I went to our office soda machine with $1.75 in quarters to buy myself an iced tea.  When I got there, I inserted a dollar bill instead, opting to save most of the quarters.  The sodas cost $1.35 though, so I still needed to use two.  I popped in one, and started to insert the other when I noticed that the first had not been recognized.  I looked in the slot and the quarter was just hanging out right inside the slot.  So I tried to use the second quarter to push in the first, and ended up with both quarters gone in and not recognized by the machine.  I noticed a little old lady standing beside me, waiting her turn, so I pulled the latch to get my money back.  4 quarters spilled out of the change holder-- the dollar bill I had inserted first.  "It ate my quarters" I told the lady, but she seemed disinterested.  She had two dollar bills, so I stood aside and watched as she got herself a Pepsi, told me thank you and went on her way.  While waiting, I noticed a coin stop the fridge beside the machine, so I picked it up once she'd left.  I now had one quarter back, but since I only had one dollar bill left in my wallet and a pocket full of quarters I now knew would not go in the machine, I contemplated my next move.

My next move was to bang the palm of my hand against the machine's coin area.  A jingle, and out popped a Canadian quarter and a nickel.  "These aren't even mine," I muttered to myself, then pocketed them and banged the machine again.  Two dimes and four quarters spilled out with a jangle.  I picked them up, looked in the coin slot, and twisted the change return latch.  Two more nickels and my two quarters spilled out into the coin holder.  So, from the look of it, some doofus had tried to use a Canadian quarter in the machine, clogged it up, and proceeded to insert the whole $1.35 of their soda into the machine before leaving in frustration.  I'd even wager that they ditched their last quarter on top of the fridge in disgust.  Using the nickels and dimes (and NOT the Canadian quarter), I bought myself an Iced Tea and walked back to my computer with a pocket full of quarters.

Thank you, dumb person, wherever you are, for the free drink.

Here's a cartoon I drew while at work, waiting for an application to install. Normally I just doodle, but I drew these two robots really quick and decided they had a story or two to tell.

This is my current new favorite photo of Katie, taken this past week during our trip to Mountain View for a small family reunion. She had been down at the dock, throwing sticks and snail shells into the lake and watching them float on the waves, when we decided it was time to come back close to the camp and away from the water. She got mad, and I got out my camera. When she saw me point it at her, she stormed over to make me stop taking photos (she hates being photographed when she's unhappy). You can really see the emotion in her eyes... deep sorrow at her playtime being interrupted, and a hint of anger at daddy for photographing her. "No photos, Daddy!" she says when she sees me pull out my phone nowadays.

There are more photos from the trip available for all to see at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wdalphin/sets/72157620881239147/

We travelled to Mountain View for the 4th, Melissa, Katie and I. Driving up after work in my new blue Ford Fusion, pausing in West Lebanon to dine on KFC-brand chicken, we reached our destination around 1 in the morning. My parents were up, awaiting our arrival. We were exhausted, and collapsed into bed, Katie struggling and crying in the provided crib until she too sank into a peaceful slumber, too tired to cry anymore.

We awoke the next morning to my sister and nephews arrival from their prospective cabin. They had arrived soon after we had, making the trip from Maine in much the same time. Katie immediately retook a liking to Duncan, acting shy at first until he went with her down to the beach and helped her throw sticks in the water. We had to nearly drag her away an hour later, she enjoyed being there so much.

My brother George and his wife Annie arrived late in the day, making the group complete. The weather was gray and off-again, on-again rainy. We spent more time indoors than out, but truthfully, I enjoyed the comeradery more than the scenery. When we could go outside, it was very buggy, and we expended great amounts of energy trying to wave off various insects that wanted to taste our blood and our flesh.

Several trips were made out to the store or my parents' house in Whippleville for supplies. My father took George and I to rummage through his years' worth of suits, shirts and pants, of which we each took a good number with gratitude. On one afternoon of light rain, I endeavored to take Katie to a nearby park to let her run around and expend days' worth of pent-up energy. Duncan and my mother came along and provided support.

