shoes or pushchair. She allows us to put on her shoes (but still no tights). Finally get out of the door (about 8.30am). Have forgotten to clean teeth yet again. On street little one in sandals and bare legs - sunny but a chill in the air. Says goodbye to husband who drives to work. As usual little one (who is only 2 after all) does not walk in the right direction, or at any kind of speed. She wanders aimlessly as we all would like to sometimes. Tells me she doesn't want to go to nursery (as if I couldn't guess). Feel guilty as I would like to do a bunk and play with her too - but couldn't possibly give in after all this fuss. Give her a hug and tell her she has to - she likes nursery anyway. List all the fun things she will do and names of all staff and kids I can remember. No go. Give up and wrestle her into the pushchair - works if you can snap the snaps quick enough. Wondering if neighbours will come out to see who I'm torturing. Husband driving past pulls over to see if all is OK! Finally little one strapped in, so I push her (screaming) down the street. 10 minutes later (well after 8.45am) we get to nursery. Many stares along the way at toddler with bare legs and no coat on slightly chilly morning. Loadly and repeatedly ask her if she'd like tights and/or coat. She almost agrees at one point. She's fairly calm as we get to nursery, but as we go through gate again demands not to go. Ring doorbell and collect stuff together while holding little one who demands "cuddle". She clings to me in her "ladybird" room full of exciting new toys. I point them all out, and explain to staff why she has no tights on. She allows us to put her tights on. She screams and clings to me until we find her "baby" (favourite toy at nursery) then is all smiles and barely notices my exit... It's not yet 9am - but later than it should be and I still have to walk 25 mins to work....

I now this is all typical toddler "terrible twos", but wow it's exhausting sometimes.

Mothers in Science: 64 Ways to Have it All

2009-04-24T07:14:00.003-04:00

I recently had my attention drawn to Mothers in Science: 64 Ways to Have it All (pdf download) which is a Royal Society publication made up of one page career/family timelines and profiles of 64 different mothers in science.

The idea behind the book I think is a great one - that we spend a lot of time with depressing statistics about women in science, and often "blame" the disproportionate burden of childcare women often face for the lack of women at the higher levels of science. This has given young women the idea that if they want children they cannot have a science career, or that they must have children at only very specific times to succeed (I cannot count the number of times I have heard that having babies as a postdoc is a death sentence for your career). This book then presents a random selection of women with children who work in science as a move towards "dispelling these myths" and being more encouraging (it's all written a lot more fluently in the introduction to the book).

I encourage you to read these profiles, and if you're based in the UK you can request your department to be sent a hard copy (let me know and I'll send you the email address of the person to ask).

I'm always very uncomfortable to be put up as a role model for mothers in astronomy. I think this is because there seems to be so much uncertainty still over my continuing career in research (by the way I have funding until Sept 2010 - my post on my disappointing funding news was about a chance to stay here basically permanently.... I probably got a bit over dramatic - should remember not to post on days I get bad news!). I also feel that it's cheating a bit - I think I look a lot more together on the surface than I feel on any given day, when I'm quite often absolutely exhausted and working at the absolute capacity to get everything done. On the other hand it is clearly important for students and younger girls to see women in science who have "normal" family lives.... and only by having an increasing number of mothers and truly involved fathers will the culture of research change sufficiently to make it "easier to have it all". I think it'll never be easy.

Tables Turned

2009-04-20T20:51:00.003-04:00

Today I had the mother/supervisor tables turned on me: at T-10 days (likely) from being a mother myself, one of my "highly qualified personnel" (HQPs; what our funding agency calls students, postdocs, staff hired through research grants) told me that she was having a baby in the fall. Fresh off figuring out maternity leave for myself, now I'm trying to work it out from the perspective of a supervisor...

I am fortunate to live in a country with very good maternity/parental leave laws, and am even luckier to have a permanent job that lets me take advantage of them without forgoing my salary. But HQPs don't have that luxury: so while I feel very strongly that my HQP should have a nice long leave like I will, I am also faced with the reality of my limited research budget. Could it be that she will be back to work before I will despite delivering 6 months later?

Surely I can work this out, or at least arrange it so that my HQP gets the most "bang for her buck" benefit-wise. I just hope that I can get the ball rolling before I need to take advantage of similar benefits myself!

It's Never Too Late?

2009-04-16T15:18:00.003-04:00

This YouTube clip has been in the news a lot lately on my side of the Atlantic. It's worth a few minutes of your time. It's never too late to dream. I love the incredulous smile on Simon Cowell's face, and the moment she sings

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed

.... breathtaking.

Had some pretty bad news on the funding side this week. As a result I'll be on the job market for serious again this fall. :( On the other hand I've on strong pain killers this week for a mysterious and very painful neck pain (no idea what I did), which include the muscle relaxant diazepam - better known as valium. So I've been in a pretty carefree mood about everything to be honest. At least the bad news had good timing! And if I need a new career - well I'm only in my early 30s. It's certainly not too late for me. :)

Expecting

2009-04-14T21:00:00.005-04:00

I hope that I am not breaking the rules by making my inaugural Astronomoms post before I am actually a mom, but with the university semester winding down here in Canada, the fact that motherhood is 3 weeks away is starting to sink in...

I have been an assistant professor at a small university for a little over a year now, and teaching still takes up all of my time during the semester: with Junior on the way to boot, I have been very focussed on just making it through. Now that it's winding down, I have some room to breathe... and stare at the huge list of things to do before the big day. I can't help but focus on the work-related list: there are those 4 projects that I figured I could finish (or at least get under control). There is my graduate student, who will need to function independently for the few weeks/months before his first conference appearances. There are the proposals to referee, the thesis to read, and that research money to spend, too...

But in the back of my mind I have this nagging, unnerving feeling that for the first time since entering graduate school, none of the things on my work-related list are going to matter for a long time after the baby is born. I can't fathom what that will be like. I also can't fathom how I'm going to make it all work in the busy, exhausting post-delivery world that I'm about to enter. My comfort at the moment is that women everywhere make careers and motherhood work somehow, and that hopefully I'm no different. In the meantime, I'll start slogging though my to-do list and enjoy uninterrupted nights of sleep...

A shocking picture

2009-04-10T15:12:00.002-04:00

Wednesday, my son brought back home a folder full of drawings and art projects he did at kindergarden over the past few months. We had fun going through it together. One picture caught my attention, it was especially well drawn. I could recognize our living room, and three people in there, but I asked Chatton for extra explanations. At the middle was him, playing legos on the floor. Then I asked "And daddy and me are there playing with you?". His answer left me speechless for a few seconds: "No, you are both working on your computers".

How concerned should I be about this? I do think Chatton receives a lot of attention from the two of us, we really don't work that much around him. But we do spend some time with our laptops out, if only to catch up on email, read the news, or entertain ourselves a little bit after coming back from work. I don't think this is something he suffers from at all, when we are home there is usually one of us playing with him, and he has never made any comment to the fact that we were working too much on the computer, or expressed some frustration. So I don't really think we have a problem. But yet to see it on paper, it's a good reminder that we should be really careful not to let this become an issue.

With each our own work laptop and our "family" computer at home, there are a few times when I've caught the three of us all playing/working on a different computer at the same time. Is this the way of the future? If it is, I find this a little bit scary! And how soon after my second child is born in a couple months will we need to get a fourth computer??

AstronomyMommy

2009-04-10T05:29:00.002-04:00

We're about to welcome a new contributor to Astronomoms, "AstronomyMommy". She's not quite a Mommy yet, but will be soon, and I know she'll be a great one! She's going to be quite busy in the next few weeks and months, so I expect she'll be an infrequent contributor at first, but I hope she'll add a fresh perspective to the blog. Unlike AstroMaman and I, AstronomyMommy isn't a postdoc. She's a young faculty member at a small institution. Hopefully that will add a different twist to the challenges of juggling Motherhood and being an astronomer - less about the ongoing uncertainty and job search, and more about the unrelenting rounds of committee meetings, teaching, etc. that fill the days of a young faculty member.

I'll leave it up to AstronomyMommy to introduce herself further.

Deadlines....

2009-04-10T05:24:00.003-04:00

Much to my surprise I seem to have got too relaxed about deadlines lately, and it is starting to come back to bite me a little. I think it's a symptom of my being ever so slightly overwhelmed with everything, but that's not a good excuse, so I just need to suck it up and keep track a bit better.

It's interesting because I used to be super picky about deadlines. I was one of those kids who would *never* hand in homework late, and in fact would be completely confused why anyone else would either..... we had a week's notice, it wasn't that hard to do the work in that time. Even through graduate school I kept this attitude - deadlines were a fixed thing which must be met. My graduate adviser helped with this - she was also an early deadline maker.... then along came my first postdoc adviser. He wouldn't even look at anything until right before it was due, so I evolved into doing things closer and closer to the deadline. Then I missed a couple, and it was OK - rules were bent etc etc. So I came to learn than many deadlines are quite bendy.... often you can break them and it'll be OK. So in a situation where I either deal with things right away or forget them lately I have been missing some deadlines. And it turns out that they are still bendy, but this isn't always appreciated. Clearly I need to learn a middle ground. And I think I need a better to do list....!

Why "Lads"?

2009-04-03T04:32:00.004-04:00

One of the science blogs I sometimes read is the Physics ArXiv blog (reviewing papers posted in the open access Physics ArXiv which is heavily used by the astronomy community). I like this blog as a way for me, at a low level, to keep up with major developments across physics, and to see what astronomy research catches the eye of a typical physicist.

I was interested to see today a nice review of one of the April Fools Day ArXiv papers about Galaxy Zoo discovering a new class of galaxy cluster. Check out the paper and don't miss the figures.

But why - why, did the author have to end the post reviewing this bit of scientific humour with:

"Keep up the good work lads."

Why?

The paper is "authored" by Marven Pedbost, Trillean Pomalgu and the Galaxy Zoo Team. Quite apart from the many (OK handful of) women on the Galaxy Zoo team itself, Trillian is quite clearly a woman's name.... Has "lads" morphed to be gender non-specific recently?

