10/21/08 Sick day?

I have to chuckle sometimes at the difference between Moms and Dads. This morning, Dave woke up with a slight cold, and said, "Ughg, I didn't sleep well." Yet somehow he slept through Julian sitting and crying in front of our room, wet, and having thrown up. I was up for 15 minutes, scurrying around changing his clothes, his bedding, comforting him, checking him, and scrubbing the carpet. Talk about not sleeping well!

That reminds me that the other night at dinner, Gabriel was shocked to hear that as a baby, he kept me awake a lot at night. Funny, it doesn't seem that long ago to me, but to him, his babyhood is ancient forgotten history. I still remember clearly the pain of being awake so many times during the night, for so many months in a row, and the perpetrator himself being amazed at this!

So Julian missed school today, though he seemed fine in the morning. And, as it turns out, he was pretty much fine all day. Good thing, because I had an important meeting scheduled, and Dave and I ended up at an important unscheduled meeting as well.

I was truly proud of Julian when I brought him to the tile store to meet with my kitchen designer to pick a tile backsplash. We went to Barnes & Noble first to get some new books, and he picked out four, including one with 7 stories in it. Not only is Julian reading really, really well, but he really likes to read and reads several books a day -- really reads them, not just flipping through pages or going from memory. And read he did -- for over an hour and a half, he sat quietly in a very kid-unfriendly place, and read his new books. He interrupted me twice to tell me in a proud whisper that he'd finished another story. What a wonderful kid.

Meantime, Anna talked me into a completely different thing than I'd had in mind, but clicked perfectly. Subway tile. And that hits close to home, even though I haven't lived in New York -- or even been there -- in years!

Look formal? Yes, but --

-- look at it without the accents, against the countertop and the cabinet color. It's perfect.

Anna's working on a design with accents for the niche and lower shelf.

I was exhausted and elated coming back from the tile store, very ready for some lunch and a nap, but I got a call from Dave: urgent decisions that had been overlooked last Friday need to be made before rough inspection this week.

So we all met at the jobsite a little later in the afternoon. Julian once again, dragged along, but he behaved really really well. Poor thing got bored and tired after a while and curled up on what will be a shower bench. I wanted to take him home and bake cookies together, but we had no choice but to press on.

No disasters to head off, just things that had to be decided. We'll soon be entering the very decision-intensive interior finishing phase, after the drywall is up in a few weeks. It's really taking shape!

Barring any more early morning episodes, it's back to work for all tomorrow.

10/21/08