The 4th of July was rainy, but we tried to make the most of it by having a party with grilled meats, vegetarian chili, watermelon and a variety of chips and side dishes. Katie spent most of the time running from person to person, asking them each to read her the same story, Whose Baby Is That? I attempted to lighten the mood by altering the story to be Whose Booty Is That? my job as jester complete.

Sunday, each group packed up to head home. The weather was the finest it had been all week, and Melissa suggested we stay a bit longer, to let Katie enjoy it before she got jammed into a car for six hours. We passed a good deal of time on the dock, looking out at the water, throwing sticks in and watching them drift back, and then playing in a canoe on the hill down to the water. Hugs and kisses were finally given, along with parting graces, and we made our journey back home. Since then, Katie has pined for the beautiful lake, the fun-filled beach, her cousin Duncan and her dear grandma, both of whom gave her so much wonderful attention and love.

Saturday I woke up on my own around 8, even beating Katie who is normally my alarm on weekends.  She got up about a half hour later, and after some breakfast, begged me to take her to the park like she does every day.  I brushed my hair and got her in some clean clothes and we went to the park for the morning.  She likes to spend most of her time on the swings these days.  A few other fathers showed up, and I heard one woman say "look at all the daddies giving the mommies a break for once!" to her daughter.  I was a little offended by the arrogance, but I guess she's just not in the kind of marriage where both parents work equally on raising the child.  She was probably endoctrined in the principle that it's the mother's duty first, and the father's second.

We left the park around 10 to get Melissa a surprise.  Since I had finally gotten paid on Friday, we drove to Best Buy where I purchased The Sims 3 for her.  She had been waiting for it for months, and anxiously anticipating buying it since it came out some weeks ago.  Needless to say, her plans for cleaning up and unpacking more went out the window when she saw what we had gotten for her.

That night we went to Uno's for dinner as a Father's Day treat to me, preferring to avoid the predictable masses that would be dining out the next night.  Katie insisted on going potty three times while we were there.  I suspect she enjoys the thrill of the public bathroom.

Sunday I went and treated myself to <i>The Hangover</i>, which I found to be very amusing and enjoyable.  I had heard that the photo montage during the end credits was funnier than the movie itself, but I didn't find that to be true.  Some of them were mildly amusing, but not so great that they overshadowed the humor of the actual film.  Afterward, I walked to Barnes & Noble and bought a book on mythology.  While in line, the guy ahead of me began conversing with a couple several steps back in line.  I tried to ignore their conversation, but they were basically talking through me.  Once they finished, the guy nudged me and said, "I hadn't seen them in years," (something that was noted during the conversation twice), "They just started talking to me and all I could think was, 'who are you?'... you ever get that?"  "I'm getting that right now," I replied.

All in all, it was a fair weekend.  Could have done with less rain on Sunday, fewer firecrackers going off in the driveway Saturday night, and less douche-i-ness from the people downstairs,--the woman parked her car in the middle of our driveway right by the road and didn't move until she heard me talking to the next door neighbors, who were having a party, trying to figure out if it belonged to one of them-- and then Sunday the guy parked his truck in front of the house once again, blocking any possibility of anyone else parking ahead or behind him.  Next time he does it, I'll just pull in in front of him as close as I can so as to not block our other neighbors' driveway and force him to back up in order to pull out.  I'm sick of his shit.

I'm not one to judge people before truly getting to know them, but thus far, I've been less than impressed with the people on the bottom floor of this duplex we've moved into. To start with, it's a couple, a young man and woman, who own a dog. I don't think they're married, not that it's relevent, I just want to clarify that I'm not calling them "the husband" and "the wife", but "the man" and "the woman". So, I met the woman while I was first insepcting the house after having decided to rent it and had been accepted. She told me that they had been parking on the left side of the driveway, but that the man had hoped we might be willing to swap with them. I said that should be fine, figuring Melissa would want to park her car closest to the house to save five steps of walking. But it turns out that our neighbors had an ulterior motive. Parking on the left is a pain in the ass, because there are lots of prickly bushes against the side of the house. If you park next to the neighbor's truck (he parks in the driveway, she in the garage), you can't get out on the passenger side, and you get scratched up getting out on the driver's side. It's even more cramped in the garage, not that she has it any easier trying to get out without hitting our car with her door. Because of this pain in the ass, I've elected to park my new car in front of the house, on the side of the street for now. I probably won't do so in the winter of course. Anyway, I'm ticked that they talked us into letting them have the easier side of the driveway because they knew we didn't know any better. Next time they ask for something, I'll be sure to ask why.

