More of the same

This week has been a fairly typical one (well, aside from the last day or two, but we'll get to that). We've been busy with school and with Andrew, and, since it was the end of the month, we've been busy with visiting and home teaching as well! Tuesday night, while Dan was in Huntington playing wiffle ball with the young men, my visiting teaching companion and one of the women we visit (it was supposed to be both of the women we visit, but one called off b/c of illness) came over for ice cream. We had a fun visit--spent a lot of time talking about heart conditions, as my visiting teachee's little boy has some heart conditions, and they go to the same heart clinic we've been to with Andrew. It was also nice because their impending arrival prompted me to clean the house more thoroughly than it's been cleaned in a little while!

Wednesday night our home teacher (his companion worked too late the night before and was exhausted) came over. After he left, we put Andrew to bed, ate a quick dinner, and then I went to a rhetoric reading group. It was actually pretty enjoyable--I haven't been social with my department in a while and I thought it behooved me to remind people that I am still here. I was also struck with a sudden realization of my seniority (not that kind of seniority, Justin!)--I've now been at Penn State as long or longer than all the other grad students who were there that night (with one exception), which means I'm now in the position of all those smart students who used to intimidate me so much! That doesn't necessarily mean I make any claims to smartness, only that I'm no longer so intimidated, and I actually made some comments on the readings, instead of just listening as I used to do. It was kind of nice to realize that I actually have made progress while I've been here. While I was at the reading group, Dan did some of his hometeaching. No, this doesn't mean that we left Andrew home alone. The original plan was that Dan and his companion (Michael) would leave when I got home, but apparently they didn't want to wait that long, so his companion's wife, Kelli, came over and sat in our living room and read (they only live a few houses down from us, so it was no real hardship).

Friday was also fairly eventful. After a persistent stomachache that had lasted most of the previous night and into Friday morning, I called the doctor. After waiting forty minutes for my 8:40 appointment (what kind of doctor is already forty minutes behind when she's only been at the clinic for forty minutes? There were three students, including me, waiting for her by the time she saw me--and one of the nurses had stopped by, somewhat concerned-looking, to check how many files were waiting in the doctor's box), the doctor gave me some mixed news. The good news: it wasn't serious. The bad news: it was probably a GI bug that was going around. Normally, this wouldn't be too horrible--unpleasant, but not too worrisome. However, I was supposed to be giving a workshop (with 66 students registered) that afternoon and I entertained somewhat terrifying visions of me sprinting for the restroom midworkshop while the students look on in wonder. At least the doctor's advice proved helpful: no solids for at least six hours, bland foods after that. I made it through the workshop without any problems.

After I got home, Dan headed back up to campus for what he thought might be a late night at a poster session for new departmental recruits (even though their lab isn't recruiting this year--Andy's going to Sweden--Andy still wanted their lab to have a presence). However, fate was with him; after an hour or so, Andy told him he could go home. So we had a rousing evening--Dan watched TV while I worked on a conference paper.

Saturday Dan actually had a successful run of his experiment (since having an experiment go through several runs successfully is something of the chemical equivalent of all the stars aligning, this seems worthy of mention--Dan says this project is actually more of an art form than a chemical experiment). Meanwhile, I dragged Andrew all over the mall in search of bargains, and found some too! (Dan won't let me go into detail, he says he wants to have that pleasure all to himself.)

Today, of course, as it was Sunday, we drove down to Huntington for church. The entire stake presidency was there, which, as it was fast Sunday rather than branch conference, suggested that something was up. Shortly thereafter, this suspicion was confirmed as they released the branch presidency and called a new one--the new branch president has only been in the branch a couple months longer than we have, so I imagine he feels just a little overwhelmed. After church, the branch had another Souper Sunday (where members bring soup and bread for lunch), so we stayed for that. Dan contributed his would-be famous cornbread. I say "would-be" because it would indeed be famous if it wasn't for me--I was supposed to remember to buy cornmeal yesterday, but I remembered everything on my list except that. So, I got out of the shower this morning to find Dan waiting for me expectantly. "Where did you put the cornmeal?" asks my trusting spouse, fully confident that I had, actually, remembered this detail. He'd already mixed the rest of the recipe--it was just waiting for this final ingredient. Then, of course, I remembered. Since we had no cornmeal in the house, we opted for a box of Jiffy cornbread muffins. Surprisingly enough, the result wasn't too bad. In fact, they turned out well enough that the former branch president's wife asked for the recipe!

We left the branch feast early, however, because Andrew was acting antsy and refused to eat anything. We thought he was merely tired, but when we got home and gave him his bottle, he puked all over himself, me, the rocking chair . . . Poor kid. He was also running a low fever, which seems to confirm that he probably caught the GI bug that I (maybe) had. We put him to bed an hour early, and he went right to sleep. And so, we hope, end our adventures for the week.

As usual, we also have a few pictures for our Andrew fans. Since Andrew seems to delight in sitting underneath out TV stand in his own little cubby-hole, I thought he might like a tent, as well, so I draped a blanket from the TV stand over a couple of boxes and put his plush chair in the resulting tent. He seemed thrilled with it, although he wouldn't sit in the chair.


Andrew has also developed a bad habit of sneaking into our room whenever he gets the chance. The other day, I looked up from whatever I was doing to see him trucking down the hall, carrying something heavy in his arms. It wasn't until he got closer that I realized he had Dan's old set of scriptures, which he then proceeded to leaf through. He was quite proud of himself for finding the scriptures--unfortunately, I didn't get the camera quickly enough to capture his expression.



And, as usual, Andrew managed to find new ways of making messes. This week, he discovered how to pull the lid off the box where we keep old newspapers, with predictable results.