It's still probably pertussis

I wanted to give everybody an update on Felix. I didn't want to do it sooner in case he fell victim to the Buffalo Pharmer curse, but it really looks like he's going to be OK at this point. We've been out of the hospital for six days, and each day in which hospitalization is not necessary improves his chances. He's still sick, but now it looks like a baby normally would when sick, instead of the constant, heart-breaking coughing. We never got the pertussis culture back, so we don't know for sure if he has that.

Xander got the same thing Felix had, but RSV is a total monster in infants so in Xander it didn't really seem to slow him down. He slept a little more, coughed a lot, and had a runny nose. At this point, I'm thankful that not only did we stay out of the hospital, I didn't have to miss any work and only skipped one day of classes. Things could have been so much worse.

The outpouring of support from friends and family was incredible. Thank you to everyone who included us in your thoughts, prayers, pagan sacrifices, or whatever. It obviously made a difference; Felix stayed out of the hospital simply by the grace of God.

Unless one of the boys takes a turn for the worse, I should resume regular posts next week. Thanks for stopping by.

I'm back

I was going to stop posting, but then a friend told me he had been checking for new posts and hadn't seen them. So a quick update:

I passed everything in the fall semester, even though I didn't go to class for two weeks after Felix was born. My grades weren't super, but I finished strong and now the spring semester is winding down. I'm totally exhausted most of the time, and I'm going to be very happy if I can pull a C in each of my classes. This semester, I participated in two electives, which was ill-advised. It's going to make next spring easier, because that's the time that electives are scheduled into the curriculum. The third year spring is dominated by the Comprehensive Patient Care course, which is a 9-credit-hour capstone course that combines everything we've learned throughout the curriculum. It's entirely different from everything up to that point, and many students struggle mightily with it. Having those electives out of the way will let me focus on that.

Both boys are healthy and adorable. Felix eats well, although we did have to put him on Prevacid to help with some GERD. It's been my experience that second-time parenting is about a hundred times easier. There are a lot fewer surprises. I also love learning more and more about his personality. It's amazing, but with the same parents our two boys are already obviously different from each other. Xander seems to be really kinetic. He likes to dance to music of any kind. Felix, on the other hand, likes to sing along. Jaime will sing to him, and he'll make little baby singing sounds back - in key! He's also amazingly even cuter than Xander was at that age.

That's a lot of update in just a few words. I'll be back within the week with some more content, but I wanted to get something out there while I had the chance. Thanks for stopping by.

Things I've learned about my son

Monday was Xander's second birthday, and in the course of his party on Sunday and our family day together on Monday I came to understand several things about him that I'd like to share with you. Many of these I've known for some time, but all of them were illustrated to me by various behaviors I saw on Sunday and Monday.

For instance, my son is pretty darn smart. I put on a monkey hand puppet, which he loved, and held out one of its little paws for a high five. He slapped it, just like he does with a human hand. As a hand puppet, this monkey didn't really have hands or fingers of its own. So I told Xander to "pound it," which he also does regularly. He bumped his fist into the monkey's paw (which was really just my pinkie). Then I asked him to "poke it," which is another hand gesture we do where we poke index fingers together. No problem. Lastly, I held up the monkey's paw in the air, and said "thumbs up." He didn't have any trouble with that one, either. I was impressed that he knew these from verbal cues, not from mimicking gestures.

Xander's also quite polite. As we sat in the living room opening gifts, we asked him to thank each gift giver as we went. I was surprised when we told him to say, "Thank you, Jess! Thank you, Doug!" and he actually looked at the people who had given him the gift. It's hard to tell sometimes how much of what he parrots back at us is actually understood and how much is just the repetition of heard sounds. Apparently, more of it sticks than we thought.

He can be rude, too. One of his friends is a 20-month-old girl named Lilah. We had his party at the park in our neighborhood, and he and Lilah were fighting over balls and badminton racquets and various other items most of the time.

