July 23, 2003 - 8:49 a.m.

I Got My Baby Back, Baby Back...

Well, miracle of miracles, my computer seems to be back to normal. Monday night I reinstalled the operating system (without wiping out my data even), and so far things are functioning well. I have only used it briefly to check email, but we will see how things go over the next few days. It figures that after the lenghty visit at the Apple Store, the trip to my friend's house to transfer the contents of the hard drive, and much angst, the problem was solved in such a simple manner. That'll teach me to trust a single run of the hardware test! Obviously, there could still be something wrong with the software that will show up later, but for now things seem fine.

Meanwhile, even though it is only Wednesday, it has been a stressful week already. It's been rainy every day, so no easy days at the pool for us. Plus, over the weekend our septic system flooded and leaked into much of the basement. Luckily very little got into my room. However in order to dry out the carpet and walls that got soaked, we have a bunch of industrial fans and a couple of huge dehumidifiers down there that are supposed to be left on for three days (starting this past Monday afternoon). Some of my furniture is pushed away from the walls, some of the padding from my carpet had to be ripped up, and I am supposed to sleep with these noisy machines running a few feet from my bed. Not fun. I put up with it Monday night and slept very poorly. So last night I made the executive decision that a few hours without the machines on in my room (which sustained the least damage anyway) wouldn't be a big deal. I slept quite soundly. :)

As if all that weren't enough, we've been trying to wean B from his naps. He's almost 4 and a half, and will be going to camp all day in a couple weeks. So I thought we could see how he handles a day without a nap. What was I thinking? It hasn't been a complete disaster, but it has been hard. He gets really tired around 3PM. And a tired child is an agressive, cranky, whiny, clingy, impulsive beast that often bears no resemblance to the same child when well rested. Yesterday I made the mistake of taking the kids to the Science Discovery Museum in the afternoon. The girls had a blast, but B totally ran out of impulse control. Many of the exhibits are hands on, and B had a very hard time waiting for his turn to try them out. Probably because it was such a rainy day, the museum was pretty crowded as well. We survived without major incident, but it really stressed me out. Hopefully after a few days without naps he will adjust and start sleeping more at night and the Dr Jekyll / Mr Hyde syndrome will fade away. We'll see...

Today is yet another rainy day, so the current plan is to go to a story and craft time at the bookstore and then maybe head to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch and some play time. Their climbing structure is big enough that the kids can blow off some of the steam that has been building up from being inside so much. I can sit nearby and keep an eye on them while getting in a little reading, and I won't even have to make lunch. :) Then I think we will come home and just hang out here for the rest of the day.

Right now the kids are painting rocks that they dug up in the backyard. It's fun to watch them use their imaginations to interpret the shapes of the stones as fish or dogs or bugs. It's similar to the cloud watching we've been doing a lot of this summer.

today's project:staving off the rainy day blues

musing about: pizza for lunch, mmmm....

�

flutter back - fly ahead