By the way I liked the Galaxy Zoo April Fools paper, but better still in my opinion was Time Variation of a Fundamental Dimensionless Constant. How come we never noticed that before! ;)

Now that's not so hard is it?

Famous Astronomoms: Cecilia Payne-Gaposhkin

2009-04-01T05:20:00.003-04:00

I read about Ada Lovelace Day on Thesis with Children on March 25th. Ada Lovaelcae Day is March 24th. It's a day when bloggers are asked to blog about women in technology who have inspired them. So I missed it by over a week, but better late than never....

I decided anyway to take a different twist on it - so here is my first article in what might turn into a series on famous women astronomers who also happen to be mothers.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposhkin (1900-1979)

Cecilia Payne-Gaposhkin is famous for the work she did in the early 1920s at the Harvard College Observatory on the classification of stellar spectra. For her PhD research under Harlow Shapley she used ionization theory to re-order the then alphabetical (based on the strength of the Halpha line) stellar classifications into the famous OBAFGKM which orders star types by temperature. Incidentally she also proved that the Sun was mostly made of hydrogen.

She was born in the UK on May 10th 1900, the daughter of a London Barrister. However her father died when she was only 4 years old, so her mother raised her (and her two siblings) alone. She won a scholarship to attend Cambridge University (Newnam College) in 1919, reading Natural Sciences. During her time in Cambridge a lecture given by Eddington (on his 1919 expedition to Africa to test the gravitational deflection of light by observing stars near the Sun during a solar eclipse) inspired her to study Astronomy further. At the time Cambridge admitted women, but would not grant them degrees, so doctoral studies for her in England seemed out of the question. However things were opening up more in the US, and she had attended a lecture by Dr. Harlow Shapley (the Director of the Harvard College Observatory) in 1922. She wrote to Dr. Shapley asking if it would be possible to study under him at Harvard (under the advice of Eddington). The Harvard College Observatory had just started a graduate program in astronomy, and even had a special fellowship to encourage women to study. Then then Miss Payne became the second student to win this fellowship and travelled to the US in 1923. She was the first person to be granted a PhD. in astronomy from Harvard (in 1925) - although this was because the Physics department refused to grant a PhD to a woman so the Department of Astronomy was created to get around this!

She met her husband Sergei Gaposhkin while on holiday in Europe in 1932. He was a Russian Astronomer in Nazi Germany and having a very difficult time, so to help him out she found him a position at Harvard. They were married less than 2 years later in 1934. They had 3 children together, Edward, Katherine and Peter. Dr. Payne-Gaposhkin continued to study astronomy her whole life, remaining at Harvard. She was a technical assistant to Shapley from 1927-1938, and became frustrated at her low pay and status at the university. Shapley persuaded them to give her the title of "astronomer" in 1938, but it wasn't until 1956 (when Dr. Payne-Gaposhkin was 56 years old) that further intervention from the Observatory Director (then Donald Menzel) persuaded Harvard to make her a full-professor, and in fact the first female professor of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Payne-Gaposhkin was a trail blazer for women in astronomy, and only incidentally was also a mother (although presumably that's not how her children saw it!). I researched this article only online, but I'm now inspired to try to read her autobiography - The Dyer's Hand to learn more of the details, in particular about her life after having her children. Her career progression was incredibly slow and frustrating, even after her seminal early work - without which she clearly would not have been able to stay in Astronomy at all. She wrote in her auto-biography "I simply went on plodding, rewarded by the beauty of the scenery towards an unexpected goal."

The Broken Career Path, or "What She Said"....

2009-03-13T06:05:00.003-04:00

A great post this week over at Women in Astronomy on what the current "Decadal Review" process in the US Astronomy Community ought to be addressing with regard to the career path in Astronomy. I especially relate to the quote:

Considering how I feel about being a postdoc right now, I'm not really looking forward to the future, if this is as good as it gets.

I said a couple of weeks ago (in this post) that I was starting to see the good side of postdoc life - but actually I think what I was starting to see is how much worse it will get if I ever manage to become faculty. Is that really what I want in life..... I'm starting to think not.

Hannah says:

it's a wonder that much astronomy gets done in the winter.

- I think it's a wonder any gets done by any postdoc! Perhaps this is the advantage Australian astronomers have and why there seem to be so many of them relative to the population of Australia (can't explain Holland though...).

Sometimes I think that the ones who get the jobs are the ones who are stubborn enough to just keep applying rather than the ones who are the best scientists.

This could have come right out of my mouth. So reassuring to know I'm not the only one thinking this!

Hannah goes on to suggest some solutions to the problem including:

to simply decrease the number of PhDs being produced to match the number of jobs. And now I hear all the department chairs out there laughing. Given that the number of students a department attracts is a measure of its success, I don't see that happening any time soon.

This I don't think is the answer at all anyway. I think Hannah's next point is much more important. My friend at the Visible Universe (who is too busy being a big TV researcher now to blog) put it very well in response to one of my very first posts here:

I don't believe that money is wasted if a student doesn't pursue a research career. There are many fields where individuals with real, hands-on science experience are desperately needed--science policy, science journalism, education--and having scientifically trained people in those positions can only be a good thing for the field.

I now firmly believe that the more science PhDs there are out in the world the better. But they need to be educated in such a way as to see the value of their training outside the narrow limits of academic research. There ought to be stipulations on funding for graduate students that they spend a certain about of time being educated about all the fun, exciting and worthwhile things they can do after graduate school. And the research faculty either need to be trained to do this, or forced to involve non-academic astronomers in the process. I shouldn't be sitting here today, a relatively successful scientist, with a PhD and lots of great skills wondering if I could get any job at all if I decide to "give up" on Astronomy. Who killed my confidence? I know it died in the last couple of years of graduate school.... was that my fault, or do I claim to be a victim of a broken system....

Hannah says again:

Now I hear all the professors grumbling, "why should we bother investing our time and energy to train graduate students in astronomy if they aren't going to continue in astronomy?" To which I can only say, "why are you training them for jobs that don't exist?"

Couldn't put it better myself.

Sorry for a slightly down post on a Friday. It's been one of those weeks.

11am is the New 3pm

2009-03-04T11:39:00.002-05:00

My productivity has taken a dive lately (or maybe it just feels that way). I came to a realization as I walked home on Friday - most of my day is before lunch now. It used to be (before baby) I started work around 10am, had lunch at noon, then worked until 6-7pm. I was used to the normal mid afternoon lethargy and has adjusted to a 3pm tea break. However now I start work at 9am, eat lunch around 1pm (because of a change in country and lunchtime culture), and leave for the nursery at about 4.45pm (or a little later - I'm always running late for little one's pick up time!). Instead of 2 hours before lunch and 5 after it, I now have 4 hours before lunch and only 2.75 after it. So 11am is my new 3pm. Accordingly the past few mornings I had a coffee and snack at 11am (traditional elevenses even). Let's see if I suddenly get a lot done....

Stop Trying To Get "X" and Start Trying To Enjoy Yourself

2009-02-27T05:00:00.000-05:00

I was lucky enough to attend a large university for graduate school which had enormous numbers of science graduate students. At some point a group of students set up a series of events about academic careers for scientists. This series brought Rick Reis in to talk - and as a result we all got signed up for his "Tomorrow's Professor" mailing list. Now I get emails from this list about once a week. Sometimes they're interesting, sometimes I delete them. Every once in a while I find one that's very useful and really strikes a cord. That happened this week with the posting on Stop Trying to Get Tenure and Start Trying To Enjoy Yourself. Not that I'm in a position to worry about tenure since I'm still just a postdoc - but I think the principle applies to me - in that I should "Stop Trying to Get a "Permanent Job" and Start Trying to Enjoy Myself". I'll see how that goes. "Trying to Get a Permanent Job" clearly isn't working out that well (another chance bites the dust...).

Related to this, I think I have just recently realised what a nice job being a postdoc is. (Apart from the uncertain future and the stress associated with that - especially in an era of job cuts and lowering funding). I can mess around doing research and for the most part not worry about faculty meetings, teaching when I don't want to, being nice to the university administration (or even meeting them), reading job candidate letters, calling prospective graduate students and all the hundreds of other non-research related items I see the staff doing. In a permanent position I know I won't be expected to do any less research, I'll just have all that stuff added on top of my already hectic life. I actually can't see where I would fit it all in.

So I think "Stop Trying to Get "X" and Start Trying to Enjoy Yourself" is probably good advice for us all in our jobs and throughout life.

Counting days

2009-02-26T06:32:00.002-05:00

Like everybody else in this business, Boyfriend and I have to travel a lot; conferences, workshops, seminars, observing runs... Within a reasonable limit, we have tried not to let the fact that we have a child change that too much. Of course I didn't travel in the first few months, and there's the occasional heartache of missing some important milestones that goes with this. But overall it's been going well. I think part of the key to that was to get Chatton used from the start that maman and papa were going to be away from home sometimes. He's never made a fuss about it, and actually behaves extra-nicely with the one parent that stays behind to take care of him!

But now that he's older, he started missing us more and more when we are gone. I'm surprised by this, I thought if there would have been problems, they would have come up when he was smaller. It's not really a problem, he's still mostly as happy as usual when one of us is gone, but he mentions often (especially at night) that he misses us.

So we have come up with a trick to help him with that. Whenever one of us travels for more than a couple of days, we take a large piece of paper and make a calendar for Chatton, with one blank box for every day that Boyfriend or I are gone from home. Then each morning he gets to draw a picture in that day's box. This way he sees clearly how much time has gone and how soon the missing parent is coming home. Since time is a vague concept for young children, we find that this helps him a lot to keep track of what is going on. He can see that there are still X days left, so he's not asking us and himself all the time "when is mummy/daddy coming back?". Being aware of what is going on seems to make him feel more secure about the whole thing. Of course there's also iChat or Skype to keep in touch, much better than just the phone for small kids.

I was just away for almost three weeks on a work trip (the longest either one of us has been away from home since Chatton was born), and though he obviously missed me, everything went very well. He even found an idea for an Astronomy-related thing to draw each day on his calendar, so I now have this really cool set of drawings for my office wall!