On the other hand, he knows when he's misbehaving. He and Lilah both had their hands on a ball and when his mom looked at him and just said his name, he let go, looked ashamed, and moved on to another.

Xander is funny. And he's not afraid to try new jokes. He puts on hats sideways and toddles over with a goofy grin on his face. It's impossible not to laugh. As I was saying goodbye to him the other day, I asked for a kiss. Instead, he grabbed me by the hair and bit my lip. He knew what he was doing wasn't what I had asked him for - he had a smile of anticipation on his face, waiting for me to crack up laughing.

And above all, he loves me and his mom. He's started saying, "Hello, daddy!" when I walk in the house. If I ask him for a kiss, he won't always give me one (see above), but when I kiss mommy good-bye, if he's not too distracted to notice that I'm leaving, he'll come over and demand one, too. He's got an enormous heart. If another kid is hurt or upset, he'll offer things, like his toys or bottles, or try to comfort the injured party with a hug. I'm so proud of him for that, because it's not something we tried to teach him. He just loves others, and I hope that never goes away.

Thanks for stopping by, and Happy Birthday to my darling boy.

Buffalo Pharmer

So why did I change the name of my blog? Well, the Buffalo is the mascot of the University of Colorado Boulder. It's not really supposed to be associated with the other three campuses (Denver, Colorado Springs, and the Anschutz Medical Campus). They don't use the Ralphie logo any more, and student organizations aren't allowed to, either. None of the other campuses has a mascot, so I don't personally see the harm in borrowing the buffalo, but apparently the administration does. Whatever. So I dropped the buffalo from my blog. That said, the Buffalo Pharmer name was such a great pun, and people seemed to like it, so I think I'm going to switch back next week. Sorry to keep doing this to you.

There are some things that I like to do but hate to have done to me. Tousling my son's hair is a good example. I know it doesn't really feel good to the recipient, but I can't resist. He's too cute.

It occurred to me that my last several posts were written on very little sleep. I bet that makes them seem whiny. So sorry. I'll try not to do much more of that. Last night, I got three hours of sleep after work before my exam. What a difference that made! Now maybe I'll end up with a good grade in Principles of Drug Action.

I wasn't really looking forward to the Masters, but it turned out to be a great show. Seeing Phil Mickelson win it, the way he did, with his wife looking on, put a lot of perspective on the whole Tiger Woods thing. I'm sure what Tiger and his family are going through is very difficult for them, and I don't mean to diminish that hardship for them. But Tiger's predicament is directly the result of Tiger's actions. Yeah, it's tough for him, and yeah, he clearly wasn't 100%. I think we forgot, though, that Lefty's wife AND mother are battling breast cancer. It was a stark contrast. And I get the sense that while Tiger's off-the-course issues were getting in the way of his golf, I think for Phil it's the opposite. Over the past year, golf has really gotten in the way of Mickelson's personal life. It was refreshing to see such a high-profile guy who has his priorities in the right order. I like Tiger, and I admire him as a competitor, but as a family man or even as a man, I'm not all that impressed.

The weather has been extremely nice this past week. It's made studying a little difficult. I got to go to the Rockies home opener on Friday. I love baseball. It was a perfect day. I got sunburned on the right half of my face. The Rockies won.

My son split his head open on a door frame. Again. He's fine, but he's got six stitches in his face. He gets them out today. I feel bad for the guy. It's just about half an inch above the spot where he got hurt last time. If he can get another injury running sort of perpendicular to those two, he'll have a nice Harry Potter-style lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. That might make me feel better about it. I mean, kids are going to get hurt, but I feel a little bad that he's going to have facial scars for his whole life. Well, maybe not. I got burned on my hand pretty badly as a child and the scar lasted for ten years or so. Then it spontaneously disappeared. I guess that could happen with Xander, too. Here's hoping.

Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to come back to whatever URL I'm using next week. Check them both, just to be sure.

