First children are bound to feel neglected and resentful at times when a younger sibling comes along. So far, Claire has been doing splendidly with the addition of Aerin into our lives, but there are moments here and there where I can see the sadness in her eyes when we are preoccupied with Aerin.

To help her know that we will never stop loving her, this past Sunday, we decided to give Claire some “alone” time with mommy and daddy by taking her to the Liberty Science Center. (J’s parents graciously agreed to watch Aerin while we were out.) We actually live just 15 minutes away from this wonderful, interactive science museum and I had been dying to take Claire for ages.

The Liberty Science Center is New Jersey’s largest and newest museum, and also houses
the nation’s largest IMAX Dome. 

The entrance to the Science Center is grand, with an expanding & collapsing sphere by Chuck Hoberman. We spent quite some time in the main lobby so that Claire could stare up at the sphere. I think she could have spent hours there if we hadn’t dragged her away.

(image source)

Claire is still too young to enjoy the majority of the museum. The very first exhibit we entered was called Energy Quest, which explores various types of energy, and our overly shy and cautious daughter seemed more scared than captivated by the loud and startling stations.

So we decided to move on to Our Hudson Home, which we knew housed some large fishtanks, and score! She LOVED it.

(Before I go on, I must apologize for the quality of the following pictures. Someone — ahem! — forgot to check the battery on our camera before we left the house, so all the photos from this outing were taken with a cell phone camera.)

She loved the fish so much that even when we had seen everything and tried to exit the exhibition, she repeatedly turned around to go back for more.

Other highlights of the day included a floating beach ball…

And an exhibition called Eat and Be Eaten which had more live animals.

As stated above, most of the exhibitions were much too advanced for our 16-month-old. However, whenever we saw a button we let her press it. She loves buttons (she even knows which buttons to press for our building’s elevator!) and pressing each one to see an interactive display unfold made her squeal and clap on more than one occasion.

It makes me sad to think that she might not know what these are when she grows up.

We would have loved to have visited the I Explore exhibition, which is specifically designed for kids aged 2-5, but there was a private party going on there at the time.  There’s always next time, right?

J and I have agreed that we will almost definitely be purchasing a family membership to the Liberty Science Center when our kids get a bit older. We may even plan a birthday party there — I checked, and the prices aren’t as exorbitant as I had feared.

In the meantime, I plan to continue to visit with my eldest in tow whenever we need some “mommy & me” time…..and when Aerin gets old enough to appreciate the Science Center too, I am guessing that we will be making numerous family trips.

Claire seems to be doing much better this morning. Her fever is gone, she no longer cries out from pain, and she is finally eating.

I did not sleep a wink last night from worrying over my sick daughter. Since my in-laws have arrived early this morning to help with the baby, I will now attempt to get some shut-eye…

But before I do, as Gandolf powerfully proclaimed to the Balrog at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, I would like to roar to this ear infection, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”

And in the spirit, here is a clever physics problem that incorporates that famous scene:

Physics was my worst subject in school, so I have no idea how I would even go about attempting to solve this problem. But taking into consideration the epic geekery of this question, I wonder if I would have fared better with instructors who were as creative as this…

Via Reddit.

Yesterday, we discovered 2 new teeth in Claire’s mouth — one on either side of her top front teeth — making for a grand total of 6 teeth at the age of 12 months.

(So far, all of her teeth have come in pairs. Is this normal?)

The best part? She did not exhibit any signs of teething prior to our discovering these new pearly whites. If you can recall, the first four were hellish: waking up 5-6x per night, constant whining and crying, extreme clinginess, and so forth.

We’re keeping our fingers crossed that this will be the norm for the rest of her teeth!

And, to celebrate, I will share with you a picture of a child’s skull before losing their baby teeth:

(image source)

Completely horrifying yet strangely fascinating at the same time, wouldn’t you say? 

How much does psychology come into play when it comes to the day a woman gives birth?

As it turns out, more than what you might expect.

Using 11-years’ worth of U.S. birth certificate data provided by the National Center for Health Statistics, Yale researchers have found that there are higher instances of birth on Valentine’s Day, a holiday traditionally linked with positive symbolism, while Halloween — a holiday which traditionally conveys negative symbolism — has lowered birth rates.

Take a look at the following graphs, provided by Try Nerdy:

While the overall increased likelihood of giving birth on Valentine’s Day jumps by 5%, a whopping 11.3% decrease in births was seen on Halloween across these years!

Although I know quite a few women who say that they would love to have a Halloween baby, I personally am keeping my fingers crossed that BebeDeux (whose due date is November 3) will not be born on this holiday — not due to the negative connotations, but because I prefer not to have my child share her birthday with a major holiday.

I have stated over and over again that I’m hoping for a November 1 birthday so that her birthdate will be binary: 11-1-11! (J wants her to stay in there longer because he wants a 11-11-11 birthday, born at 11:11:11!)

I also have another ulterior motive for wanting a November birthday: my mother’s birthday is October 27, and my sister’s is October 28. Additionally, my cousin’s twins were born on Halloween (contrary to the data above)…and I would prefer that BebeDeux does not share a birthday with another member of the family, or even a birthday month with four family members. That being said, I admit that an October 29 birthday wouldn’t be too bad, as my mother, my sister, and my second daughter would have birthdays right next to each other’s.

I know that there are a million circumstances beyond my control, but if the hormonal mechanisms responsible for determining birth timing are affected by psychological factors as the study suggests, I believe that my chances of my getting a preferred birthday for BebeDeux are better than I thought!

Besides, I can remember just last year, wishing and hoping for a September birthday for Claire (her due date was October 3)…and she was born 4 days early, on the last day of September.

If you have children, would you say any psychological factors affected their birthdays?

This may just be the best fun-and-educational chart I’ve seen in quite some time!

Via I Love Charts.