If anybody has other tricks or ideas of things to do to make being away from home easier on the little ones, please share!

Designed to tempt me?

2009-02-23T11:24:00.002-05:00

I haven't met a mother who's totally happy with her body image. I'm definitely not - although mostly I do nothing about it, even objectively I know I could use to lose 10 lbs or so. If found this Chocolate Blog today. which seems totally designed to tempt me. What is it about chocolate - why do I feel such a physical drag towards it....?

My 10 random things about being a mother

2009-02-20T17:03:00.004-05:00

So I finally got around to tackle Astronomum's challenge of coming up with my list of 10 random things about being a mother. Here it goes:

1. I love reading stories to my son, and getting new books for him. I can spend a lot of time in the child section of a bookstore, and I probably spend more money than I should on that...

2. I both like and dislike always being the youngest mom out of all the parents of my son's friends. It makes me feel young and cool, but it's annoying because I often don't have that much in common with these people which are 10-15 years older than me.

3. One of the things I like the best is to watch my son and his dad play together. I'm amazed by how Boyfriend can get totally into these games, and give them his undivided attention. I wish I could do that too!

4. If I could magically change one thing about my life as a mother/scientist, it would be to get to live closer to family. With two careers and a child, I often wish we could get help from family once in a while, it would make things much easier I think.

5. I'm currently expecting a second child, a baby girl. I was so relieved when we found out, there was something about the idea of having two boys that was giving me nightmares.

6. Boyfriend and I have a tendency to spoil our son, not with sweets, toys or other things like that, but with our time and attention. I thought there was nothing wrong with that, but sometimes I'm afraid he will come to expect that kind of attention all the time and from everyone. Hopefully this won't be a problem when his little sister shows up.

7. I'm not much of a baby person. I'll gladly go through the first year with baby, but mostly because I know how fun it will be after that when she grows up a little.

8. Sometimes I get bored at the playground, which makes me feel guilty: shouldn't I be enjoying every single moment I spend with my child?

9. Like most women, the deadly sin I'm most guilty of is pride: I think my son is the most incredible person I have ever met, I can't even begin to explain how proud of him I am.

10. I'm glad I had my first child while in grad school since it gave me the chance to prove some people wrong (think older male faculty): it's possible to be a good mother and a successful young researcher at the same time! Actually, that's another thing I'm very proud of :)

Warming to my new Town...

2009-02-13T09:48:00.003-05:00

Moving to northern Europe in winter was never going to be easy. OK, coming from the North East US it's not that cold here, but it's really dark and grey most of the time.

When you move (and as postdocs we get some experience of this of course) I think you go through 3 phases. To start with everything is exciting about your new town. Then everything sucks - you want your old favourite restaurants, and your old friends - and you can't have them. Finally you get used to the place, and it becomes home. The dark damp winter moved us quickly onto stage two... I think we might go back to stage one once the spring comes and we can actually do stuff, but for now we're right in stage two.

However, I did manage some exploration last week, and in walking for the first time through one of the city parks I discovered an aviary of parrots, budges, and bunny rabbits. This is just in the middle of a city park. This city can't be all that bad if it looks after bunny rabbits. :) I'm looking forward to find a chance to take little one to see them.

Sorry - did I just break your mental image?

2009-02-13T09:35:00.005-05:00

Last night I gave a talk to a local Astronomical Society. I haven't done this too much before, preferring to spend my outreach time talking to school kids in general. However the Astronomical Society asked (well they asked my boss, and he passed it off to me) so I said yes.

In general it was actually an OK evening. I'm a fairly comfortable speaker, especially when I'm sure I know the subject better than my audience (it's only those department colloquia which make me nervous now), and they all seemed to enjoy it. I got a lot of very relevant questions which I enjoyed answering. However the audience was depressingly homogeneous (in the old white guy sense)... I'm pretty sure I broke most of those people's mental images of an Astronomer. I think that's a good thing.... but it surprises me. This is an Astronomy Society which invites professional Astronomers to come and give talks once a month. Can they really have never invited a young female astronomer before?

Still, dealing with their frank disbelief that I was the speaker (and even more disbelief that I will be the speaker at a large national amateur astronomy meeting in April - a fact I couldn't persuade them to believe!) gives me a amusing anecdote to write about here!

10 Random Things about Me as a Mother

2009-02-11T05:26:00.004-05:00

Well I have mixed feelings about the "25 Random Things About Me" fad which is flying around Facebook, but I quite liked the idea of the shortened version for mothers suggested by "Mama", and which I also found on Two Women Blogging" done by Jay, so here goes....

1. Unlike Mama and Jay I love playing with little one on the floor. I especially like "colouring" with her.

2. I think I should want to keep everything which little one makes at nursery and is sent home, but I don't. I recycle quite a lot of it.

3. I'm absolutely the soft touch, and I think my husband is going to be a bit too strict. This worries me a lot as I think kids of parents who are too strict don't turn out well.

4. I love watching "Kung Fu Panda" and "Totoro" with little one, especially when she asks for "Kung Fu Panda" by collecting all her panda toys first. "Ni Hao Kai Lan" I want to toss out the window sometimes. "Elmo's Potty Time" is also starting to get a bit old, but I wish she'd get the idea so we keep watching it...

5. Sometimes I wish I had kept breast feeding past 15 months. I stopped because little one was no longer interested, but I think I might have enjoyed being a "militant breast feeder" of a toddler.

6. I still haven't let little one have any candy/sweets, except a tiny bit of chocolate when my husband wasn't looking.

7. I wonder sometimes if we should have waited a bit longer to have kids. I wouldn't change little one for the world, but I think I would have enjoyed a couple more years of pre-child married life and I still would have been having my first child in my early 30s (instead of late 20s).

8. When I see pregnant women part of me wants to warn them what they're in for, and then I remember how fun it was to be pregnant and play with newborn baby clothes and enjoy the anticipation. They'll figure out how hard it is for themselves, so I'll just leave them to it.

9. I wish little one would grow some hair so I could put it into pigtails etc. I tried for the first time this weekend, and it looked pretty ridiculous still!

10. I love watching little one "put her Dad to bed". "Lie down Daddy" she says with a surprisingly authoritative tone... if he doesn't obey she pushes him over, then she covers him with a blanket and jumps on him.

I hereby tag any mothers reading this post (that includes you AstroMaman), and if you are an "Astronomom" I would again encourage you to get in touch and join us - you can make it your first post here. :)

Do I Still Have a Baby?

2009-02-04T09:35:00.002-05:00

Little one is fast approaching her second birthday... and I'm starting to wonder how long I can call her a baby... She walks, talks in 2-3 word sentences and recently started sleeping in a bed instead of a crib. However, she still has "baby hair" (ie. not much - little enough that she's often mistaken for a boy) and likes to be carried around. The Oxford English Dictionary defines baby,n as: "An infant, a young child of either sex. (Formerly synonymous with child; now usually restricted to an infant ‘in arms.’)" So by their definition I seem pretty safe with my "baby".

What's the big deal with maids?

2009-01-30T10:30:00.003-05:00

Recently I hired a maid for the first time. This seems like a very sensible move to me. She'll come into the house every other week and clean the bathroom, kitchen, vacuum the floors etc. All the basic cleaning stuff that otherwise gets done much less often - basically only when the mould starts growing around the bathroom sick, or the colour of the carpet changes. In fact I'm surprised I haven't done this before now it comes to think of it.

So why do I feel a little bit guilty about it. Why, for example, am I hiding it from my mother (well not mentioning it at least). I use lots of other time saving devices. This morning I put a load of laundry into my brand-new washer-dryer, and when I get home it will be "cupboard dry" according to the instructions (although admittedly this gives me some pause each time I do it after having read last year the washing machine flood "adventures" of Mother of All Scientists - at least we don't live in a 3rd floor condo... ). I also have an iRobot Roomba - which rocks (well when the battery isn't old and worn out and lasts only 15 minutes - another thing I have recently sorted out), and I'm recently very much enjoying the pre-prepared vegetables that are so ubiquitous here.

As pointed out by Veronica in her article "I Have a Maid! What Professions are more important than others?", I wouldn't blink an eyelid at hiring a professional to cut my hair or change the oil in my car or do numerous other things I really could learn to do myself given time. I also spend close to half my salary paying other people to look after my child - so paying someone to clean my house seems very reasonable.

So what's the big deal about hiring a maid?

More Great Blogs

2009-01-27T04:59:00.001-05:00

The people at the American Astronomical Society Committee for the Status of Women recently started (well restarted) a new blog, which so far has been pretty interesting reading.

I've also recently been following The Motherlode at the New York Times.

Kids and germs

2009-01-04T08:49:00.004-05:00

How is it that kids always manage to get sick at the worst possible times? I think this is a classical complaint of parents, especially the working kind, but I still can't get over it. Our son is almost never sick, and when he is, he has lightning-fevers that last never more than 24 hours or so, and then he's back to normal. So I know I shouldn't complain too much, but it's how he "picks" these moments to get ill... it's usually when:
(a) one of us is out of town,
(b) one of us has a major deadline at work, like a telescope proposal to turn in, or some experiment time in the lab,
(c) we have to travel and/or have major commitments as a family,
(d) two or more of the above.

I think this time is especially ironic. After two weeks of Christmas vacations where we did not much else than relax at home, all three of us, it's today on the eve of our going back to work/kindergarden that Chatton comes down with chicken pox... talk about great timing. This means 7 to 10 days at home. What a way to start the new year at work, there goes one of my new year resolutions already!

In My Computer's ClipBoard

2008-12-30T05:27:00.001-05:00

Writing the previous post I was amused to note what was saved in my computer's clip board (from several days ago): http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/inthenightgarden/. I really am a Mum now!

What's in a Name?

2008-12-30T05:13:00.002-05:00

One of the reasons I enjoy this blog (even if I don't post much) is that it has led me to find lots of other interesting women in science/science mother blogs. One of my recent favourites is Two Women Blogging. Reading it this morning I found this post Things I Could Do Without: Old Not-Quite-Friends Edition. Now I'll confess to being someone who likes sending Christmas cards, and I got an interesting insight in what that might to do other people from that post, but I like getting them, so I will continue to send them.... perhaps more selectively in the future though...