The first time I met the guy, he didn't say more than "hi" while pulling up int he driveway in his truck the first Saturday morning while I was playing outside with Katie. He went inside looking disheveled and lugging a half empty case of beer. That night, Melissa let me go out to do something (I forget what), and when I got back, Katie had already gone to bed. Melissa told me that the neighbors had been playing loud music and making a lot of noise, so she went downstairs and knocked and asked them if they could please keep it down because she had a little girl she was trying to get to sleep. Apparently the man acted acted all put out by the request but obliged her. Later the next week, Melissa got a call from the landlords. The man had called them, complaining about Melissa bothering him by coming down and asking him to keep the noise down, and then complained that they could hear Katie stomping around upstairs all the time. Now, I'm not a fan of conflict, but when my wife had a problem with their noise, she acted like an adult and went and spoke to them face to face, and this guy acted like a dick. When they had a grievance about us making noise, did they act like adults? No, they whined to the landlords like a pair of children. And this was only after complaining that we had asked them to not be so god damned loud. When I found out about that, I was pissed off. Act like a man, jerkweed. Don't tattle like a baby to someone else.

Next, the trash. I didn't know at first what day was trash day here. At the old place, we just put our trash in the dumpster, and the dumpster magically emptied every now and then. Here, you put the trash in cans out by the side of the house, and wheel the cans to the street on Friday. As I said, I didn't know this, so I just kept putting the trash in the cans. One day, I saw trash cans by the road up and down the street, all empty. The garbage truck had coem and gone. Had the people downstairs bothere to wheel the trash to the curb? No, and the cans where almost overflowing. The next week, I knew what day, but again, because I was unused to the event, I forgot to do it. Did the neighbors bother to take care of it, considering the trash cans were full to the brim? No. They did not. Finally, I got it right, and wheeled the trash cans to the road. It was awkward and took some manuevering, what with the cans being so full, but I did it all by myself, while the neighbors sat inside and did nothing. At least they were courteous enough to wheel the empty bins back to the side of the house after they'd been emptied, but apparently that was just because they had trash to throw away and figured they might as well. The second week of me getting it right, they didn't bother moving them back. I left them by the road too, not wanting to be the god damned trash person for the entire household, and the finally moved it that evening, probably because it was an eyesore.

The latest thing they've done (and I say they, but honestly, it's been the man each time that's been the pain and the shmuck, while the woman has been nice and friendly) is that this morning I took Katie to the park. When I returned, the shmuck -- er, I mean the man had parked his truck in front of the house where I had been parked. That's not such a big deal normally... after all, there's enough room in front of the house to park two cars, and Melissa and I had done so several times already. But this asshole, did he make room for a second car? No, in fact he parked his god damned truck in such a way as to make it impossible for anyone else to park behind or in front of him. Every time we've parked in front of the house, we've been polite enough to park and leave room for another car, should they need to park there. EVERY TIME. And yet, he can't show this simple courtesy back. Refusing to park against the bushes in the driveway, which already left an ugly scratch on the side of Melissa's car when she tried to back out one day, I parked in front of our next door neighbor's house.

We're not the best neighbors in the world, I know that, but this couple... more specifically, this MAN has been completely inhospitable toward us since we've arrived. I know they had a whole month of the house to themselves while the landlords moved out and before we moved in, but we're here now, and this guy needs to stop acting like a dick and start acting like a human being.

