memorial

I spent most of the weekend at the University of Central Florida, running back and forth from the old arena to the College of Education building, volunteering my time at the basketball tournament that Isaac's team was hosting. It was a weekend of controlled chaos there, and Isaac's team did win the championship game late yesterday afternoon.

Kai contracted some kind of viral infection last weekend that left him with a sore throat and fever. We let his immune system fight it out for a couple days before we finally took him to the doctor, who basically told us that there was nothing he could really do, that Kai would just get over it on his own. $88 dollars and two days later, Kai was fine.

However yesterday he woke up with a fever again, and this time with a sharp-sounding cough. This morning he barely had a voice, and I could barely hear him crying at 5:13 this morning. He was burning up. He even knew to tell us that he was hot. As I held him and raced to the kitchen for the baby ibuprofen, he asked for his mommy. And as I prepped his dropper full of liquid ibuprofen mixed with way too much sugar and other crap, he started with the playful back-and-forth routine that he and I do. He'll shake his head from side to side, stick his tongue out, make the boat sound with his lips, gnash and chomp his teeth, all of which I mirror as well. It's just our "thing." But it's funny how even at oh-dark-thirty in the morning, with a 102-degree fever, he has figured out that mommy is for nurturing and daddy is for playing. Not that I mind the role I play in his mind, but I think it's neat how his 22-month old mind has already figured us out.

Since Erin has been up with Kai since 5ish this morning, I'm making sure she can nap while he's napping. Someone's gotta nurture mom, right? So I'm waiting, impatiently, for the pharmacy to open this holiday morning so I can round up the cavalry for his internal war against this latest infection.

And it seems that Kai passed his first infection, the sore throat variety, on to me and Isaac. Isaac is mostly over it, but he was feverish and missed a day of school. I'm not quite over it, although my appetite is starting to return and it doesn't hurt as much to eat or drink today.

So that is our weekend. Controlled chaos.

wine days

So there are people reading...

Yes, it's been too long. Not that there hasn't been stuff to write about, but I've started a new career in wholesale wine sales which is taking up a whole lot of time. Let's start there.

Yes I work for a wine distributor now, selling wine to fine wine shops and restaurants all over the City Beautiful. I've been on the job for three weeks now, and I'm really enjoying it. Erin and I both love wine, and now I get to deal with restaurant managers and owners instead of consumers. Which may or may not be better... Anyways, the point is, while it does involve a good amount of cold-calling, I'm not selling long-distance phone service. It's wine. People like wine. The accounts I call on like wine. I'm making a lot of progress, but it seems to be one of those jobs where I need to put in a ton of work on the front end before I begin to reap the benefits.

Kai is talking up a storm now. Words he used to mispronounce ("rab" for rabbit) he can now say just fine. It's become very evident over the last few months that Kai has an affinity for music. At the Y he gravitates to the musical toys. At 2-year old Mason's birthday party, he ignored the three (yes, three) bounce rides and barbecued meats to play on their upright piano and baby drum set. Who knows where that will lead, but it should be interesting.

In other news, we are probably as close to being bankrupt as anyone has ever been. It's been almost two months since I've had steady income. My first commission check isn't coming for another week yet. Somehow I wonder how we've done it. Thankfully I've designed a couple websites and sold a bunch of stuff on eBay that put groceries in the fridge. We've also had a little help from our friends, which has been great.

I keep telling myself and Erin that we're not that far away from being out of the woods. I'm making the effort that I know will pay off. Sometimes though, it's hard to a think of a possible way out. And yet I know that we will find a way through this. That much I'm sure of. It's definitely going to be interesting. Stay tuned.