Baseball returns

Sorry I missed last week. April is sucking already. But now it is also awesome, because last night was the first day of BASEBALL!!!! Dustin Pedroia, my fantasy second baseman, hit a home run. Also, I love baseball. All the other teams get in action today. I'm stoked. The Rockies should be excellent, and the Cubs could be good if enough things go their way.

I made flash cards for this morning's exam, and it really helped. I like my flash cards.

I won both of my March Madness pools. Of course, gambling on sports is illegal in my state, so there's no financial benefit to me, but the pride is well worth it. Also, I like being proved right. I get a better score if Duke wins tonight, but there's no way I can lose. Nobody really picked Butler to win it all.

How cute is this? At my dad's house last week, my son was hamming it up for the camera. Whenever my dad tried to take his picture, my son gave a goofy fake grin, closed his eyes, and tilted back his head. To your left you can see him and my sister doing the face together. Then when I tried to take his picture a couple days ago, he didn't respond at all. He stared at me with his mouth agape and a little bit of drool coming down his chin. I guess he doesn't like daddy's camera as much as grandpa's.

You'd think I would have more to say after two weeks without an update, but it's been non-stop hard work. I hate it. I miss my family. I have to remind myself all the time that it's just four years, and that this semester is just six more weeks and then it'll be three more years. I need to beat that mantra more or less to death.

Well, I guess I'll leave it at that. Thanks for stopping by.

New reasons to hate Boulder

Last night, I took my family to Pearl Street in downtown Boulder for some shopping and dinner. That sounded like a pretty good idea, right? Not so much.

First, the temperature dropped ten degrees or more on our way (we left as the sun was setting, so that's partly on us). An outdoor mall is not so cool when you can't feel your toes. But that wasn't terrible. A lot of the shops were either closed or lame, but that was something we could deal with. We ended up eating at Old Chicago, which was great. Just getting to spend some relaxed time with my wife and son was worth all those hassles, including the crazy lady that was yelling at the cops in front of one of the bars. (Actually, that was pretty entertaining, aside from feeling a little concerned for Xander's safety.) Then we went to Starbucks and things got ugly.

After we got our drinks, Xander was tootling around the store (Cafe? What do you call a Starbucks?), tripped on his scarf and fell right onto the sharp corner of the door frame. Ouch. He falls a lot, because he's a toddler, but this time he was bleeding, badly. Don't worry; he's going to live. We stopped the blood right there in the bathroom and got it bandaged up. I don't know about scarring yet, but I don't think there's any brain damage or skull fracture or any of that serious stuff. It was just a scary, stressful moment.

Then I couldn't find my way out of Boulder. After a couple of missed turns we finally got onto a good route (with the help of my wife's GPS) only to drive past a guy lying on the ground next to his bike. My first thought was, Wow, that guy's so drunk he can't stay on his bike. Then my thought was, Wait, it's eight o'clock. He's probably dead! Then my thought was, I really should stop because I know CPR. And very quickly, I don't really want to give CPR right now. We ended up driving in a couple of loops to get back to the guy only to find that he was just fine. I don't know if he was drunk, high, or terribly uncoordinated, but we saw him walking next to his bike (Excellent idea, sir!) and figured he was in good enough shape to get home.

So I hate Boulder even more than I used to. I probably won't be going back there ever again. Well, that's an exaggeration, but not likely to go on family dates to Pearl Street any more.

In other news, someone told me to include more baseball and more pictures of my son in my posts. With that in mind, pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in six days. I'm very excited about it. My favorite non-Rockie, non-Cub players, Tim Lincecum, was offered a three-year deal today by the Giants. That's sort of a big deal to baseball fans. Lincecum has requested a record salary for his upcoming arbitration hearing. He's going to make a crazy amount of money for a player in his third year. The kid is a year younger than I am and will probably make ten million dollars this year. That's ridiculous. I wish I did something that well that I could demand top dollar for my services. I'm not even talking about millions. I'd just like to be able to go to my employer and say, "Hey, you know how you pay everybody this much? Yeah, I really think I should get double that." Anyway, that's my baseball news. Here's a bonus picture of Xander.

