Doing Gender at Halloween

Some of you may recall the earlier post I did around Halloween about how disappointed Callen was at not being dressed as a princess at Halloween. She wanted to be a witch and that was the costume I got for her. She was fine with that until we got to her school and saw the bevy of princesses all around. Above are a few pix from her Halloween party at school. Wish I'd had camera in the AM when I dropped her off as more of the princesses were there at the time.

The last 2 pictures are pix of Callen's witch's costume after we embellished it on Saturday before going trick or treating that night.

Twas the Day Before Christmas

and Aunt Suz was putting some presents under the tree. Callen asked which ones were hers. Aunt Suz pointed them out. A little while later I'm walking through the den and what to my eyes should appear --- a 4 year old sitting by the tree opening her presents. I tried to explain that today was only Christmas Eve and we open presents on Christmas morning but the little 4 year old fell awash with tears. Oh my. She chose to spend a little time in her room until the tears abated and she could apologize.

Afterwards we finished decorating the gingerbread house and all was fine : ).

Happy Christmas to All and To All a Good Day and Night, she exclaimed as she went back to wrapping and prepping for Christmas Day.

Gender Differences in Cell Phone Usage among Youth

Our media rep did a press release on a new paper that I and two colleagues just had published in New Media & Society. Here's a link to it. A horrible pix of me, but good coverage of the article. Contact me if you'd like a copy of the article.
http://main.uab.edu/Sites/MediaRelations/articles/71818/

What's Your Vote?

Here are 4 of the Fall 2009 pix of Callen that were taken at her school. Which one do you think would be best for the Christmas cards this year? Please vote soon!

Callen Turns 4!

Today was Callen's 4th birthday. I can't believe she is 4! She's growing up so fast.

We had a party at a local bouncy place this morning. About 16 or so of her friends came and they all had fun! We had a beautiful cake that was really yummy.

I so wanted to post pix on the blog and Facebook today but with the party and trying to finish getting ready to fly to DC this afternoon, it just didn't happen. I hope to have lots of pix up before the end of the coming week.

I have lots of blogging to catch up on:
- going to the pumpkin patch
- Halloween, trick or treating, and her cute witch outfit
- celebrating Callen's birthday at her school on Friday
- the party today
- and much more I'm sure.

Happy birthday my beautiful angel!

How Am I Spending My Fall Break?

I had originally planned that Callen and I would go to NC and visit with friends and family during my fall break. I also wanted to take her to the NC State Fair. I loved it growing up and as a young adult. I haven't been in years and I thought we'd have fun doing this. And, the Alabama one is tiny and a waste of time in my opinion. The Maryland one when we lived there wasn't much better either.

But, the reality set in and I decided there's no way we could do this trek to NC. It is a whole day in the car each way unfortunately. If Express Jet still did their non-stop flights to Raleigh (no airlines have direct flights to RDU from B'ham now unfortunately) I would have probably gone but without this it was just too much of a trek!

So, here I am on the first day of my fall break. So far today, I've:
- taken Callen to school
- bought bagels for home
- done 3 loads of laundry
- edited a job letter for a new undergrad research assistant I'm bringing on to my XO project
- reviewed and made comments on a report I need to give to the school system on my XO project
- checked email, Facebook, and Twitter (a few times!)
- and thought about the multitude of other things I need to do today.

I think I and perhaps other academics often think of fall break as a time to have a short break from our regular routine and a brief time to refresh before classes resume. Unfortunately, I don't think mine will be that way this year.

On the positive side though: It is good to work at home today, and I didn't have to get to my office at 7 in time to do some work before my 8 AM class. Sleeping a little later is always a good thing!

Maybe next year Callen and I can go to the fair!

My Little Drama Queen

The things Callen says these days just amaze me. We were in the car coming home from dinner last night and talking about a birthday party we're going to today. I told her we should make a birthday card for Emery when we got home. A few minutes later in the conversation Callen said: If I forget to take the card to the party, I'll be doomed! Now, where does an almost 4 year old learn the word doomed? I tried to get her to explain to me what the word meant but she couldn't or wouldn't. I told her that she wouldn't be 'doomed' if she forgot to take the card but she still kept saying it. Yep, broadway here we come!