Anyway the thing which really resonated with me in that post was the comments about the labeling of mail. I also have not changed my name to match my husbands and remain confused at how hard this concept is to grasp for people. We have the added complication that the combination of our two names is vaguely obscene sounding, so it always amuses me when people decide to go for the hyphenation route! My favourite though is the Drs. HisName and MyName. I actually don't really care how I'm addressed, but I am amused at the variety people come up with!

All this is minor compared with state confusion over the names.... Once when travelling into the US there was a minor problem with my documentation and I was brought round to a back room to have it checked further. My new husband (a US citizen) was not allowed to accompany me as "we did not have the same family name". At the time this was a bit concerning, but not really a big deal. However we're travelling to the US this week and I do now have some questions about my status, so I would say it's 50-50 that this will happen again. I think I'll have to insist that husband and little one (at the end of 10+ hour flight) *will* come with me this time though.... Surely they can't be within their rights to separate a mother and child simply because we have different last names?

Why I like Cloth Diapers

2008-12-16T07:30:00.003-05:00

I promised a post a while ago about why I like cloth diapers. So here goes...

1. I'm doing my bit for the environment.
OK so there's actually been some debate about this. There was a British study which suggested that using cloth might not actually be better for the environment than disposables which was widely cited as a reason not to feel bad about disposables. As I understand it, the argument went that the amount of water/energy needed to make a single disposable was about the same as it took to wash a single cloth diaper. Cloth diapering advocates around the world complain that the study wasn't fair - it made unreasonable assumptions about the washing habits of cloth using parents, had them tumble drying their diapers, using old fashioned terry toweling, and basically didn't survey enough of them to get a real answer... I still don't know what to make of the study. But I still think that using cloth has to be better for the environment than disposables. I'm happy that my daughter's disposable landfill pile is so much smaller than the average.

2. It saves money.
This is undeniable. There is a large initial outlay, but then you're pretty much set, especially if you get one-size/expandable versions. You can even use them for future children.

3. It's got to be more comfortable. Paper vs. cloth on your bottom. I rest my case.

4. Cloth diapers are cool. OK on this one maybe I'm a bit weird, but cloth diapers are pretty cool. The ones I like are one-size and have worked well since my daughter was 1 month old until now (22 months) which I think is a testament to great design. They come in lots of different colours, and just look better than disposables. In the summer little one can sleep just in a diaper and t-shirt and looks adorable. They use all sorts of super modern ultra-absorbent but quick drying cloth too. I just love the collision of an "old fashioned" method with new materials.

5. It's supposed to speed up potty training. The theory goes that because the cloth isn't quite as absorbent as a modern disposable the child feels more when they wee and so is potty trained sooner. Sounds good to me. :)

So why don't more people use cloth? I'm not really sure as you might guess, but here are some downsides I have found:

1. They're a bit bulky. Those tailored toddler jeans might not fit (why does a little girl toddler need tailored jeans though?). Sometimes I buy up a size in clothing.

2. You have to wash them and possibly assemble them. You can see by a previous post that sometimes this is a bit of work. More on that later. But we don't have to buy a stack of disposables every time we go to the supermarket, so we gain there... The kind we have need to have the absorbent bit taken out for washing, then stuffed back in. This is a bit tedious - but you can get versions which don't need this - and I generally do it in front of the TV.

3. Poop is scary. I would argue it shouldn't be for any parent, but I think some people just don't like the idea of dealing with poopy cloth diapers. We have flushable liners now we have a toddler which work well most of the time (breast milk poop is water soluble and can just be put in the wash with everything else). There are those occasional loose poops though which are a bit nasty, but I assume no worse than disposable blow outs.

4. You can't buy them in the supermarket. But you don't need to buy them all the time, so all the online stores actually work very well.

5. The initial cost is high. But you can slowly build up you stash of cloth diapers and use disposables to fill in between washes. Soon you will think disposables are a huge waste of money. :)

So here's my guide to cloth diapering. You can find a wealth of information on the internet so it's going to be brief.

1. Don't panic when you read about all the different kinds (prefolds, pockets, all-in-ones etc.) and all the acronyms (AIO, WAHM) and brand names. If you want things that work like disposables you want either pockets or all-in-ones. The difference is that pockets you stuff with the absorbent stuff (into a pocket!) so you can alter the bulkiness/absorbency, while all-in-ones have that done for you.

2. Start slow. Just buy a couple and see how you like them. It's OK to use a combination of cloth and disposable. We still do. I's also OK to have lots of different kinds of cloth. We mostly have one kind (BumGenius One-Sized) but that's just because when trying others I've never found one I like better.

3. Take a break if you get stressed out. It's OK to stop and start. Have a break when things seem too much, then go back to it. OK this kills some of the cost savings, but you still make out as long as you use them more than once or twice!

Ironically I'm writing this today with a daughter in disposables at daycare. Our washing machine broke. It took one diaper before it sank in and we realized that this meant we should stop with the cloth until it was fixed. Cloth diapering and doing washing at the launderette is a little too much for us! Hopefully the machine will get fixed tomorrow and we'll be back on track, but actually I'm thinking of taking a break over Christmas anyway what will all the travel and family visits. And the excitement of the week - little one pooped in her potty. So maybe we'll be starting to phase all this out soon anyway.

Blog posting rates...

2008-12-16T07:26:00.002-05:00

The scientist in me wonders if blog posting in general, or just my blog posting is inversely proportional to happiness in research.... I've been quite happy lately. I like my new place, I have some interesting new projects to work on, and so I've been very busy at work. So not much time for blog posting...

the 5pm seminars

2008-12-02T05:37:00.003-05:00

I'm tired of getting some attitude and feeling mildly guilty for missing a lot of talks and meetings at work. The problem: people in my department have a knack of scheduling these things late in the afternoon, at 5 or 5:30pm. This just doesn't work when you have kids that need to be picked up from school/daycare! Of course, I can always arrange for Boyfriend to pick up Chatton on these days, but with our crazy lives as postdocs, that's really not always possible.

The other problem here is that I'm the only female in my department with a kid. And the few guys who have children all have stay-at-home wives as well. So really there's nobody else to fight this battle with me. It's probably the wrong attitude, but I almost make a point now of not going to any talk scheduled after 5pm, a kind of "hunger for knowledge" strike if you want.

At my previous institution, the weekly physics seminars had been pushed back from 4:30pm to 4pm for this very reason, to allow people with families to attend without having to leave half way through. I thought this was a great sign of respect, and a little gesture that made me feel not so much out of place as a grad student-mother. So I know that it can happen, which is probably why I'm especially annoyed at the situation here.

Anybody in the same situation with solutions to propose?

Random Happy Quote

2008-11-11T04:20:00.002-05:00

Well I was in a pretty good funk yesterday! Last night I realized what I really needed was a random happy quote generator - sometimes I think it just doesn't help to dwell on negative thoughts. Anyway the internet as always obliges so here is the Happy Quotes site.

This morning the sun is shining. I made two lunches on Sunday night so got a night off that last night, and the laundry situation is under control right now.... I think I'll make it through the week.

Laundry and Lunchtime

2008-11-10T05:10:00.005-05:00

Today I'm going to post (well complain) about the two motherhood related jobs that I am finding the most wearing at the moment. Motherhood, when I'm feeling most down on it, sometimes seems just like a string of not too difficult, but repetitive tasks. I once had a job working in a planetarium for the summer. The summer show was mostly automated - I introduced it, hit go, and pointed out a few stars at some point - that was it. I did a lot of mental arithmetic as I sat in the dark watching that show, and a calculated I saw it about 400 times over the course of a few months.... "Discover Mars" (said in deep, male, movie announcement voice... aargh!). I also couldn't tell you how many times I stood in front of a large sign saying when the next show was to be asked when the next show was, nor how many times I directed people to the bathroom.... Anyway I digress. The point is I'm not always super patient, and repetitive tasks do wear on me a lot.

Also to put you in mind of my mood this morning, I'm sitting her all damp and cold as I got soaked walking to work. Not a great Monday morning.

Anyway, little one now goes to daycare 5 days a week (instead of 4 before - we used to split Fridays, but can no longer manage that after the move). Her daycare does not provide lunch, so every day I must make her a lunch. I used to do this before, but only 3 days a week as her old place had "pizza Thursday" and somehow the switch to 5 days from 3 is really wearing.... I make lunch the night before (there's just not enough time for me to do this in the morning), and I particularly object to making lunch on Sunday night - it's just not fair for the week to infringe on Sundays that way... I wish I was better at thinking up quick healthy lunch meals that little one would eat. Sometimes I worry she's going to turn into tomato pasta with cheese!

My least favourite job number 2 is laundry. We're lucky to now have a washer in our kitchen instead of the basement, which I thought would really improve things, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I think for 4 reasons....

1. I had an excuse not to laundry when it was in the basement. When I was pregnant I physically couldn't fit down the back stairs carrying a laundry basket (fun fun), so I did very little laundry then, and then when little one came she "objected" to me going downstairs, so I got out of it that way. So my husband used to deal with most of the laundry... now I have no excuse.

2. The new washer is smaller - so that makes for more loads, and also takes longer. It's a washer/dryer in one, and the dryer is really slow... so it feels like the washer is always on.

3. Actually the noise really bothers me too - it's right in the house, so you can always hear it when it's one. The spin cycle in particular is really loud.

4. Cloth nappies/diapers. I have a post in my head which I plan to share with you soon, since maybe you'll all just think I'm making work for myself here, but I actually like using cloth for many reasons. Little one's old daycare however weren't keen, so we used to use disposables during the week. The new place is fine with cloth which is great for many reasons, but creates more washing - it's probably 1-2 extra loads a week of nappies/diapers. We're still very much adjusting to this new routine.