The Nuggets are playing extremely well right now, and they're fully healthy. Watch out for this team in the playoffs. They've beaten the Lakers twice, once in each city, once without Carmelo Anthony. Only one other team has beaten Kobe twice this year, and that's the Eastern Conference favorite Cleveland Cavaliers. LA will face the Nuggets twice more this year - February 28 in LA and April 8 in Denver. If the Nuggets can win both of these, it gives them a ridiculous psychological edge come playoff time. Remember the chant last year to the Dallas Mavericks? "You can't beat us..."

That's all I got for this week. Sorry it's later than normal. I'll try to get back on schedule this week. It should be easier with Monday being a holiday. Thanks for stopping by.

'Bout time for a blog, i'n't it?

I wish you could have been there in the car with me a year ago. Well, that's of course not true. I wouldn't wish that experience on anybody. But I wish you could learn from what happened to me. There are experiences in a person's life that just can't be communicated to another, and that was one of them. The birth of my son is, too. Yeah, everyone hears about how incredible it is to see your child being born, and you hear people telling you to appreciate what you have while you still have it, but that's not just us saying it. Watching Xander draw his first breath was the greatest moment of my life. Nothing even comes close. From the very first instant I saw that beautiful boy I loved him unconditionally. If you're a parent, you know exactly what I'm talking about, and if you aren't you can't possibly. Sorry. I wish I could explain it somehow, but it's one of those special moments that you're either a part of or you aren't.

So my car accident was a little bit like that. Time slowed down, almost stopped, as I realized lightning-quick that I wasn't going to be able to stop the car or regain control of it. I remember swearing and letting go of the wheel and saying a silent prayer that more or less said, "Yo, you got this, Lord." It's weird that in what I thought might be the last seconds of my life I would phrase a prayer like that, but I promise that's the closest translation to what I was thinking. And the car spun around so that I couldn't see the car in front of us any more and then I could see the car behind us and then we went off the road and time went back to regular speed. The flip was a pretty cool ride, especially in retrospect, knowing that I survived it essentially unharmed. I had a moment when my elbow was pressing into my shattered driver's side window that I thought, "Hey, let's do that again."

There were a lot of other thoughts going through my head at the moment, including a massive sigh of relief. After I caught my breath, I wanted to know that both of my passengers were OK, and I'm eternally grateful that they were. I assume the only thing worse than killing yourself in a car wreck is killing someone else and living. I'm struck by the kind-heartedness of people in this world. Before we could really compose ourselves, some Romanian guy that I've never seen since (it turns out I use to work with his sister) was opening the passenger side door and helping us climb out of the wreckage. Another good Samaritan went on ahead and called in the accident to the State Patrol. All three of us got rides home from tired casino employees who surely would rather have been in bed. If anyone who reads this stopped for us that cold, snowy night, thank you. I didn't get a chance to say that to most of you, but you should know that it meant a lot.

My only regret about the accident is that my perspective was only temporarily changed by it. When I finally got home that morning, I was so relieved to see my wife and to know that I had survived to spend another day with my family. I kept a little chunk of windshield glass as a reminder of the day that God decided Xander needed his daddy. Once in a while I remember that, and try to honor that gift by being the best dad that I can, but too often I just get dragged down by the day-to-day. Life is so fragile, and so precious, and I spend so much of my limited resources on attending to my own petty needs, and on dragging other people down in an effort to feel better about myself. That's a tragedy. We should all focus on the positive, and put our energy into pleasing each other, not ourselves. It's the least we can do with this amazing gift we've been given.

So I'll reiterate the advice I gave last Christmas: Hug your loved ones, and tell them how you feel. Merry Christmas, everyone.

So, what do you do?

Somewhere along the line, this blog became more or less a weekly column. I kind of like having that format attached to it. Let's make it official. Sunday night is now my official weekly post night. I might still throw in a bonus once in a while, but I'll make a commitment to you, my faithful reader: If you come by Monday morning, I'll have something new for you.

