workin', or not

[mamajoan]

The other day I took Isaac to my workplace to be admired. It went well. Everyone ooh'ed and ahh'ed, of course. :) I also spoke with my supervisor and he agreed that it will be okay for me to not return to work until after Labor Day (how apropos, eh?) even though that will be longer than the maternity leave they had promised me. Some of it will therefore be unpaid, but that'll be okay. My mom gave me some money as a birthday gift (mine, not his) and we'll be okay financially. And it's a relief to know I won't have to return to work a mere two weeks from now!!

Isaac is six weeks old and getting very hefty. He can hold his head up quite well (very advanced for his age!) and when you put him on his tummy, he lifts his leg and pushes onto his side -- it is clearly only a matter of time before he'll be turning himself over. Eep!

I am also doing mostly okay, with the exception of the occasional bad day (like yesterday) when it seems like he doesn't sleep at all and therefore neither do I. *groan* But that's life, right? I barely recognize myself in the mirror; my boobs look huge and my belly looks teeny! :)

In non-baby-related news, I finished reading four of the five Hugo-nominated novels and have decided that I'm not going to finish the fifth (The Scar by China Mieville) before the voting deadline of July 31st. So I will be voting for Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice And Salt. It's interesting -- I thought I would like Robert Sawyer's entry better (Hominids) because the last Sawyer book I read, I really liked, whereas I didn't much care for the last Robinson that I read; and yet, this time around, it was the reverse. I liked the concepts of Hominids but felt that the execution, so to speak, was lacking. It goes to show, you can't judge an author by just reading *one* of his books.

Comments

[perclexed.livejournal.com]

I'm so relieved to hear that you'll have additional time off, and that it won't be such a strain. You've been in my thoughts, and I hope both you and Isaac are doing well. I'm always glad to see you posting, whether or not I have a chance to respond.

You'll continue to remain in my thoughts, and I'll be sending good ones your way. Especially during those sleepless times. {{{hugs}}}

[tiggrrl.livejournal.com]

Hooray for more time to spend with Isaac. I'm sure it will make you a better worker when you do return to work, because you'll have had more time to adjust, and hopefully Isaac will be more settled as well, which will mean you'll be less sleep-deprived.

[retch.livejournal.com]

so does Isaac mean more, or less, time for reading?

I haven't read Years of Rice and Salt, but when we went to the kaffeklatsch with KSR at Worldcon last year it was certainly a large part of the discussion, and sounded interesting, though I was afraid it would be a bit dull (I loved the Mars books, their sweep and grandure were great, but they were just a teensy bit dull at times, heh). Hominids sounded pretty poor, and Sawyer has a lot of relatively weak books. I like the ones with the civilized dinosaurs, but they aren't great writing or stories, so when I saw the neg reviews on hominids I decided to give it a pass... Plus of course, I tend to not pick books up in hardcover, too expensive and they don't fit well on shelves, nor carry well for travel.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

so does Isaac mean more, or less, time for reading?

Actually, to my surprise, more. I thought I would have zero time for reading once the baby arrived, but as it turns out, there's lots of time while nursing him, waiting for him to fall asleep, waiting for him to wake up, etc....

I slogged through the first Mars book and really didn't enjoy it, but now that I've read Years of Rice and Salt, and started on A Short Sharp Shock, I'm beginning to think I like KSR better when he does fantasy rather than hard sf. Or so it seems.

I really liked Sawyer's entry in last year's Hugos, Calculating God, but Hominids really disappointed me -- the concept was fascinating and the science itself was interesting, but the characterizations were flat and, frankly, misogynistic. I was VERY annoyed by the way that, every time he mentioned a particular female character, he had to mention that she was beautiful. She's a top-notch scientist and integral to the plot, but the fact that she's good-looking is really irrelevant, so why harp on it so much? That bugged the crap out of me. And he continued to do it in the sequel, too. :P

Plus of course, I tend to not pick books up in hardcover, too expensive and they don't fit well on shelves, nor carry well for travel.
I'm the same way in general, except with a few select authors whose works I *must* have as soon as they come out. But anyway, I get the Hugo nominees from the library, in case I hate them. ;)