So here's my update: Two weeks ago, we moved into a duplex (two-family house). It has a backyard, is out of the downtown district, is QUIET (except when the people downstairs decide to have friends over) and is in a much nicer section of town.

Yesterday, I started a new job in Bedford, testing software and systems for Hologic, a leading provider of services geared toward women's health. I actually have to drive myself to work again for the first time since 2006. Which leads to:

We bought a car for me to drive to work in. It's a dark blue 2006 Ford Fusion. I was going to look at the 2009 Ford Focuses, but I discovered that they have virtually no leg room in the back. Seriously. It's like they expect you to be carting around paraplegics in the Focus. On the other hand, the Fusion has SO much leg room that I was able to get in the driver's seat,a djust the seat to accomodate me, then get in the seat behind the driver and stretch out.

Katie is still potty training... struggling. She was doing well and then had a bit of a slide backward. It'll be easier once Melissa is done with school for the year and can focus more on making her go potty. It'll also help once we're completely unpacked here.

I put up some new photos of Katie today. This one was taken this morning after she brushed her hair while standing on the stool in her bathroom that she uses to wash her hands after going potty. Enjoy.

I was contacted by a recruiter in Manchester earlier this week. He was looking for someone to fill a contract-to-hire position at a company in Portsmouth, NH. After talking with him on the phone, he said what I always dread, "I'd like us to meet up and talk about this face-to-face. Can you get to Manchester?" Yes. Yes, I can get to Manchester. It just means I have to rent a car, which isn't a hassle, but having to rent a car every time a recruiter wants to talk to me can add up. I sucked it up and rented a car through Enterprise, which is just a block away from where I live.

So I drove to Manchester today, filled out some survey, waited a while, then the guy came out and talked with me about my experience and the job he was looking to fill. After we talked a while, he gave me a ton of forms to fill out and left me alone in the room to fill it all out. As I was signing my name for the hundredth time, a woman came into the room and introduced herself to me with a smile. "Nice to meet you," I told her. She proceeded to talk about "The Burlington Office" and another company they were trying to help fill a position with. I was interested, because whereas the guy I had come to meet with talked about doing mostly contract work, this lady said she only handled permanent positions. Why was I not meeting with her? I wondered. But the more she talked to me, the more confused I got. She kept going on about "The Burlington Office" and some other person's name who I had no idea who it was. Then she started talking about a job that entailed electrical consulting work, wathever the hell that is. I told her I didn't have any electrical consulting experience, and she made a gesture toward some papers she had with her and repeated the thing about electrical consulting. I looked and realized that what I thought was the details for a job were actually someone's resume. I twisted my head, trying to read what was on the paperwork, and realized that she was talking to me as if the resume were mine... which it wasn't.

"That's not my resume," I told her. She stopped talking and looked at me, then looked down at the papers.

"Alan?" she asked.

"No, I'm Wil," I said, showing her all the hundreds of signatures I had just signed. Her face turned beet red and she got up, trying to laugh it off as she explained that the receptionist had told her that the person she was supposed to be meeting with was in this room. She hadn't bothered to ask me my name when she came in, and I, busy writing my name a hundred times, had not given it. If either of those things had happened, we would have saved ouselves 15 minutes of confusion. "It was still very nice to meet you," I told her, "and thank you for telling me about the Burlington Office." She walked out saying, "No wonder you were looking at me like I had a hundred heads..." I returned to signing my name another hundred times and then handed in my paperwork and left.

-------------------

In Katie news, Katie is potty training and doing a great job most of the time. She has also learned a new bad word to use besides "fork"... "bench".

