NOVA Vs. National Geographic

Most of you probably received my spam emails announcing that some of the research I work on would be featured on NOVA and National Geographic (these links connect to the actual episodes). For those of you lucky enough to evade those emails, I've finally caught you!

Last winter a film crew from NOVA came along with the host Neil deGrasse Tyson (yes, the guy behind demoting Pluto from planetary status) to film at our lab. Then this past summer we had National Geographic with their crew. Both wanted to cover our research on making a tissue engineered ear (basically human made ear cartilage) for wounded soldiers. It just so happened that they both aired within a few weeks of one another.

For those interested, I am the one who created the computer models of the ear and then made the scaffolds. I also made the wire 'skeleton' for the ear all by hand. In fact, in the National Geographic version they even showed me, mentioned my name, and included me talking for a bit! I'm totally famous! Well... not really, but it was sure fun to actually be in it. In the NOVA version they showed my boss (seen below holding the ear I designed) sitting at my computer looking at my files. Because my boss doesn't know how to use my software, I got to be just off camera to help make sure everything on the computer looked just right.

It was very exciting and is something that will be added to my resume soon.

For those of you who couldn't catch the National Geographic version (it was only shown on the National Geographic channel), you are all invited over to watch it whenever you want.

Turning 30

I just turned 30, and I'm starting to feel old. For the first time I've been nursing running injuries (a sore knee and a pulled calf muscles). Hopefully I can work through these issues quick enough to be able to have a decent go of the Boston Marathon which is in just 4 weeks (April 18 for those who are keeping track).

On my B-day one of the guys I work with came up to me and said, "Are you really 30?" (It is never a good sign when someone starts with a question like that). To which I said yes. He went on to say how he thought we were about the same age (~24), and I was just thinking, wow, how do you miss that?

For the most part I don't feel that different, but growing up 30 always seemed pretty old and after that conversation it made me think I WAS getting old. On top of that, I am going to be the father of TWO little girls soon. WEIRD!

That said, I would much rather be 30 and happily married with two cute little girls than without any of those things.

Ava's Version of 'Italy'

One of the great things about toddlers is listening to them learn to speak and Ava is no exception. Ava provides us with lots of entertainment on this front. In our kitchen we have pictures up on the wall from our trip to Italy, and one day Ava pointed to them and did her best to say 'Italy'. This is what came out instead:

Announcing...Our First Neglected Child

As everybody knows, the oldest child gets by far the most attention. Every successive child has few to no photographs taken of them and are hardly ever mentioned.

So, to avoid breaking that tradition, we are just now (5.5 months in) doing our first blog post about our second baby girl who is due sometime around July 1. And to prove that we are not making it up, here is a belly picture of Britney.

The pregnancy has gone pretty well so far and we are hoping that it stays that way. Britney has felt a bit better than she did with Ava (thankfully) and can even still handle onions and tomatoes which were blacklisted during the first pregnancy.

Before the ultrasound we were thinking the baby might be a boy because it was so active. In reality we just have another extremely active baby girl. We are thrilled that Ava will have a baby sister and grateful that they will be about 2 years apart so that we can reuse all of Ava's clothes and toys. Hopefully Ava can overcome her hyper-attachment issues and not be a total wreck for the first few months after her sister is born.

PS- If anyone has any ideas on how to transition a toddler with attachment issues into nursery we would love to hear them. Ava still has yet to make it more than 20 min without us in nursery.

One sock

Ava has been learning tons of words and does some very funny things. A while back Britney put socks on her hands and she thought it was hilarious, so much so that she will occasionally ask us to put a sock on her hand. A few weeks ago while she had a sock on her hand we managed to capture this:

Crazy Straw

After a long hiatus, I am finally trying to do some blog catch up. Here goes the first one.

In January Bradley came to visit us. While he was here we went to a fun diner for breakfast. We got a cup of hot chocolate with one of the meals which I got to enjoy. When I first got it, it was too hot to drink straight, so I decided to drink it with a straw.

I guess that wasn't such a good idea because this happened...

Bassett family pictures

Family picture time! Bethany took these for us out in Concord, MA. The colors were beautiful and I loved the way they turned out.

(this would be the "smile, Ava!" move that always works!)

This is the pic that made the final cut for Christmas cards

Even though these pictures were only taken last fall, I am already nostalgic thinking about all the new changes that will be coming into our little family in the following months - a move out of the beautiful New England fall and the addition of another baby! Exciting, but I'm so grateful for these pictures to remind me of this current stage of our family.