So big surprise you might say - motherhood is a lot of work. It's also of course very rewarding (necessary caveat for blog posting!). I guess the stress of the past few weeks (months) is catching up on me a little - so I'm sorry if I'm coming over a bit negative today. Anyway I'd love some tips on how to make laundry not such a big deal, and how to make lunch making more fun and easy.

Two thumbs up

2008-10-26T03:20:00.002-04:00

I was looking at the job postings on the AAS website, and this one caught my eye, because after the job description and the usual blurb about women and minorities being encouraged to apply, there was this little sentence: "The University is supportive of dual-career couples". Everybody knows that most women in academia have partners that are in the same situation (see this recent report for example), and universities know that they have to do something about it, but it's the first time I see something officially stated like this. Two thumbs up to U.Michigan on this!

Confession

2008-10-24T14:01:00.004-04:00

I have a confession to make. Something that has been on my conscience for a while now. Since it has all to do with my astronomom situation, I though I would shamelessly use this blog as an outlet for the tad of guilt I'm carrying.

Here it goes. The story goes back to the hectic last few weeks of my PhD. Boyfriend and I were defending our theses within a couple of weeks and were working like crazy to meet the deadlines, we had an enthusiastic 2 year old to entertain in the meanwhile, and we had to plan and pack for a transatlantic move a few weeks later. Did I forget to mention that we were also desperately trying to potty train Chatton - a requirement of his new kindergarden where we were about to move? The scene was set for a disaster.

But surprisingly, trouble didn't come from where we expected it. We both managed to finished writing our theses and defended them succesfully, Chatton actually enjoyed helping us pack, and one day as if by magic he started going to the potty and never had an accident ever since (and it was not looking good at all until that day, so it truly was a small miracle!).

The problem in this case came from an actor I haven't introduced so far, the fourth member of the family at that time: the Cat. We lived in a house well in the countryside, and with his fancy home-made cat-door (the kind of things we had the time to do before having a kid!), he had really gone back to his roots of a wild hunting beast. For that (and many other reasons), we couldn't face bringing him to a small 4th floor city apartment. So we had decided to find him a new home before moving. But with all the thesis/moving/potty nightmare, looking for this new home sadly fell down our list of priority, until close to the last minute.

After advertising (and receiving a lot of hate mail in the process - "how can you think of leaving you cat behind? why don't you give up your kid as well?" - don't get me started on that!), we finally found a new home for him at the very last minute. He would move to another house in a similar rural setting, with a family that already had another cat, so we felt good about this ( yet mostly relieved to have found something).

So we finished packing and the next day left town for our new adventure. A couple of weeks later, we learned through the branches that the new family had kept Cat inside a few days to get him adjusted, but the first chance he got, he ran out, never to be seen again. And here comes the guilt. Had we not been so overwhelmed with other things, perhaps we would have been more careful in finding Cat a new home? a better one perhaps he wouldn't have escaped from? He was such a wild beast that I trust that he could make a good living in the wild, or perhaps he has found a new home of his own. We will never know, and it's been bothering me.

Overall I think we were pretty successful at handling this challenging time in our family and professional lives. It's really sad that Cat was the one having to pay for this... In his name and for all the other times when I or other parents in similar situations have dropped the ball like this, I hope you all forgive me! (don't hesitate to share stories that could make me feel better about all this in the comments!)

Minor Annoyance

2008-10-20T07:08:00.003-04:00

OK, so this blog is supposed to be about the challenges of mixing motherhood and life as a research Astronomer, but I hope you'll forgive me for a short rant about the media depiction of motherhood, especially relating to breast feeding. It's probably pretty clear from all my posts on issues relating to breast feeding and working that I'm a strong supporter of breast feeding. I'm proud that I exclusively breast fed for 6 months, continued to make breast milk be the main part of my daughter's diet until she was 1, and in fact continued to breast feed until she was ready to wean at about 16 months (although I stopped pumping at work around her birthday). Breast feeding was relatively easy for me. Apart from some fun adventures pumping in aeroplanes and other unusual places, and general annoyance with airport security policies I had very little trouble. I was determined to breast feed, and luckily didn't know that 35 weekers usually have trouble until after my 35 weeker was a pro! Sometimes being too busy to read the baby books is a good thing!

Anyway the reason for posting was the completely gratuitous scene of bottle feeding I saw in a recent episode of Heroes. In the scene the working (superhero) Mom comes home and is talking to a great (superhero) Dad who has been home looking after baby. This all seems great and very modern. And then they pull out the bottle. I'm not saying they should have shown the Mom breast feeding, but was showing bottle feeding necessary. Surely a super fast super hero could find time to pump at work, and when she got home she would be ready to breast feed.

Bonjour!

2008-10-15T03:34:00.005-04:00

It's my pleasure to join Astronomum in contributing to this blog - and I thank her for the kind introduction she wrote! Over the years I have been involved in many outreach programs, especially some dedicated to encourage girls to consider scientific careers, but lately if you ask me how the status of women in science will be improved, my view has changed slightly. I still believe that these education programs are important and can make a difference, but more and more I think that the best thing I can do "for the cause" is work hard, and be a succesfull astronomom. In all modesty, I hope that I can be a positive role model and show by the way I manage to both be a decent mother and scientist that this is a path that every woman could consider for herself, if she chooses to. If my stories here can help or encourage anyone, or even just entertain, then this would be a small step in the right direction (and for my own benefit, this will give me the chance to vent some of the frustrations encountered along this road, because let's be honest, it's not always a smooth ride!)

So you already know the basics about me. I'm a postdoc in astronomy with a 3.5 year old son (let's call him Chatton - i.e. "Kitten" in french, one of my many nicknames for him). Boyfriend is also a scientist, so as so many other women out there I'm juggling career and family life, with the infamous "two-body" academic problem looming over me. I will write again soon - I have four years worth of "astronomom" stories to share, after all! But now it's time to get back to work. I'm trying to catch up after a week that reminded me of the challenges of wearing both the mom and the scientist hat: as Boyfriend was at a conference and Chatton on "fall break" from kindergarden, I experienced both being a single mother and a stay-at-home mom, with a couple of papers to write and the application deadlines of this year's job hunting season on the horizon... but more on all of that soon!

Welcome "AstroMaman"!

2008-10-13T05:18:00.002-04:00

My good friend "AstroMaman" has agreed to help out and post on her life as another astronomom. AstroMaman is a postdoc in Astronomy and has a little boy who is now 3 1/2 who was born while she was in graduate school. Incredibly, despite having a child halfway through, AstroMaman finished her PhD in the same amount of time as me (not including any maternity leave). This still impresses me! I hope you will join me in welcoming "AstroMaman"!

We're still interested in getting more "astronomoms" involved - especially those at different career stages or with younger or older kids.

Well that went well!

2008-10-06T10:53:00.003-04:00

We made it across the atlantic and I'm currently sitting in my new office with a view. Last week however was a great reminder of the perils of trying to juggle motherhood and work. Little one (now 19 months!) started her new daycare on Monday even though my new job didn't start until Wed (October 1st). I had end of September deadlines to meet, and we thought we could also use the extra time to get sorted. It seemed like a great plan.

On Monday I met all my deadlines. On Tuesday we got a lot done towards sorting out the new house. On Wednesday morning about 1am little one vomited everywhere, presumably having picked up a new strain of tummy bug at her new daycare. Her new daycare has a 48 hour rule (no attendance for 48 hours since the last vomit), so this ruled out daycare on Wednesday and Thursday (our first two days at work). To be honest she really was too ill for daycare anyway. We juggled staying home and work for two days, by which time my husband also had the bug. Friday I tried to take her to daycare so husband could stay home sick and I could have just a little time at work, but they sent her home - my husband managed to make it out to pick her up, but by lunchtime on Friday I gave up, and returned home to find them both asleep on the living room floor (we haven't got a couch yet).

What a week. We had the weekend to recover, and now everyone is at work/daycare. Thank goodness I didn't get sick too. And thank goodness for supportive bosses. No-one batted an eyelid at me taking off so much time in my first few days at work. This assumption that I will get the work done at some point - that it doesn't necessarily have to be in office hours really is useful sometimes.

Calling Other Astronomoms

2008-08-28T16:53:00.002-04:00

I was thinking of opening up this blog to other "Astronomons", partly as a way of increasing the post frequency (which I don't think I'm ever going to manage) and partly as a way of making it a more generic resource/support system for Astronomers at all careers stages who are also mothers. I know some other Astronomoms, so I will be asking them personally if they are interested in that idea, but if anyone else who is an "Astronomom" has found this blog and would be interested then you should get in touch.

Astronomom Move

2008-08-28T16:46:00.003-04:00

I get horribly annoyed by bloggers who spend half their posts apologizing for not posting. But I just want to say that posts have been infrequent as I've been dealing with a transatlantic move. We're in limbo for the next month or so traveling to visit family before finishing the move, so it's not going to get better any time soon. Needless to say packing/moving with a 18 month old (where does the time go?) is not much fun. But as a postdoc I have little choice, and am happy to be moving on from my current institution anyway.

Just wanted to write a sympathetic note to Mother of All Scientists for her horrible flood experiences. Makes moving seem like a walk in the park (well as long as the boat carrying all our stuff doesn't sink!).

An Unusual Astronomy Picture of the Day

2008-07-24T05:03:00.006-04:00

One of my favorite astronomy sites is APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day). There you can see a new astronomy picture every day (they didn't mess around with the name), usually something which relates to ongoing missions, or recent news stories in astronomy. Yesterday's APOD was quite unusual. I'm still trying to figure out why it counted as an "astronomy picture", being neither about astronomy, or a picture, but I liked it so much that I wanted to link to it and post it here. So here's the link with the full description: APOD for July 23rd. And below is the "picture", entitled "Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth". Neat stuff.

PS. I want to figure out how to put an APOD sidebar into my blog - like there is in the AAS Public Policy Blog. Can anyone help? I thought it would be easy, but I'm stuck!

Two Guilty Secrets and their Link to Natural Parenting

2008-07-18T17:36:00.004-04:00

I'm going to write today about two of my small guilty pleasures/secrets and a link between them related to natural parenting and a surprising advocate for it.