Melissa put on Annie for Katie to watch, because apparently it was her favorite movie when she was little. I went to look up who played Annie and found that the movie was directed by John Huston. Looking at John Huston's liste of credentials, I found that in the movie The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, he played a character named Grizzly Adams. This reminded me of the show "Grizzly Adams" that I used to watch when I was little, so I went and looked it up. Then I went and watched the intro on YouTube, then went to Wikipedia to read more about it because I could have sworn I remembered the last episode being the Grizzly Adams died by going over a waterfall. Instead, I found out about the real Grizzly Adams, a man who captured animals for zoos, befriended many bears, and had one accidentally crack his skull open four times while wrestling. Anyway, while looking at the details for the old television series starring Dan Haggerty, I saw among the trivia that Lee Torvino's only line in Happy Gilmore was "Grizzly Adams DID have a beard." This got me looking at trivia for Happy Gilmore, which then carried over to Little Nicky, another Adam Sandler movie, where I reflected on Henry Winkler being tortured with bees.

It was then that I stopped and asked myself how the hell I had come to be thinking about Henry Winkler being tortured by bees and remembered that it had all started with Melissa putting on Annie. It's amazing how the mind works.

Melissa decided that this week, during her February break, she is going to potty train Katie. She bought little training pants for her, and we have a toilet seat that goes over the normal seat for her to sit on. The plan was to take her to the potty every hour in hopes that she pees in it. She has been surprising us though.

Sunday she had two accidents, early in the morning, where she peed her training pants after we had taken her to the potty. These were morning accidents though, and all the rest of the day she had no problem.

Now, that night she got really sick. I did too. We were both throwing up and not sleeping well. Melissa now suspects we got food posioning, as we both ate the same pizza for dinner that night, whereas Melissa had her own pizza and didn't get ill. Anyway, we weren't expecting much of Katie yesterday because of the sickness and sleep problems. Despite that, she told Melissa in the morning that she needed to poop, and did in fact poop in the potty! She had an accident right afterward, which I chalk up to her not being done pooping before she got off the potty, but the rest of the day she didn't have a single accident, even though I put her in a diaper at nap time and she never changed from it. The diaper was still dry that evening when I put her into her bed clothes. She even pooped again in the potty that evening, tell me in advance that she needed to.

Even more miraculous, she fell asleep on the couch at 5:30 last night (she missed her nap because she threw up right after I put her to bed) and we carried her to bed, where she slept until 8:00 this morning. At 8:00 on the dot, she walked into our bedroom and whispered "daddy?" I had gone to bed at the usual time, despite only getting 2 hours of sleep the night before, and had prayed before bed that she sleep through the night and not wake us up until at least 8! So I'm proud of her for sleeping through the night after being sick, and I'm especially proud of her efforts so far to pee in the potty instead of her pants.

Tonight around 10:45, Katie began to cry from her room. This has become an unfortunately common thing recently, after her bout with RSV left her sleep schedule all awhack. I waited a bit to see if she'd give up, but she kept calling "Daddy! Daddy!" so I went in to check on her. In the dark, I could hear her but not see her and it seemed that she was somewhere on the floor instead of in bed. I knelt down and felt her lying beside her bed... and the changing pad we tuck under her crib had been pulled out and she was lying on it.

"What are you doing down there?" I asked.

"Poopy," Katie replied.

"Well that's a good reason I guess," I remarked, though I was kind of surprised she had pooped at night. Usually she goes right after waking up in the morning or afternoon. I went and turned on the lights, but before I started getting her pants off I had her roll over so I could peek to assess the damage. All I saw was peachy baby butt in her diaper.

"Hey, there's nothing in here," I said, letting her roll back over and sit up. Katie quickly got to her feet and looked at me.

"Ha ha ha!" she proclaimed and ran out of the room.

I just sat there, bewildered for a moment. My two year-old daughter had just pulled a fast one on me and managed to escape her bedroom. What an elaborate plan! I was both proud and awed by it.

I've uploaded poor-quality scans of four photos Melissa and her mom had taken of Katie at a local Walmart while we were visiting in Indiana. The prints arrived in the mail yesterday as part of a package Melissa's parents sent of items we could not pack for our trip home.

This is my favorite of the photos. I really like Katie's smile in it. I think she's got a bit of a devilish smirk beginning (she gets that from her daddy).

