one of those days

I woke up sick, with Elias crying. I've been struggling with a cold or mild flu the last few days, but it slammed me today. More, my great fear was realized: "the cough" is back after a respite of a couple months. This is a nasty cough that started in April 2008, and plagued me most of the time since then, stumping a whole slew of doctors. It's gotten so bad that I couldn't catch my breath such that I had to rush to urgent care, and a year ago it jarred a disk in my back out of place, essentially crippling me in probably the worst physical pain I've ever experienced (while still having an infant to care for). I'm relating this to give weight to my claim that this "simple" cold scares me. Yet, life goes on. Elias was uncharacteristically crying because he'd soaked through his super overnight Huggies, and top & bottom pajamas, and sheets. Ugh. On the way to work I missed my offramp. Over lunch I looked down and discovered this:

I had a busy day at work--fortunately, busy doing things, not needing to think much. By 4pm I called it quits. On the way home I stopped at Costco and bought WAY too many things I didn't really need, including a pizza. Then I hit a bunch of new road construction, but still able to get Elias before the daycare closes. He was pretty excited to see the pizza (alternately "zzha" "ussa" "pee" and "pee-uh"), and we both ate too much. The rest of the evening was reading books, doing laundry, taking care of the chickens, making tomorrow's dinner, and, after he went to bed, some rare TV veg time.

Still, it was not all hard going. When I finished my shower Elias excitedly chanted "all done with shower" all morning--his longest "sentence" yet, I think, and very cute. (He still hates me taking showers.) At work I had the followup meeting with the Birth-to-Three child development specialists, who told me he was at age level or advanced in every category, with the only "lagging" piece related to potty training (which they said was still totally normal, especially for boys.) This is in contrast to their evaluation last fall, when he nearly qualified for remedial tutoring because of his delayed speech. They were very impressed with his gains, and commented several times at how unusual it was to know colors and letters so well, so early. One thing that engenders immediate good will in me is to complement Elias. At night he sweetly asked for a song and went through most of my repertoire to find the songs he liked, shaking his head and whispering "no," or softly clapping his hands and smiling for those few he liked (tonight, Silent Night, This Land is Your Land, and 10 Bottles of Beer on the Wall). Then he went right to bed.