As many of my friends know I enjoy watching the Oscars every year. What they might not realize (or maybe they do) is that it's not so much the awards show I enjoy the most, but the fancy dresses and style on the red carpet. On of this year's oddest red carpet moments was when Ryan Seacrest asked a pregnant, glowing Jessica Alba if she planned to breast feed her baby. Not quite the usual red carpet question, but I thought Jessica Alba answered it with grace saying that she did plan to breast feed as it was good for the baby. A surprise moment in which she proved to be an advocate for breast feeding. Good on her.

Well another of my guilty secrets (not so secret anymore) is Celebrity Moms, which is a blog of pictures of celebrities and their children. The reason I'm writing about this is that in a recent post about the birth of Jessica Alba's baby she discussed her natural meditative birth. How fantastic and unusual to see a positive natural birth story from a celebrity. We seem to be inundated with messages about how painful birth is and that most women need complicated medical interventions to the point that we're all terrified of giving birth. It's just so nice to hear of a calm natural birth. I also had a great natural birth experience and it's something I will hold with me forever. I credit my prenatal yoga practice and reading "Ina May's Birth Book", by Ina May Gaskin for giving me the confidence that I could have a natural birth. Perhaps more stories like Jessica Alba's will encourage more women to become educated about their birth choices and find out about normal birth (instead of the crazy strssful ones you see on the Discovery Channel and depicted in movies and TV shows).

Anyway good luck to Jessica Alba on her new life as a Mom. I look forward to seeing if she continues to be an advocate for natural parenting.

I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids.

2008-07-17T12:01:00.002-04:00

I just finished reading the book "I was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids", by Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile (Amazon Link). The title just really appealed to me (as well as the pink cupcake on the cover), as I definitely had all sorts of ideas of the kind of Mom I would be before I actually had my daughter, some of which turn out to be correct, but others have turned out to be totally unrealistic! I also worry a lot about the endless struggle to be both a good mother and do well at my job. As seems to be typical I often feel like I'm doing a sub-standard job in both areas - leading to a significant amount of stress. This book discusses all of those issues and calls for an end to the "Mommy Wars" as well as suggesting that we're all being a bit too hard on ourselves. I liked those parts a lot. However what I found totally unhelpful were the lists of things they think I am worrying about but shouldn't be. I found myself worrying that I'm not worrying about the things they say I shouldn't be worrying about! How stupid is that!

Ooops - 4 weeks!

2008-06-27T16:33:00.002-04:00

I was embarrassed today to notice it's been 4 weeks since I posted to this. Ooops. I've been busy being an Astronomer and a Mom! I've been busy happily letting memories of my last trip fade away (how traumatic it felt to be away for a whole week - now I barely remember it!). And I've been getting tired observing remotely from my living room in the middle of the night. This is reminding me of being 8 months pregnant (when I last had a significant amount of time on this telescope) and balancing my laptop on my giant tummy! All in all I don't miss that stage!

To make up for my absence here is my favourite recent picture of the little one. Especially for you - ScienceMama. Good luck at your conference! If it's anything like my last trip Bean will be fine, but you'll be a mess - and see babies everywhere you turn. So here is another one for you!

BPA in Baby Bottles

2008-05-30T15:59:00.002-04:00

One of the things I forgot from my previous To Do list post, is that I would like to have time to really understand the issues around the hot topic of BPA in baby bottles. I know that some baby bottles are made of plastic which includes this BPA chemical and lots of people are worried about that. This includes the Avent bottles which we used with our little one since they have a nipple which is supposed to mimic a mother's breast, and we wanted to do all we could to make sure little one kept breast feeding even after she had to have bottles as I was back at work.

I feel that as a scientist I ought to be able to understand the BPA issue and make up my mind about it for myself. I'm very disatisfied with most articles I read about it which don't seem to really present the facts - they usually just say that some people are worried about it and provide a list of baby bottles without BPA. What I think I understand is that BPA is dangerous to animals and people in large enough quantities. What I'm not sure about is if large quantities of BPA are really coming out of baby bottles which are made with BPA.... It sounds like if you heat your baby bottle to 200 Celsius enough will come out - but we never do that. Nor do we use (or even have) a dishwasher, or microwave bottles. In fact I've started giving little one cold bottles of cows milk - although my husband still likes to heat the milk in the bottle warmer as he thinks she drinks more that way. So the question is do we really need to replace these bottles. I don't know why - but I like the Avent company, and I feel annoyed that they must be loosing a lot of business over this when it doesn't seem totally clear to me it's really a problem. I feel like someone is playing on parent's concern for their babies. Of course we want to make sure they're not consuming dangerous chemicals.

Avent sticks by it's bottles saying "Scientists around the world have been studying the effects of bisphenol A for years and governing bodies, such as the FDA and EFSA have approved the usage of Polycarbonate plastics in consumer goods, specifically with contact with foods in mind." and "We have full confidence in our current bottle, which has been used by millions of healthy babies in over 70 countries worldwide. We always strive to reach new levels of design and engineering excellence to meet the evolving needs of parents and babies. Building on its already diverse portfolio of infant feeding products, Philips AVENT will introduce new materials into its line this summer."

So that's reassuring, but confusing given everything else out there about avoiding BPA, and also the fact that their new line will be made from BPA free plastic.

I heard a rumor that Babies R Us may be giving store credit for returned BPA bottles, so we might try that this weekend just in case. We still need a couple of bottles, but mostly little on is on sippy cups now anyway. I just feel that I'm being unfair acting on my fears before I really understand this issue. But I really don't have time to chase it down. Does anyone out there know of a good scientific article on this understandable to an astronomer with a physic degree?

My To Do Lists

2008-05-28T16:29:00.002-04:00

I usually have huge and totally unrealistic To Do lists, but lately it's got out of control! I won't even talk about all the work things, or things related to our upcoming transatlantic move, but I thought it would be fun to list some of the things I would like to do if I had more free time.

1. Write letters to Heathrow and Sydney airports pointing out that they ought to let working mothers travel with breast milk. If the TSA can do it, I can't see why they can't.

2. Going along with 1 - in general be more of an advocate for breast feeding, get involved with the La Leche league??

3. Go back to learning Chinese again. Ideally in a class setting, but at the very least start listening to ChinesePod podcasts while cooking.

4. Write more articles about astronomy on this blog. ;)

5. Make more photo books of little one.

6. Fill in little one's baby book.

I'm sure there were more in my head at one point, but now I've forgotten them, and it's time to go pick up little one from daycare - my favourite time of day. :)

International Travel Part 2

2008-05-24T07:49:00.004-04:00

As promised here is my second post about international travel and breast feeding (see Part 1).

This time I went a lot further - to Australia. That's basically a 24 hour trip from where I live, meaning I had to pump enroute. I planned to use the airport facilities during a connection at SFO, but it ended up being a rush to make the connection so instead I pumped in an airplane toilet.... On the way back I was able to use the facilities at SFO. They have a nursery which is available to pumping mothers so I used that. There were two wierd things about it though - the first was the big sign saying it was only for use by parents with children (leading to some odd looks from the family coming out as I went in), the other was that the door wasn't completely opaque (glass window with opaque strips). Anyway I put my back to the door and sat in a comfy chair in a room which wasn't a bathroom to pump. Not too bad! Thanks SFO.

One thing I didn't find out last time is that Medela does not recommend using power converters for international travel (something about putting two transformers in serial? I should know this having a Physics degree!) so what I did in the UK was technically wrong. Instead you should either buy a new Medela plug for the appropriate country, or use the battery pack. The positive things about this - you can pump anywhere (eg an airplane toilet) as you don't need an electrical supply. The negative - well it uses a lot of batteries. Although for my week away, pumping twice a day, I used only 1 set of 10 AA batteries, so not so bad.

Anyway I pumped enroute - leading to one big question.... Could I bring this milk in Australia? They have fairly strict customs rules, and I could not find any reference to breast milk except if your baby was with you. In the end it turned out to be fine. I declared it and had a funny moment with a customs officer who asked where it came from... me..?! What he meant was where did I pump it.., although I can't see why that matters. As in the UK, there was much confusion at this point as to why I would have breast milk but no baby - I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept...

The other question of course is if for the return can I go through airport security with breast milk in Australia? Turns out they have two kinds of security. For domestic travel all liquids are allowed, and in fact boarding at the small regional airport there was no security at all! For international travel they have similar liquid rules as the US, except that (like the UK) the exception for breast milk only applies if you are traveling with your baby... Lucky for me I saw some friends with a baby early on in my trip so I left them 2 days worth of milk, and the milk from the remaining 4 days was little enough to meet the regulations. So no problem....

Sadly all this travel is dwindling my milk supply. I pumped about half as much each time on this trip as I did in the UK. Of course the fact that I was working 12+ hours a day (night?), had to pump twice while observing in the control room with no privacy (at 3am I didn't expect any visitors, but that would be just my luck!), and the huge time difference/sleep deprivation probably didn't help. I'm home now for a while which is great.

(Little One's contribution to this blog - apart from making it take about 3 hours to write: "```````````", got to go - we're having one of "those" mornings.)

Good Job News

2008-05-13T09:28:00.002-04:00

Much to my amazement I finally have some good job news. I got the first grant I applied for to work at the place near my husband's new job. It's actually a fairly prestigious sounding award too, so it'll look great on my CV. It's about 50% support so there are some details to work out, but there is another pot of money I'm waiting to hear about which may sort all that out. I'm having a hard time taking it in after the job season we've had, but it is fun to finally have good news to share, instead of news of yet another job I didn't get.

Beautiful Saturn

2008-05-02T14:28:00.006-04:00

One of the things which initially attracted me to Astronomy was the beauty of astronomical images. Astronomy is almost unique among the sciences in that it produces images which can be appreciated both for their science as well as for pure aesthetic pleasure. A prime example of this duality has recently opened at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. It's an exhibit of images of Saturn from the Cassini-Huygens mission.