Between our bedroom and Katie's bedroom, there is an air filter. In each of our bedrooms is a humidifier. What all these machines do is emit a whirring white noise that keeps out most of the sounds of the downtown section of Haverhill, as well as noises from our neighbors. What they also do is make it so that Katie isn't kept awake by the music and television from the living room. The only downside is that when Katie wakes up in the middle of the night and starts crying, we can't hear her from our ebdroom (although some would argue that that's NOT a down side). As a result of this, I have developed something of a sixth sense for when Katie awakens at night, which is infrequent and does not abide by any sort of natural pattern. The only thing that stays true about these night time episodes is that she tends to awaken around 1 am.

So last night, I woke up, unsure of the time, only that it was still dark out, which could mean anywhere from midnight to 3 in the afternoon these days. Why had I awakened? I lay there, listening, trying to figure out if a noise had awakened me, but all I heard were the machines whirring. Is Katie crying? I wondered, but I couldn't hear any crying. But then I felt it. A disturbance in the air around me that told me she was crying. It wasn't anything audible, it was like a vibration, so light that I could barely detect it. So I got up, and walked out into the living room, and stood there by her door. Nothing. It was quiet. But I waited, and half a minute later, she cried. So I went in and got her, gathered up all her binkies, and she cried "Macsh!" and we grabbed Max, and she came with back into the bedroom to snuggle and nurse until she fell back asleep a half hour later, at which point I cradled her in my arms and carried her back to her own bed to sleep for the rest of the night.

I don't like waking up like that, but my brain took the opportunity to start gathering thoughts and ideas to toss around while Katie drifted back down to sleep beside me. And thankfully, I remembered part of my thoughts this morning, because the one I recall seemed fairly good. It was an idea for a short story about a man in a bar, loudly complaining about the recent election of the first robotic president of the United States in 2148. He was accusing the machines of rigging the election while being verbally abusive to the robotic bartender. The title for the story would be "My Ferro Americans".

Things worth noting from this Christmas and our trip to Indiana for New Years:

1. The 2pm to 6pm travel time ended up going from2pm to 2am. 12 hours in airports and planes. We sat in Philadelphia for nearly four hours. T, birthdaylane arrived, but the crew wasn't there yet. How do you book a crew not scheduled to arrive until 10:15 to fly a plane scheduled to depart at 8:30?

2. Katie gave a flight attendant one of her french fries. The lady asked for one jokingly, and I told Katie to go give her one, so she ran over and gave her the fry. It was very cute. She went on to befriend almost everyone on the final flight, running up to complete strangers and asking them what they were doing. Very embarassing.

3. The guy who was flying to Philly to catch a plane to France who was outraged that the plane to Philly would be late and he'd have to reschedule to get to France. He wouldn't shut up about how shitty the airline service was, and yelled at the flight attendant repeatedly. His epic moment was when the attendant called a superior to take him off her hands, and told the person on the phone that "this customer is being irate" to which he replied "You can't BE irate, irate is a state of being! I AM IRATE!" Haha, oh zing.

4. Benjamin Button was long.

5. Valkyrie was entertaining and informative. And I dig badass guys with eye patches.

6. New Years was boring and uneventful. We barely even caught the ball dropping. Nobody to celebrate with but each other and Melissa was playing her Spore video game most of the time. Texted everybody on my phone number list before my battery died.

7. Katie loves the fur coat my mother got her for Christmas, and demands that we put it on her everytime she sees it. Now we have to get the sticky candy out of the fur.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

what's been going on in my life. Well, two weeks ago Wednesday, I got called into a meeting at work. Apparently, Jack Morton was falling on hard times, and they needed to cut back their budget. Among those being let go, I was one of them. I never expected it to happen. As far as I knew, the company was doing fine, and nobody was worried. Our office (the digital office) had been doing well, so none of us expected we'd be laid off.

So, I've been utilizing contacts, looking and emailing employers online, working with agencies to find openings. Yesterday, I had an interview for an almost identical position to the one I had at Jack Morton, only this time with a larger ad/marketing firm called Hill | Holliday. They are expanding their digital department, and need a quality assurance department to keep things running smoothly. They are also, apparently, a sister company to Jack Morton, both part of the Interpublic family of companies.

