Whew!

Well now, wasn't that a blogging dry spell! I've had a wild two weeks.

First there was the server change at work, on my Sunday on the reference desk: new server, new website address, new e-mail address, new webmail program to learn, library catalogue not working for first half hour after opening, Internet not working for first half hour after opening, computer booking software not working for three hours, designated Internet computers not working until we circumvented the booking system after two hours. Whew! I knew it was happening on the 28th, but somehow I forgot that the 28th was my day to work. Or somehow the server-change 28th was a mystically different 28th than my 28th to work. I prefer to float through those Sunday shifts, trying not to get too bogged down, but we were all certainly down in the middle of it for quite a while that day.

Next was the puking baby incident. Sprout loves tomatoes, and especially tomatoes in balsamic vinegar. We often make a tomato and onion salad (sliced tomatoes, sliced raw onion, basil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper), and one night last week, Sprout thought it would be a good idea to take the salad bowl and drink the 'juice' at the bottom of it. And I didn't stop him. Why I didn't stop him. Help me out here. Anyway, 3 tablespoons of salty balsamic vinegar later. Jim put him to sleep that night, and said that he had been cranky going to sleep (I skipped out with D. to see the Bridget Jones sequel).

At 2:00 a.m., Sprout whined and thrashed (this part is normal for 2:00 a.m.), turned over, and started choking quietly on his own vomit in the corner of the bed. Have I mentioned lately that I love co-sleeping? If I were in the next room with a baby monitor, I would never have heard the choking. Gad. I picked him up and he barfed on himself. Poor little thing. It's so scary for them when they don't know what's going on. After a bit of a clean-up and after he learned to say the word 'puke', he was doing much better. But he threw up every 20 minutes or so for 2 hours, as we all sat on the couch, bleary and snuggling. We all finally got back to sleep in the wee hours, and when I woke up I was shaky and stupid, but resolved to go to work anyway. Until the phone rang. I leaped out of bed to answer it, and my foot caught on one of the many towels, cloths, and buckets (puke readiness gear) piled on the end of the bed. Crash! Mommy smashed to the floor, battered, but with no bones broken. Jim, of course, thought the baby fell out of bed and leaped up shouting and panicking. What can I say. It was fun.

And the phone... only rang once then quit. At that point, I had a good-sized headache, was feeling very old indeed, and decided that I would be a total waste of time at work.

Sprout woke up a bit later than usual, but was as perky as ever, running around and playing. After he'd been up a bit, I sat him on my lap to clip his fingernails (with what is now called the 'naynokippah'). We were chatting, and I asked innocently, "So, how is your tummy? Are you feeling better?" To which he immediately answered, gag, gag, blecchhhhhhhhh, and puked all over my lap. So, it was good that I stayed home, since he wasn't done being sick either. We had a nice day of lying around (me), playing (him), and occasional puking (him). Last time he had the stomach flu, I got it too. This time I think it was the balsamic vinegar, so I didn't share his misery.

After the puking incident came the mad dash to prepare for the 'web for reference' class that I taught to new Casual Staff at the Library on Monday morning. I have never taught this class before, and was recently doing some 'geek impersonation': reading books like 'Web Search Garage' on lunch to hone my Internet searching skills. My geek reading made me realize that our training package was very out of date, and so I had to revamp the whole thing. I was planning to do it on the day I stayed home with the puking dude ("Sprout puke inna pot!"), but that didn't happen so I spent every hour on the weekend that the baby was sleeping squeaking out an outline and some examples.

Monday morning came and I taught the class, but my head was full of that negative 'I'm crazy', 'This is really boring', 'Boy, am I poorly prepared' PMS talk that you don't know is PMS talking until you've driven yourself completely mad. The students thought it went okay, since the stuff we covered is new and exciting for them, but I wasn't pleased. Next time I do it, it will be better, with or without the hormonal edge.

And the week wound up with a mad dash to finish an exploratory proposal that I drafted on behalf of one of the committees I sit on at the Library. We had our meeting today, and I finished it on the Information Desk last night with 10 minutes to spare, after my computer had crashed and the printer had crashed and in between answering questions about magazine articles, Lester B. Pearson, and diet books. Whew! And when I sat down with the group this morning, and we read it, I thought, boy I did a good job! Do you ever write something in a big fat hurry with umpteen interruptions, and then read it later and think how did I write that so well?? Must be the squirrel in me. Lean, clever, perky.

Hey wait. If I'm a squirrel, I should be hibernating!! That's it, then. Off to the tree hollow and my sleeping Bobo.