Quoted in the Cornell Daily Chronicle, Elizabeth Bilson (retired administrative director of the Cornell Astronomy Department) says of the image which inspired her to suggest the exhibition, "it glowed". She put forward the idea to members of the Cassini-Huygens team at Cornell who then worked together to select other images to be included in the exhibition which includes about 100 images in total.

And what a beautiful sight it truly is. This image was taken when Cassini-Huygens passed into the shadow Saturn allowing it to be shown spectacularly back-lit by the Sun. This image could never have been taken from Earth and is only available to us thanks to the dedication of astronomers, planetary scientists and engineers who worked on the Cassini-Huygens mission.

Thanks for indulging me, and what a delight is has been to write a post about Astronomy. Finally the job season is over and I hope for more of this to come. I chose "Astronomom" as a name (instead of some generic science mom title) not only because I thought it sounded cool but also because I actually wanted to talk about Astronomy as well as the challenges of being a scientist and a mother. After all I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't love the subject!

International Travel

2008-04-25T12:11:00.006-04:00

I just got back from a short trip to Europe for a second interview for that "cool outreach" position I mentioned (this is following an interview last month via video conference). I'm aparantly now one of two candidates - so keep your fingers crossed. Anyway travelling internationally away from little one posed some interesting questions and I thought it might be helpful to post my findings here. I'm still nursing little one morning and night (and other times if she demands it - which she often does). I didn't want 3 days away from her to mess up this part of our relationship, and I didn't want to be uncomfortable from stopping breast feeding while away, so I wanted to pump. Since breast milk is so great for babies I also wanted to bring this milk back with me from Europe so little one could have the benefit.

Question 1. Do all countries have such nice helpful policies as the TSA about allowing breast feeding mothers to carry on milk when travelling without their baby.

Answer - NO! I called the security helpdesk at Heathrow airport to check their policy and was met with confusion that anyone would want to do this. Oddly I think in some ways this is a good thing. In Europe maternity leave policies are much more generous. It's common for working mothers to get a year home with their babies. So that means there are many fewer working mothers who are still breast feeding - so many fewer who travel away from their little ones and need to travel home with the breast milk they have pumped but without a baby. The help desk had to call me back with the answer - which was that their policy of allowing reasonable amounts of milk for babies only applies if the baby is travelling with you. I could have the usual ziplock bag with small containers and that was that. Turns out my Medela bottles are 2.7 oz in size, and 6 of them will fit in the standard 1 quart ziplock (this still works in the UK where the limits are 100 ml bottles and a 1 litre bag). In three days away I pumped 8 Medela containers worth, so I packed 2 with ice in my checked bag and brought the rest along with me. That worked fine. I still think that the rules should be changed to mirror the helpful TSA policy change of August 4th 2008 - and in my copius spare time I will write the Heathrow security people a letter suggesting that.

Question 2. Can I bring breast milk through US customs?

Answer - YES! This I thought would be a big problem, but it turns out that breast milk is exempt from the normal rules on transport of food as you can find out at the helpful FAQ section of the US Customs and Boarder Protection website. Great news, and not at all what I expected. Way to go USCBP!!

I have to go to Australia next month for an observing trip, so you will be getting part two of International Travel soon. Will the Ozzies be more breast feeding friendly than the Brits. We'll find out!

Oh, and as a little extra note - Medela Pumps don't have plugs you can use in Europe. Luckily I have a friend with a US-UK converter I could borrow and I found this out by reading the info on the plug and not trying it out and frying something!

I miss pumping!

2008-03-25T14:22:00.003-04:00

Little one is now almost 13 months old. Soon she will move to the toddler room at daycare where they will not deal with baby bottles. So a couple of weeks ago we dropped one of the bottles of breast milk at daycare and replaced it with a sippy cup of whole milk. She has been doing great with this, and since we have a reasonably large stash of frozen breast milk at home after my trip in January I have stopped pumping at work. Once the frozen milk runs out little one will get only whole milk at daycare ready for her move into the "big kids" room. I plan to continue to breast feed her while we're together for as long as is mutually desirable (as per the AAP recommendation), and I can't see either of us wanting to loose the evening snuggle time any time soon.

I always thought I would be delighted to stop pumping at work. Well here's the unexpected thing - after all my earlier whining about the time pumping takes out of my day, now that I have stopped I miss the breaks. Twice a day I had an excuse to go to our fancy new lactation room and read parenting magazines or listen to music. OK - I could take this break without actually pumping, but I never do. There always seems to be something more pressing (even if it's just reading the news online).

I guess I'm also a little sad about the end of this era in little one's life. I keep having to remind myself that she still gets a lot of breast milk in the evening, at night and in the morning. I feel funny about using up the frozen milk I worked so hard to build up and which I have been so protective of. I worry that an unexpected trip will come up and little one will need that milk, but of course she would be just fine on only whole milk and many babies are totally weaned at this age.

NICU Moms

2008-03-19T15:18:00.002-04:00

Just wanted to send a note of encouragement to Day By Day Female Scientist who recently had her baby. Her little one needs some extra help right now and is in the NICU. This time last year I had been home just about a week with my little one, who intially spent 10 days in the Level 2 nursery (next step down from a NICU - they just can't deal with the very sickest babies) because she was 5 weeks early. As "Day By Day" says it's exhausting, emotional and overwhelming to be a first time Mom (or any time Mom I suspect) of a NICU baby. I only have a tiny insight into what she's going through as my little one had no operations, didn't need a ventillator, was never in any serious danger, and mostly we could hold her whenever we wanted. She just had an IV, incubator, jaundice treatment and monitoring for Apnea spells - which was quite enough wires for me! When I look back on that time now it is almost nostalgic, but I still mourn for the loss of those early days in some ways. I wish I could have held little one longer right after birth, and breast fed her right away (so maybe shouldn't wouldn't have needed a sugar IV). I wish we could have slept in the same room so she could have heard my breathing (and maybe not have had so many Apnea spells), and that she wouldn't have been stuck under hospital lighting in that dreary room (and maybe gotten over her jaundice quicker). I also don't think it was so great for me to sleep on a hospital couch 3 days after giving birth and have to keep walking up and down the hall to see my baby, but that's another story...

Often the hardest thing for me was to see the happy faces of parents and visitors of "normal" babies. I wanted that experience for my first birth and I can never have it. I have told my husband that our next child should be born (at full term and healthy) on a weekend (so we can have lots of visitors), and that I need lots of balloons and flowers! I know that can't be ordered of course, and in fact it is slightly less likely than usual for me since I have a history of preterm birth. I know of course that the main thing is that our baby is healthy and developing well now, but I think it's important to acknowledge that the early days were traumatic, and we did miss something that most parents take for granted.

Anyway, to "Day By Day Female Scientist" I want to say - hang in there. It's worth it! Even though it feels like forever at the moment, this time will pass. I am thinking of you and your little one and hoping that the worst is now over and you'll be taking her home soon.

Don't Give Up

2008-03-17T14:11:00.002-04:00

"Don't give up". Three little words, but ones that for some reason had been lacking from my current boss and my old thesis advisor. Funny thing is I hadn't even noticed that until the advice came from a totally unexpected source. Sure my boss and old advisor seem to assume I'll stay in astronomy and work out my current problems - but haven't offered much in the way of practical advice or encouragement for me to do so. Perhaps they think it's so obvious that it doesn't need to be said. I don't think it's that obvious. Especially in my situation - I know many women give up their careers once they have babies, so I would think it doubly important for people to tell me not to (well unless I want to)...

Anyway several potentially positive things have happened since my last post:

1. I discovered that only 30 minutes away from the location of my husband's new job is a new Institute of Cosmology, which looks like a pretty interesting place to work.

2. On getting in touch with people at that Institute I have had a very welcoming response - for sure I can have a desk, maybe a few months salary, and we are working on some grants together. This is much more positive than I expected considering I was basically throwing myself on their mercy....

3. On the phone with one of these people at the cosmology institute I had a long conversation about the poor funding situation in astronomy at present. We talked about how tough of a hiring year this has been, and how people are giving up and leaving the field. This person thinks that if I can "hang in there" things will be better in a few years, so I shouldn't "give up". This might be seen as empty advice, except that they seem willing to try quite hard to help me do this - even though I have never met this person..! Amazing!

4. I have another interview for a "cool outreach" position. One I thought I would never be considered for as it's way too exciting! It's "almost" within commuting distance of my husband's new job.... so it would add some complications if I was offered it, but it's very exciting!

5. I had a career counselling appointment, specifically for postdocs (it's a pilot at my current university run by a career counseller who used to be a biology postdoc). The conclusion - I should stay in Astronomy, maybe do more education and public outreach. Duh! Not really news to me, but encouraging that an impartial advisor sees the same things as me. Now I just have to figure out how to do this!

My "successful" job search.

2008-03-05T15:38:00.003-05:00

Well job season is drawing to a close in Astronomy, leaving behind in it's wake a bunch of people wondering "what next"? From the outside I seem to have had a pretty successful job season. I made two faculty shortlists, which I am very proud of, and was the second choice for another permanent position. However in this case there are no prizes for second, and I have come away with no job offer.... So what next...

At the same time as looking forward I'm also looking back, wondering what I could have done different to the outcome this year. I'm also wondering what would have been different if I didn't have the constraints of a child. As I mentioned in a previous post, I tried not to go all out this year. I was *very* selective about the postdocs I applied for... none of which I was offered. Without the baby I would have applied to more postdocs - but ones which I didn't think were such a good match... Would I really have had more chance of getting one of those? In a conversation this week someone mentioned that it seems most people don't get a faculty offer until their second year on the market. In fact the person who has now accepted one of the jobs I interviewed for did "very well" last year - getting on several shortlists, but recieved no offer. This year, she (very deservedly) got multiple offers, and will be a great Prof. So maybe I should have applied last year in order to up my chances this year. .. But last year at this time I had a 5 day old preemie... I really wouldn't have had the energy for the job search last year (maybe some pregnant women could, but not me) so I can't easily regret not doing that.

For the future - well my husband just accepted a job (he's also an academic) so I know the location. I'll be looking at options there, and trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life!