The interview went alright. The company's space is on State Street, covers five floors of a huge building, and looks amazing. It sounds like a great opportunity, and I hope it works out for me. The commute would be close to the same as the old one, except I wouldn't have to travel as far on the orange line. The company is bigger, the digital department is bigger... everything seems to be bigger.

I can't think of what else to say, and I need to get back to doing some cleaning and sending out resumes. Keep your fingers crossed.

I just thought it was interesting that when I first put up my new batch of photos, people were more interested in viewing this photo of Katie choking our cat Brian than any of the others (until I linked to one in my blog). I guess people really like to watch toddlers choke the life out of house pets.

I personally applaud those people, and wish to be friends with them. And let me tell you, if you thought looking at a photo of an animal being mercilessly throttled by a little girl was awesome, you should try watching it happen in real life! WOOT!

p.s. - If anyone happens to have a copy of 101 Uses For A Dead Cat, I need to borrow a copy.

This was taken back around the same time as the sink photo, but I only just now got it up. I don't know why all the flash photos I took that night were all funky like this one, but it gives it some sort of night life feel I think.

My parents drove down from New York on Wednesday to stay with us through Thanksgiving. My sister Julie came down that same night, leaving on Thursday while my parents left Friday morning. Melissa slaved away in the kitchen most of Thursday while we attempted to stay out of her way and occasionally helped with small tasks she required done. She was dead set on having an awesome Thanksgiving and she blew everyone out of the water. Everyone was dazzled by the delicious choices. I mainly wanted turkey and potatoes with gravy. Yum. Even Katie ate some, though she was cranky and tired same as last year because Thanksgiving supper always treads on nap time. After the meal, she passed out and we all relaxed a bit before cleaning up.

After my parents left, we converted Katie's crib into a small bed (basically we took out the front railing part and lowered the mattress). She had fun bouncing in and out of it, and took a nap in it without trouble (except when she woke up and started fussing and I went to get her and found she had gotten out and pushed a bunch of stuff up against the door) but that first night she rolled out of bed, thumping onto the changing pad which we had strategically placed there for just such an occasion and cried for a bit while Melissa went in and hugged her and tried to get back down. So Saturday we went out and got a small rail to keep her from rolling out but not so tall that she can't get out on her own. We also got some Christmas presents (for Katie) while we were out. We got enough that some could be saved and be birthday presents instead!

Katie's still having trouble sleeping in the new bed. Last night she woke us up crying around 12:30. We took her into our bed for a while, then I carried her back to her own bed. I bundled her up with teddys and blankets and she cried once after I had petted her head for a while and whispered to her that it was okay and then left the room, but she apparently slept through the rest of the night without a hitch.

Next up, potty training and teaching her how to turn on Barney all by herself.

Yesterday, when I got out of the shower, Melissa told me that our day care had called and that Julie, the lady who runs it had been up all night throwing up, and had to close for the day. Being the last minute, I volunteered to stay home with Katie because Melissa did not have time or the prep work all set up for a substitute, not to mention that she's taken a number of days off already, and we don't want to use them all up or use more than she has up and her get in trouble. I was sure my company would be cool with me working from home, as they've let it happen in the past plenty of times with all of us. I wrote in after Melissa left, telling my boss and the office manager and others the circumstances behind my not being in the office. Then I got online to check my work mail and see what I could start working on. Among my emails was one from our resident IT man, declaring ***OFFICE CLOSED***. Apparently, the power was out for the entire block, so there was no way to get anything done or even get up to our office floor. So the office was closed for the day! The email was sent around 8:23, which meant that if I had gone in, I would have not received any sort of notice, gotten there to find the office out of power, turned around and headed home and basically wasted 4 to 5 hours of the day. It was a stroke of luck that I ended up not going in yesterday, and avoided all that needless transportation, and Katie got to spend the day with daddy, which she seemed to like.