From time to time I have special moments with my son that catch me totally by surprise. It's usually witnessing a developmental milestone, like the first time he called me "Daddy." I'm still not convinced he really knows what that means, since he walks around the house saying "daddy, daddy!" to nobody in particular, but that was one of those times when I felt so happy to be a dad, and so totally in love with my little boy. A couple of months ago, when he was sick and we were in the waiting room at the doctor's office, we read a book together and he pointed out all the round objects in the pictures ("Ball! Ball!"). That was another one. This afternoon as I was leaving for work, I crouched down and spread my arms for a hug. I do this a lot. I say, "Hug?" and Xander looks at me and then goes wandering off after a ball or some crumbs on the kitchen floor. But not today. Today he walked right into my open arms and I gave him a big hug. Then when I let him go, he said, "Bye!" I probably could have cried, I was so happy.

I need these moments in my life to remind me of the reason I'm doing all the crazy work and school stuff I'm doing. It's not about me any more. I'm working 30+ hours while a full-time, professional student so that some day I won't have to be this busy. I'm doing all this so my son can be raised by his parents, not a nanny or a daycare. If it means I have to go days at a time without seeing them, it will all some day be worth it. Some people have a clear calling for their lives. They want to be pharmacists (or engineers, or astronauts, or presidents) from their early childhoods and never imagine doing something else. These are the people that would do their job even if it didn't pay anything. I admire people like that, but that will never be me. I'm not going to pharmacy school because it fulfills me. I think I'll contribute to society when I'm a pharmacist, and the field interests me, and I feel good about both of those things. I don't expect to have any difficulty doing it for the rest of my life. But if I won the PowerBall tomorrow, I probably wouldn't go on to be a career pharmacist. I'd finish school; I've invested too much time to back out now. I might even practice for a while, to make myself feel like I'd accomplished something. I just don't feel like my career as a pharmacist, or as anything else, will ever define me. Whatever I end up "doing with my life" will be secondary. To me, what I do with my life will be raising my family. That's my number one priority. Pharmacy is a means to that end. It's the best means I can find, because I don't know anybody who pays you to be a dad.

Since I'm hopelessly off on a tangent anyway, I might as well keep going. See, I think our society views work too seriously. One of the first questions you ask somebody when you meet them is, "So, what do you do?" And the answer? I'm an accountant. I work for IBM. I own my own business. I'm a poker dealer.

I don't blame people for asking, or for answering this way, because I do it, too. It's a social value. What you do to earn your living is one of the major characteristics of a person. But maybe it shouldn't be. What do I do? I chase my boy around the house. I play Cribbage and Scrabble with my wife. I love Wii Fit. I write a crappy little blog that so far has made ten dollars from advertisements but that fulfills me ten times more than the job that puts food on my table and a roof over my head. I tip well, I try not to speak negatively about other people, and I go to church every Sunday (even when it means I only get four hours of sleep).

I don't know if I'm trying to say we should change the way we make small talk. We probably shouldn't. Our society isn't based on forming substantial relationships with everyone you meet. What I'm trying to say is that we should stop defining ourselves, and our close friends and family, by how they earn a living. A job is a job. If you're one of the lucky ones who gets paid to do the thing they love the most, good for you. You're still allowed to answer that question with your job title. For the vast majority of us, I think we should change the way we think. My wife hasn't worked since May. When people ask me what she does, I proudly tell them that she's a stay-at-home mom. And I'm not embarassed to say that. I'm jealous of her.

Thanks for stopping by, and I'll see you next week.

Figures

This is what I get for trying to manage my life. I had worked it all out so that I could spend Monday and Tuesday evenings chilling and hanging with my family and friends, respectively, provided I devoted all of Wednesday to homework and studying for the quiz in the morning. I probably didn't budget that time quite right, but it would have meant for a late-but-not-too-late night tonight. Unless.