Proposal Deadlines

2008-02-27T15:47:00.002-05:00

Life always gets hectic for Astronomers around proposal deadline time. Somehow many major facilities have their deadlines all at similar times... Oh well. I grew up the kind of person who likes to do things well in advance of deadlines. I was one of those annoying kids at school who always finished their homework ahead of time. However my collaborators are not all like this, and since becoming a postdoc I have had to adjust to a more last minute, up to the wire kind of approach to deadlines. Yesterday this all seemed to go very wrong. My working day is now set by a very real deadline of when I have to pick little one up from daycare. Sure I could get my husband to do it (normally he drops off, and I pick up so I can nurse little one and have so quality time), but that would require advance notice too. All afternoon yesterday I waited for some updates from a collaborator to include in our proposal. Actually this was already after the proposal deadline, but I had asked for an extension. Of course the updates came just as I needed to leave! After a quick minutes soul searching I figured it wouldn't make much difference so I would let it slide this time - and I needed to leave. Do you have any idea what daycare's charge if you pick up late. Ours changes $1 a minute. More to the point little one was expecting me (and the milk bar). This morning I updated the proposal out of interest and looked at how small the changes would be anyway. So that cheered me up. Then I got an email saying I could still submit the updated version if I needed to. So no crisis afterall.

I have a toddler

2008-02-26T09:22:00.003-05:00

Well I got one wish - little one walked for the first time at home on Friday night. Now I can enjoy her walking, and how good they are at getting her to do it at daycare. When I picked her up yesterday she happily walked back and forth a few steps between me and her favourite teacher. To top it all off her first tooth finally broke through. It was a big weekend.

I finally cracked and got in touch with some people about the job searches. Unfortunately none of it is good news. I've known for a while now that "big state school" had offered the position to someone else. I wasn't really sure that was where I wanted to be anyway so I'm sure that's for the best. Unfortunately "small liberal arts school" has now also made an offer, although they are saying my application is still active so if #1 turns them down I might be in with a chance. I think it's fairly unlikely though.

The Dog in the Manger

2008-02-21T13:27:00.002-05:00

Job seasons is stressful and wearing for everyone involved. I'm starting to get really stressed, despite my resolution to not let it bother me, and what's more lately it's making me feel mean too. While we're still waiting to figure out what we'll be doing next year, lots of people I know are getting themselves all sorted out. I feel mean because I know I should be happy for them (and really I am), but all I can think about is why can't we have some good news too - how come they get to be sorted out while we just wait.

It's such a roller coaster. Any minute now (literally) I could get a phone call either offering me a job, or moving me one step closer to leaving research. Or maybe they won't get in touch until next week! Pretty rough.

All this stress isn't good for my work productivity - example in point - I could be writing what I think is a pretty interesting proposal to get some new optical images of some galaxies. This proposal would be due early next week. However bringing myself to do that when I might be leaving the field is really difficult. If one of the faculty jobs comes through though it would be really nice to have some observing time in the works... I really don't know what to do... What I could use here is some great advice from a postdoc advisor - but that's another story!

And through this little one is oh so close to walking. She now likes to walk around holding our hands - and after a few goes figured out she doesn't have to go sideways (like a crab - or a baby cruising along the furniture). She also likes to push stuff around - little stools, and boxes etc. I really don't want to miss those first independent steps though. I want to see the wonder on her face when she figures out she can branch out on her own through the middle of the room. I want to be the person she first walks towards. But maybe she'll walk today at daycare. I know it shouldn't matter, and I dealt fine with her pulling up to standing for the first time at daycare, but this one really bothers me.

Conference Time

2008-02-13T10:26:00.004-05:00

Since little one was born I've been to 3 conferences and one meeting at my home institution. For each of the 3 conferences I travelled to my husband and the baby came along. The most recent conference we were able to get the university to pay for my husbands travel expenses as part of a program they have to help postdocs and young faculty with travel if they have small children. This was fantastic.

However I'm starting to think that there is almost no point in going to a conference if I bring little one along. I say almost no point, because of course I got the exposure of giving a talk each time which is a good thing. The other point of conferences though it is socialize with your peers at coffee and dinner. With little one along for the ride I have to dash around to feed her in the breaks, and at dinner. I could pump instead - which I did at the meeting at my home institution - but even then I'm dashing around in the breaks to have enough time to pump, and have no time to socialize. The solution - longer breaks to accomodate nursing mothers, and others who need more time for whatever reason - but of course meetings are almost always scheduled to bursting point, so I don't see that happening.

The most recent meeting was particularly bad as every session ran at least a few minutes over - to a maximum of 1 1/2 hours (no kidding) one morning. This time was made up by shortening the breaks, which most people seemed just fine with, but then all they had to do was grab a coffee/lunch and head back into the room. With little one around I really needed more time than that. I felt like I spent the whole meeting catching up with myself. It was not conducive to socializing, or really taking much in of all the really interesting talks. This was supposed to be a family friendly meeting too - and there was more than one "Astronomom" present (although I was the only one still nursing I think). In other respects the organizers were very accomodating to little one's needs, but I suspect that all I will remember from that meeting in years to come will be the terrible run overs in each session.

Interview Experiences

2008-02-11T14:54:00.000-05:00

Well as I mentioned I had two interviews for faculty jobs this past month. I thought I would spend a little time describing how they went in terms of the logistics. FYI little one is now 11 months old, and I had not spent a single night away from her until the second of these trips.

Interview 1: big state school. My husband and little one came along for the ride.
Interview 2: small liberal arts college. I went alone - leaving little one at home with her dad for 48 hours.

Overall I would say (and I'm surprised about this) but leaving little one at home was the better idea. I nearly threw in the towel the day before leaving for the first interview. Packing for little one and myself while also wanting to work on my talk was almost too much for me. The travel was of course a lot more stressful, and while at the interview I had no time to relax or work at all in the evening as I was just having to deal with baby stuff (or in a dark hotel room, since little one was sleeping). I pretty much fell asleep as soon as she did every night. Going by myself I obviously missed little one, and I had to pump much more, and deal with traveling with breast milk (see my previous post), but I actually could work on my talk in the
evening and decompress from the interviews a little. The only real downside of this was the extra work before the trip to make sure there was enough stocked up breast milk to last 48 hours. I pumped an extra once or twice a day for a couple of weeks which really got old quick. Of course now we have a ton of extra milk in the freezer, so I will be able to wind down pumping a little earlier than I planned before.

So surprisingly my advice is to go alone even if it feels impossible to leave your baby. I really didn't feel ready to leave my little one - getting on the plane was a pretty hard, and I was very happy to come back. In the end it worked out for the best though, and I'm happy as I do not have to travel away from her again for a couple of months.

Mommy Brain

2008-02-06T09:18:00.000-05:00

I was dubious about the "Mommy Brain" phenomena - that supposedly pregnancy and childcare dulls your intellectual capacity. In fact there's an entire book "The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes us Smarter" which apparently shows the opposite. Perhaps I should read it (if I had the time!). Whether or not they exist, I often feel lately that I have a case of the "Mommy brains". Maybe it's the combined effect of almost a year of not enough sleep, and the many more things I have to remember now, but I seem to keep forgetting both minor and important things. I have left my purse behind when it contained pretty important stuff (like passports when we were abroad) on two occasions recently. Both times I was lucky and was able to retrieve it. I forget my breast milk pumping equipment fairly regularly - in fact to the point that I'm collecting back-up supplies at work for when it happens next. Remembering my lunch is very hit and miss, although sometimes thats more to do with lack of time in the morning. I do a little better with little ones stuff, and at least I haven't left her behind anywhere yet. This sounds like a low aim, but my mother would often tell the story of leaving my brother behind at an amusement park ride, and how her mother - in another era - once left her parked in the pram outside the local store and went home without her! Mind you given little one's recent separation anxiety I can't leave her in the next room without hearing about it, so I suppose that's reassuring!

New Policies for Lighters, Electronics and Breast Milk

2008-02-05T12:24:00.001-05:00

A recent addition to the TSA's now famous limitations on liquids you can bring through security is that nursing mother's can bring "reasonable" amounts of breast milk through security "whether or not their baby is travelling with them". This is obviously important to working mothers who wish to pump while on business travel and bring the milk back with them for their baby. All nursing mothers agree that breast milk is pretty much the equivalent of liquid gold, so the thought of checking it, or sending it through the mail is not a happy one... so kudos to those "lactavists" who managed to get the rule changed.

Now this TSA rule is pretty new - infact all the signs I ever see in airports state that "you must be travelling with your baby" to bring "baby milk" through security. Oddly this new rule was also published August 4th 2007 under the title "New Policies for Lighters, Electronics and Breast Milk". So I think you might agree that I was understandably nervous about trying out this new policy on my recent trip away from little one. I was away for almost exactly 48 hours so not including the pumping session in the airport (standing in a dubiously clean, stale smoke smelling familly bathroom - but that's another issue), I had about 40 ounces of breast milk to travel back with. I came prepared with a print-out of the new rule, and with plenty of time to "argue with the supervisor" if it came to that. I think you'll forgive me for assuming that the average TSA employee might not have taken the time to become familiar with this rule, and may not have come across this situation before.

Well I have to say that I vastly underestimated the TSA (or maybe I overestimated them). My cooler of breast milk passed through the X-ray with not a single comment. As instructed in the rules I declared that I was "travelling with expressed breast milk", but I'm not entirely convinced they heard me in the noisy airport. Perhaps this has to do with the two gentlemen ahead of me in the line with arabic writing on their passports and who clearly were not familiar with the usual TSA procedure (taking out their laptops, removing their shoes and jackets etc). The TSA employees at that security line gave me not a second glance.

I feel a little guilty, but I have to say that travel without little one was a real treat! Obviously I missed her, but I had time to myself on the plane to read and no "bouncing baby with a death wish" to hold onto. I got two uninterrupted night's sleep (well apart from worry about my interview) and changed no diapers. I guess I was ready for a break (well as much of a break as can be provided by a faculty interview trip).

PS. I'll post more about my two faculty interviews when I get the chance.