tick tock

How old will you live to be?

http://www.agingresearch.org/calculator/

Another interesting baby-related fact connected to the age calculator: "In a study of over 100 centenarians, the Harvard based New England Centenarian Study found that 20% of the women had at least one of their children after the age of 40. This was compared to about 5% of women who lived to just average life expectancy. Thus, a woman who has a child after the age of 40 (without fertility assistance) is about 5 times more likely to achieve exceptional old age. There is also an increased probability in the case of having a child between the ages of 35 and 40, though it is less. It is probably not the act of having a child in her forties that helps get a woman to 100. Rather, this is probably a sign that her reproductive system is very healthy and aging very slowly and therefore the rest of her is probably aging slowly as well. Furthermore, she probably has an increased resistance to diseases associated with aging that might also impact fertility, such as heart disease and diabetes. Thus, do not purposefully put off having a child until you are forty or older because you think it will help you live to 100. In actuality, for most women, fertility markedly falls after age 35 and the risk to both mother and child increases after that age."

For the past couple days I've been revisiting single life. Ezer is at camp with the kids from the Harlem clinic. I am staying up late, letting my dishes go unwashed (not too, too long), and am calling lots of girlfriends (whom I do call when he's home....just with less frequency!).

We're currently sandwiched between New Hampshire weekends. Last weekend Ezer finished his first half-ironman distance triathlon (1.2 mi swim, 56 mi bike, 13.1 mi run). This weekend his family is renting a cabin for everyone. This will be my first Kang family vacation. I've never spent more than a day with them....I'm sure it will be good. It's interesting how distance plays into relationships. We see his family at least once a month for a few hours. We see my family 2-3 times a year but for at least a week at a time usually.

New Hampshire was beautiful. Lots of trees, hills, water. We stayed in a great B&B (www.lighthouseinnbb.com) and had a fun weekend. I really like taking vacations together - lots of time, good conversations, new experiences. I can see why many people point to lack of time as one of the big culprits in weakening marriages...and why post-baby can be a particularly trying time.

I insisted on driving part of the way even though Ezer was willing to do it all. Need to keep up my skills! Seriously, I feel a little rusty now when I get behind the wheel...a foreign idea for a former L.A. driver. I notice that my need to feel in control plays prominently in driving. When I know where we're going I like to drive. When I don't know the way well I like to navigate.

I'd like to start posting pictures. I'm starting to think I may go digital...a big thing for me since I love my Olympus Stylus and my scrapbooking....not that I need to stop doing the latter. Tonight I was surfing the net and saw that National Geographic offers week-long photography workshops in places like Santa Fe...that could be a good next vacation. I also discovered a blog to feed into my name hobby (can I call it that? what's a better name?): http://www.babynamewizard.com/blog/