Well, awhile back Jordana tagged me... and I never responded, so now, I will try to pull this off while the baby is nursing propped on the boppy...

*8 Obscure Facts About Me*

1) I had 5 wisdom teeth. They all got removed when I was 16. My mouth is actually really, really small, so I now only have 24 teeth (the normal adult mouth has 32, including wisdom teeth.)

2) I have lived in 6 states, and visited about 38 (there are a few I'm not sure about.) But the only time I've been out of the US was a trip to Mexico in high school to do volunteer work.

3) Barbara Bush is my aunt. (She's a retired school teacher in Kentucky.)

4) My grandfather was the director of the state department of mental health in Georgia. He died in 1976, before I was born. My grandparents would have turned 100 this year if they were still alive. They met in France in WW II, in the army.

5) I didn't read much just for fun in high school, so when the Wheaton application asked for a list of "leisure reading" from the past couple of years, I systematically picked about 14 books that would prove I was "well-rounded"and read them just so I could list them. (The thick biography of Marie Curie, to prove I was interested in issues related to women in science, was rather... hefty.)

6) I know 180 digits of pi. I can recite the first 100 in ten seconds.

7) I have been in at least 7 car accidents that I can remember. Once, the other driver was 14. Once I was on a school bus. Three times my dad was driving. Once a Wheaton professor was driving. Twice I was driving- once the accident was sort of my fault, but not legally so, and the other time it was legally my fault, but I wasn't really to blame (ice). The first time involved 5 cars on I-10 in Houston in rush hour, and fire trucks, and ambulances, and helicopters. I have never been injured.

8) (You didn't really think I would make it through this list without mentioning The Wee One, did you?) I call my newborn daughter many typical things, like "little love" and "sweet pea" and "precious angel" and "sugar pie," etc etc, but one morning this week I realized I had this urge to call her Chicken. Why "chicken," I thought? I fought the urge off a few times and then gave in, and started calling her Chicken. Then I realized what her favorite pose reminds me of:


So maybe I'm not as weird as I think. ;-)

Love, NEB

PS I tag... all of you!

Yeah! Thanks Valerie. So about 5 hours after I wrote that last post, my water broke (although I wasn't sure that's what it was at the time...). And about 7 hours after THAT, I totally pushed a baby out.

Yeah, so, there's that.

Also? Her cord stump just fell off. First tub bath tomorrow.

I must learn to type one-handed.

Will start Nebiverse update tomorrow morning at 5, God willing. Possibly typing one-handed.

Must go pump now, and to bed!

Love, Neb (&Madelaine)

PS Please see

http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/g/galois

for pictures and a guestbook!! :-)

Congratulations Nate and Neb on a new baby girl for Liam to choose from when he gets married. Can't wait to see more pictures. For those of you who missed it, Madelaine arrived, 3 1/2 weeks early and a day after Nate became Dr. Nate. Talk about a subtle post to announce it, Nate! Congrats!

Editing other people's posts:

If you are signed in, click on the little pencil icon to the bottom right of a blog entry. You should then be in edit mode.

It works for me, anyway. I'm going to go check that everyone is listed as an administrator for this blog.

Toodles.

P.S. Turns out that the more recent contributors to the blog (Neb and Nate, among others) were listed as guests, so now y'all are admin as well, which should now clear up the problem.

Wes, for goodness' sake, post already!

Question to the science-types (and please answer this one -- the air in our house depends on it!):

Are odors ions? Little bitty bacteria?

We're trying to figure out what kind of air filter to get, now that we have 3 felines. Odor is the major issue, as it's a longer-running problem. (We're already getting desensitized to our particular kitties' dander, so I'm not as worried about allergies. Plus, I could always vacuum. And dust. Keyword here being could.)

We've been borrowing an ionic filter from the MiL for a week, and that seems to have gotten rid of the majority of the odor, but I'm open to the possibility of placebo effects. Various consumer groups online say that ionic filters are crap and do very, very little of anything.

All I know is that the filter we're using has two pretty blue lights when it's running.

Hey guys, do we have any rules on this blog about Appropriate Picture Sharing? Is 6 okay? I shrank them down! Really! ;-)

My husband did his thing yesterday! He defended his dissertation against the cruel, harsh attacks of the outside world! He went into The Big Lecture Room with the Powerpoint and Made the Science Words for like an hour, all the words about the Proteins, um... doing their Protein Things! And there were graphs! and charts! and many, many equations! And I recognized a couple of the equations because I had helped with them! And then his family and I went into the room next door and set up all the tables of Snacks while the faculty people questioned him about his work and his affiliation with the Communist Party and why his shirt is never completely tucked in and why he's always drenched in sweat, and then they signed his papers, saying he's a Doctor! Woo hoo!

This is before the big talk. Doesn't he look incredibly Hott??? (...and hot...?)

Here's the snack room afterwards. The nice man in the blue shirt is his adviser, offering a toast. His siblings Adrienne and Elliot are here, too. (I'm pretty sure Elliot understood more of the talk than I did.) Do you see the cheese plate? With little flags in the cheeses? We had 10 kinds of cheese and I made little flags identifying each one because I hate eating cheese and not knowing what I'm eating. Not that I'm obsessive compulsive or anything.

Look at all those cookies I baked! Because I am totally a Proverbs 31 woman! (Just kidding, of course. Wegman's helped out a little bit. But if we read the part of Proverbs 31 that says something about "bringing food from afar," then I still qualify...?)

Here's Nate looking happy with his friend John.

Most of the good friends he's made while in grad school.

And as a special surprise, his family and my family and some friends chipped in and we got him the Big Person camera he's always wanted. So after he opened that, the rest of the evening was spent Talking Camera with his dad (they know all the things about lenses and filters and, you know... Camera Things.) So he was a happy boy. And then I fell into bed, exhausted and Great With Child.

So thanks to those of you who prayed for him. Yay! (Now we just need a job.)

Love, Neb

PS I'm posting this on my own blog, too, for the benefit of that audience...

(A day late, as usual...) ;-)

Happy Anniversary, Chris and Jordana.

(And we must say, two in four years isn't bad... you certainly have us beat!)

Love, Neb & Nate

PS (To everyone)- Nate is defending his dissertation on Tuesday. Prayers appreciated!