April Showers

I find it amazing that April is only two-thirds done.

I thought January and February were grueling. Nearly all my free time was spent making my Math 20 lectures slides the best I could do. But that difficulty, at least, was voluntarily self-inflicted.

The last time I really mentioned personal news was the end of March. What has happened since then?

During Spring Break week (starting March 21st) I did not relax but arranged extra play dates for Smiley and two trips to the shooting range with friends. I also helped my wife help host a baby shower for a coworker. That was a fun, busy week.

Then Spring Term started. I'm teaching Math 25 now, which takes little time. I hoped to have a comparatively relaxing couple months.

At the end of March Smiley was doing great but had just caught a cold. This cold went all around Eugene and was dreadful: a week of misery followed by a week of residual cough during which adults went back to work and shared it with others.

So the end of March was a tough week with Smiley, which also had taxes and starting up a new term. We had Pesach seders at home early in the week and I led a seder at The River the first Saturday of April. Fortunately I had requested to only lead the seder without helping with preparations: that evening was a relaxing escape from the house instead of a pile of work when I was already worn out.

The next week I planned Smiley's birthday party while taking care of my wife, who had caught the cold.



The day after the birthday party my wife left for a work trip in South Carolina. I spent the day finishing with taxes, going grocery shopping, playing with Smiley, and doing six loads of laundry (getting rid all of the cold germs: bed sheets, blankets, her clothes in two loads, a white load, and Smiley's daily cloth diaper load).

My wife had diligently researched gluten-free eating options near the conference hotel, but was too busy to make use of them. So on her four-day trip she woke at 4am to fly across the country, had two fourteen-hour workdays, and woke at 4am (1am our time) to fly home, with nothing to eat but hotel salads, the Larabars in her backpack, and one hotel risotto that gluten-ed her.

The next day was Smiley's two-year pediatrician visit. He was feeling much better. My wife was understandably zonked. I spent the first half of last week helping her recover. Wednesday she repaid me by being with Smiley in the evening so I could go to bed at 8:30pm.

The last few days have been busy as I catch up on gardening, laundry, e-mail, and a bunch of other little things. Whew!

Yesterday Smiley had a great morning and afternoon, and then came down with a fever and exhausted inconsolableness at 6pm. Fortunately there is no head congestion, so he is still eating and sleeping well. The pediatrician's office said nothing is going around town with only fever as a symptom, so he's fighting off a virus.

Two weeks ago I checked out three movies from the local library. They are due on Friday. I don't think I'm going to get to see them this time around. But I have been pleased with classes this term, enjoying nice weather for most of the past three weeks, and making progress on my RPG design.