At 6:30 this evening, right as we were heating up dinner, Xander started vomiting. We're not sure if it's a delayed reaction to Monday's immunizations or a reaction to the soy yogurt that he tried for the first time, but it was pretty bad. He's thrown up after shots before, but this time was a lot more severe than anything we'd seen before, and it didn't stop. He was miserable, and he started to get clammy and a little out of it. We ended up at the Children's Hospital Urgent Care an hour and a half later. It's 11:30 now and we're getting discharged, finally. They couldn't say for sure what caused the vomiting, but they were able to make it stop and get him rehydrated, so it looks like the storm has passed. That was a scary few hours.

And now it'll be midnight or later before I get home, and I have a quiz at 8 a.m. that I haven't studied for. Sometimes we need a little dose of humility in our lives. God had to step in and remind me that I'm not in control, and that procrastination is not the best policy. I'm just glad Xander is OK. I can do a day on limited sleep (especially with the help of my good friend Starbuck) and I'd much rather fail the quiz and have a healthy baby than the alternative.

In other news, the spellchecker man thinks "rehydrated" is not a word. It also thinks "spellchecker" is not a word. While I'm on rabbit trails, where did the name Starbucks come from? Is it from Melville? I might have to look into that.

They're letting us go home now, and I need to study. Thanks for stopping by, and come back soon.

P.S.: It's October.

Home Alone

My wife and son are in Seattle this weekend. They left yesterday afternoon, and I miss them already. It turns out that a three-bedroom house is awfully big when it's empty. It's just me and our dogs right now, and I feel like there are tumbleweeds rolling by when I walk into a room. On the one hand, it was really nice to be able to study all night and watch some TV without interruption, but I was pretty much over it by the time I went to bed. Bedtime is the worst, actually. It's really hard for me to fall asleep in an otherwise empty bed. I curled up on my wife's side to get a bit of her scent, and that helped, but it wasn't the same. Anyway, my weekend is pretty rigidly structured, and I have myself pretty much sleeping or out of the house all of the time, which should be all I need to keep my mind off of it, but I'm still counting down the minutes until Monday afternoon.

I need a hair cut.

Pharmacy school is harder than I thought. I got my test results from the exams I took last week and the week before. I got a B on one and a low A on the other, so I'm hardly at risk of failing out, but that's not what I wanted. My whole life I've never really needed to study. I mean, right now I'm blogging from a lecture, and I'll retain enough of it to pass the related questions on the exam. But I need to start reviewing a little bit more for these exams. Other assignments haven't been an issue at all; so far it's only been the tests. I wanted to make the Dean's List this semester, and to accomplish that goal I'm going to need to find ways to study both harder and smarter. Also, the material is getting more challenging as we go on, so the effort I put in for the B and the A- will quickly become only enough for a C+ or a B. I don't think I need to draw you a graph to show you where that will get me. (If I do, let me know, and I'll make up a presentation for my next entry.)

Short blog today, I guess. We made an offer on a house, and we're waiting to hear back about it. I'll post again when I find out. We find ourselves once again in a multiple offer situation (same thing happened two weeks ago and we didn't get it), so it's not a guarantee, but we have a better chance this time because we're not contingent on the sale of our house (I go to the closing this afternoon) and we offered a lot more than their asking price (last time we were already at the top of our budget).

That's it for now. Thanks for reading, and come back soon.

Thanks for reading,

It begins!

For the first time since I started this pharmacy school blog, I actually have some pharmacy school to blog about! Today was orientation. Technically it wasn't class, but it was a lot closer than I have been in the past year. I took Biochemistry last fall, and that's the only course I've taken in the past academic year. Getting back into school might be a little rough on me. Luckily, next week's classes are pretty soft material. It's things like how to use the library, the Kiersey personality test, and basic medical terminology. That ought to get me up to speed pretty well.

It was nice to put a bunch of faces to some names. I'd communicated with a number of my classmates through facebook and a Google group that I set up for our class, but before today I had only met five of them, and four of those interviewed with me. Today was the first time all 161 of us P1s-to-be were on campus at the same time. I think officially we're not P1s until the white coat ceremony next Monday, but I am a pharmacy student at the UC-Denver Anschutz Medical Campus (see picture for evidence).

