I’ve been at home with the GeekBaby for the past week. Half of my two week “vacation” is already gone. It’s my first real experience of stay at homedom. And instead of cleaning or organizing or laundry or doing anything really useful at all, I’ve been cooking up a storm. I miss the lab bench an awful lot.
This week will have the added fillip of my needing to get some actual work-work done while I’m at home. I have 24 hearts worth of histology pictures that need myocyte diameters measured. This sounds more glamorous than it actually is. I’d like to get them all done, but it depends on the whims of my child.
But all these things aside, I find staying at home isn’t much different than going to the lab.
See, working as a research assistant for six or seven years turns out to be excellent practice for motherhood. Whining crying children or whining crying postdocs? The only difference is the power dynamics, at home I’m nominally in charge. Okay, that’s absolutely untrue. In both environments you must stop whatever you’re doing to tend to your postdoc and/or baby. Immediately.
Research assistants also learn about doing dishes that they didn’t make dirty, and picking up other people’s messes, and cleaning up other people’s toxic spills, taking people to the emergency room because they did something unsafe and are now paying for it… the list goes on and on! It’s practically the same job.
So I’ve been soothing my science-y bits with lots of cooking. I made my first ever batch of candy – fleur de sel caramels – and burnt my thumb with molten sugar doing it. I invented a crock pot minestrone recipe. Today I’m doing crab cakes. And to avoid completely overwhelming this blog with cooking, I’m blogging about all the cooking over at Om Nom Nom…
I’ve done more cooking than blogging. GeekBaby lets me cook, since it means he gets to eat. Blogging does not directly translate into eating, so he crawls into my lap whenever I try. Like he’s doing now. I guess it’s time to go.
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