Bleh

Last week was wonderful--the weather was great (it was about 70F every day) so when I wasn't in lab I was outside.

Dave had Monday off due to President's Day so after we dropped Eddie off at daycare we biked to campus so he could help me move a $200,000 instrument cluster to a new room in my building. He and my labmate moved everything while I unhooked and labeled everything (I used color masking tape and numbers to match each plug with the proper outlet so it will be easy to put back together). Then we picked Eddie up early and went out to Indian all-you-can-eat lunch buffet. Yummy!

Tuesday I walked Eddie to campus so I could get some stuff from my office for my presentation I had the following day. He was a good boy and even slept long enough once on campus so that I could grab a bite to eat in the Memorial Union. Of course, by the time we made it to my office he was wide awake and ready to play! I was somehow able to find the articles I needed while occupying him with a clean-ish paper holding thing to chew on.

Wednesday he went to daycare in the morning. I did a run through on my presentation for my professor, who gave me some really good constructive criticism. The rest of the morning/afternoon was spent at the Colloquium where I gave my presentation (it went well and I wasn't even that nervous when it came down to it) and then listened to lots of other student presenters. The keynote speaker was a visiting chemist from Cal and she talked about the chemical fire retardants in furniture and how the chemicals are getting into our bodies and causing problems with IQ levels, fertility, and behavioral problems. Her colleague is testing the foam in baby items for the chemicals so I signed up to give samples from my items.

After the colloquium was over I walked to Eddie's daycare, picked him up, and walked back to campus so he could go to the wine and cheese social with me. I used the following picture of him at the end of my presentation (since I talked about my compost experiment) and got a lot of "aws" as a result so folks were excited to meet him in person.Thursday morning Eddie and I went to Costco to buy the ingredients for all the quiches I had to make for Dyani's wedding shower. Then when Anthony arrived later in the afternoon I took them on a loooooooooong walk in the double stroller I bought off of Craigslist. Both boys were really good on the walk, even though they spent most of the time yanking off their hats and grabbing each other's faces. We went to the grocery store to buy the canned crab I needed for the quiches and a gallon of milk (wow is it cheap at CVS!). Eventually they both fell asleep.

My head started feeling a bit stuffy that night, but I really thought it was allergies. I've never had allergies before but EVERYONE warns that EVERYONE gets them after about 3-4 years of living in Davis. This is our 4th year here and I finally think it might be true!

Friday was another typical "too many meetings and classes and pumping sessions to remember to eat" days so Dave brought me a burrito at lunch time so I wouldn't have to worry about getting food. That night we went to a late Chinese New Year's party at John and Christina's and it was soooooooooooooo delicious and fun! Eddie was his normal happy self, showing off his toy-sucking and sitting-up skills...until 8:15pm when he instantly got fussy. We'd lost track of time and then realized that it was his normal bath time. Poor kid. We loaded him into the car and got home to start his bedtime routine. He was out like a light by 9pm.

Then I got to work baking 6 quiches for Dyani's wedding shower. Everything went great until the egg-cream mixture in one of them started dripping out of the pie pan (I think I poked a hole in it when I was pre-baking the crusts), out of the cookie sheet, and down into a hole in the bottom of the oven. I didn't want it to burn and make the smoke detectors go off (read: wake up the baby) so I stopped using that oven and just used the other one. It took a little longer, but we were able to get into bed by 12am. By then my head was pounding...so now I think my "allergies" were really the beginnings of a head cold.

The shower went great (another post) and I'm feeling much better after getting a good night's rest. I've stayed home from school today so I can rest...which I'll be able to do since Eddie is at daycare today!