Xander is walking all over the place now, and starting to talk. We've been teaching him baby sign language, and he's picked up a few signs, but last night he said his first meaningful, communicative word - "up." He's said some other things, like "cat," "da" (that either means "Dad" or "that" - I'm not sure yet), and something close to "dog," but "up" is definitely the best communication he's exhibited so far. He really means that he wants up when he says it, which is great. He's also a lot more mobile than ever. The other day he was chasing the cat around the house with a fly swatter and giggling. The cat hates him, I think, but he loves to go after it.

Someone pointed out after my last point that spiders are meat. I knew this, actually. My complaint was that he won't eat the clean, safe, cooked meat that we give him, although this isn't as true any more. I guess the live spider experience broadened his horizons. He's now interested in some meats, particularly at breakfast. We took him to Denny's last week and he dug in to some bacon like it was the best thing he'd ever tasted. I have to admit bacon is pretty good.

What encouraged me about the spider comment on my last post was that I actually have at least one reader! So, faithful reader, thank you. I hope you keep coming back.

The Final Countdown

This might have just been an excuse to put that sweet picture in a blog post. But we are in the last week before classes begin. Friday is orientation! Technically, the first class class will be next Monday, but I'm sticking to my original August 14 date. After all, if I fail to appear on campus and get my ID that day, I will lose my spot and and it will be filled by someone from the wait list. I thought that was a rather harsh policy. And honestly, how many people are sitting around waiting for that call? "Yes, this is the CU School of Pharmacy. Can you be in Denver in three days? I know you've been waiting for four months for this call and made a bunch of other plans for next year, but if you happen to have $18,000 lying around to pay for your tuition, you can totally start right away!" I'm guessing they have that policy just because it's the only way to guarantee that students show up to get their IDs that day.

My son won't eat meat. This doesn't really bother me other than the fact that he wants to eat everything else he finds. Dog hair? Yep. Batteries? Sure. Live spiders? You betcha. I'm extremely grateful that I was asleep for this one. My wife got to witness him pick up a sizable spider by one spindly leg, look at it, and try to put it in his mouth. Of course this would scare the crap out of anything, so the spider took off down his arm, causing Xander to laugh, probably because it tickled. Just thinking about it gives me the heebidy jeebidies.

I got CPR certified Wednesday morning. I was a little intimidated about going to a CPR course for health care providers, but it turned out not to be so bad. It was also very asocial, with almost no student-student interaction. I'm glad to get that out of the way. Plus, if you collapse in front of me, I have a vague idea of what to do about it. It would really help if you were a limbless torso that clicked whenever I compressed your chest with enough pressure to pump your heart.

We have our first showing of our house tomorrow. It was pretty exciting to get that call. We actually got a call Thursday evening, but my wife and I were both going out with my brother watching Xander for us, and the house was a mess, too. I didn't want him to have to get out of the way of a showing, and I didn't think it was in very good condition to show, either. We did a total cleaning/painting/organizing blitz and now we're all set. Hopefully the potential buyers will fall in love, but I'm realistic. It's going to take a good deal of time to sell this house, if it sells at all, and that's fine.

The official countdown to school is five days, including today. Also, I have homework! I guess I'd better get working on that. Well, I still have five days. That's a ton of time, right?

Blogging just to blog

Yeah, I think that's what I'm doing right now. I can't say I have much to report, but I feel the old bloggin' itch, so here goes.

My son is great. My wife took him out shopping with her yesterday and ran into an old friend. She said, "Hey, buddy!" and Xander (my son) reached right out to her to be picked up! Then her husband walked into the store and said, "Hey, buddy!" and Xander reached out for him! Later, he walk/crawled over to a complete stranger and pulled himself up on her legs. I think that's great. At some point we'll have to teach him about "stranger danger" but I love not having one of those babies that cry whenever someone besides mommy or daddy is holding them. He's a doll in the church nursery, too. All the workers half expect kids of that age to lose it when their parents walk out of their room, but Xander just wants to get down to business and start playing with all the cool toys.

Of all the things I'm going to hate about the rigors of a professional school program for the next four years, not seeing him enough is my biggest worry. I'm comfortable taking out enormous loans in order to get through, and I don't mind getting a good night's sleep less than once a month. I can handle all the pressure of rote memorization and mindless regurgitation. None of that scares me, or at least not as much as it would most people. What I'm worried about is missing four incredible years of my son's life. I already feel like he's a different kid by the time I get done with my four-day work week. How much am I going to miss over the course of four months of school?

Xander is putting himself to sleep this week. You don't know how incredible that is. Feed him a bottle, change his diaper, set him in his crib, pull up the blanket, and seeya later! I hope that lasts, though I'm sure it won't.

Orientation for school is 11 days away. Now I feel like it's too soon. I guess I can't make up my mind about what I want.

2 months to go!

My cat's been hunting. A couple days before we left for Hawai'i, he left this on the floor by the front door (inside). I don't know what he thought we wanted to do with it, but apparently it was only fun while it was still alive. Then the next day I found another one in the driveway, with the same squish out the back but otherwise pretty much intact. Gross, huh?

Hawai'i was exactly what I needed. I feel so refreshed. It also knocked almost two weeks off my countdown. We're two months to the day from our first day of class. Tomorrow will be 60 days. Friday will be eight weeks.

How about those Rockies? If me going out of town is all they need to start playing better, I'll leave more often. Today's win gives them 11 in a row, which is enough to close the gap in their division to a measly ten and a half games. They probably shouldn't have lost so many earlier. My precious Cubs are a different story altogether... I started growing a "rally beard" - basically not shaving until the Cubs are back in first place - and they promptly started losing. The Rox helped them out, too, sweeping the Cardinals and the Brewers. I'm starting to think I'll never shave again. If I have two months' growth at orientation, I'm going to be known as the guy with the crazy beard. So, let's go Cubbies!

Apparently the first people to submit their aid paperwork are now getting their award packages. I'm looking for mine in the mail every day now. It'll relieve some stress once I know what our financial situation will be for next year, and by extension, how much I have to work. I'm pulling for none, but if you've read my earlier posts, you know that's just not possible. Well, maybe I can win some sort of large cash prize between now and August 14th.

Sunday will be my first Father's Day as a father. I'm excited for that. I love being a dad, and I'm especially looking forward to future Father's Days and getting cards made by Xander (and hopefully by his future brothers and sisters, too) in that sloppy kid handwriting. I know that's not too far away. I just hope pharmacy school doesn't make me so busy that I miss all of that stuff. I would hate to have a four-year block of Xander's childhood missing from my memory, and even worse, to have four years of his childhood missing a dad in his life. I keep telling myself that won't happen unless I let it, but it still frightens me. I guess just being scared by that is enough to prove it won't happen. At the very least, I'm glad I'm doing this now and not when he's a few years older. If I disappear from his life for the next four years he'll barely remember it by the time he's 10.

Tomorrow I get an EMG on my legs. I don't even know what an EMG is, really. At my physical in April, I mentioned to the doc that I've been feeling a sort of uncomfortable pressure in my legs, especially after sitting for a few hours in a row, but lasting long after I stand up. I was worried it might be a blood clot. First thing they tried was an venous ultrasound; that didn't show anything. Oddly enough, the feeling went away for about a month after the ultrasound. It's been back the last couple of days, coinciding with my return to work from vacation. My self diagnosis is that it's a chiropractic issue, and that pressure on the nerves in my spine is creating a phantom sensation. If the EMG doesn't show anything, I'm going to get an adjustment and see what happens.

This has been a really long entry! Congrats if you've made it this far. I'd better stop here for now. I'll be back for a 50 day update, if not sooner.