happy new year's eve

We're in Utah now, chillin' at my parents' place. Juma was concerned he'd be too shy to his grandparents, but he warmed up quickly and talks to them animatedly. Just now, he volunteered to Grandma that the Grinch doesn't like Christmas. But then he liked it.

We'll be heading to Salt Lake's first night tonight to see the Matt Lewis Band and to party in the new year.

Happy 2006!

and then he said

Juma's feeling much better, just in time for Christmas morning.

Just now, he asked for something to drink. We've been giving him pedialite (electrolyte solution). But since he's feeling better, I offered him plain water.

He said, "No. That rinses out my salt."

Merry Christmas! And Christmas gift!

(Do I have any Jewish friends reading the blog? If so, Happy Hanukkah, in a few minutes.)

Juma got a Buzz Lightyear warm-up suit, very 1970's retro looking. He also has longish hair, which is unusual for him. A kind of retro '70's look. So he's lounging on the couch, his hair long and unkempt (and unwashed as long as we've been on vacaction), the jacket of his warm-up suit unzipped, no shirt on underneath. All he needs is a thick gold chain to complete the picture.

What have we done?

Juma said:

When am I going to get better?

Disneyland's "Code 3"

We make the trek down to Los Angeles and went to Disneyland yesterday. It was fun--for the hour and a half up until Juma got sick.

All over the floor in the line for Autopia.

The call went out among the employees, "We have a Code 3 in the Autopia line," as Justin and I took Juma out of the park and back to the hotel to get cleaned up.

He didn't improve during the day, so he never made it back to Disneyland. Justin, ever the diligent father, stayed with him. Today he decided to throw up again right in the middle of "Christmas Adam" dinner (but not on dinner, luckily).

He hasn't kept much down other than some pedialite.

So when does the vacation start?

sunny California

Well, okay, not sunny. But it's warmer than Connecticut.

After 14 hours of travel, and accidentally leaving my glasses and contacts case on a plane in Chicago, we've arrived in Merced.

Ah, vacation.

the pretend lasso and the incredulous kid

When I was a kid, and my parents went out, they would often leave the older kids to watch the younger kids. More often the not, the toddler-age kid would miss Mom and Dad very-extremely-much, and cry and whine for their swift return. To help out, one of the older kids (Rus, was it?) invented the lasso game.

We would throw an imaginary lasso out the window and down the street as far as we could, in hopes that it would catch Mom and Dad's car and pull it home. A toddler could be preoccupied for a full three minutes of precious whine-free time while she pulled that rope back into the house. If the pulling produced no car, we told her the lasso must have missed, and we threw it out again. Eventually, Mom and Dad came home, or she went back to crying.

This morning while Juma and I were waiting in the cold for the bus to take him to school and me to work, I tried the lasso game to catch the bus and bring it faster. Luckily, the bus came into view down the street as soon as I threw out the lasso, but I pulled and pulled that rope anyway, saying, "Look, Juma, it's working! I'm pulling the bus!"

To which he answered, "No you're not! It's driving. See, a driver!?!?"

Juma wants to type now:

juiyrehvgfdjuyr
yyyyyyyyytewsafgjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
ghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhu
uu
cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc
cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc
ccccccccccccccccccccccc

"I want my unicorn" and the horrible night's sleep

After going to bed two hours late because we had dinner at some friends' house, Juma woke up at 4:30 in the morning demanding his unicorn.

Which doesn't exist.

We didn't even know he knew the word unicorn; he certainly doesn't have a toy one. It turns out he needed to go to the bathroom (at least he didn't go in his pull-ups), but he wasn't able to sleep after that. He wanted everything from a toy ("No, not that one!") to a snack ("I don't know which food I want!") to moving his bed back into his own room (but not to sleep on it) to his watch (so he could see if it was seven o'clock yet) to nothing at all (but crying pretty loudly about it).

That lasted two hours. I finally got him calmed down enough that I let him stay on the couch with his watch, waiting for the six to become a seven. He fell alseep there, and slept until nine. So did we.

On a happier note, we're hopping on the plane tomorrow to head to California! Just six more sleeps 'til Christmas. (And when am I going to shop?)

sick...again

Juma is sick once again. Some sort of cold or something. Eight children from his school stayed home sick yesterday. A cough keeps him (and Justin, mostly) up at night, and a mild fever keeps him from wanting to play much during the day.

The missed-school days and the waking up at night couldn't have come at a worse time: finals week. But the semseter will all be over for me by 11am tomorrow. Hallelujah.

Then I'll finally have some time to make some Christmas toffee and write some Christmas cards before heading out to the (relatively) warm weather of California.

But for now, it's back to studying.

whew!

I just got out of my biostats final. It went okay--except for what I'm really hoping was a majorly trick question. It didn't make sense at all. Oh well. Just one final to go! And considering today is the first official day of finals, I'm feeling pretty good about that.

I am slowly going crazy...

6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 switch!

Slowly crazy I am going

6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 switch!

Crazy going slowly am I

6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 switch!

Am I slowgy crazy going

6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 switch!


Okay, so I'm studying for my biostatistics final and needed a break before my head exploded. Bright and early 8am tomorrow I get to shuffle through Fisher's exact tests, Simpson's paradox, paired t-tests, and a bunch of Greek letters like alpha, beta, rho, and sigma, not to mention p-hat, x-bar, mu-of-i, and insignificantly small numbers like .0001 (which is highly significant in statistical terms!). Like I said...

Going I am crazy slowly...

remembering summer

Here are a couple of photos Ann sent us from our trip to Oregon this year. (Thanks Ann.) The first is of Juma and his cousin Rylee, the second is of Juma and me in a cave. As always, you can click on the pictures to see a larger version.





If you haven't checked them out yet, give a big welcome to Alisha and Lance and Patrick and Jody who have now joined us on the blogging bandwagon.

Oh, and someone please leave a comment! I've opened up the comments for everyone--you don't have to register anymore.

more snow

We decided to go sledding this morning for the first time this winter. Luckily we live right next to the Divinity School, which has a great hill. We hiked over and had a great time. Scroll down for some pictures of a perfect Sunday morning in December.

new videos up

We posted two new videos of Juma. One is of Juma dancing the night away, and the other of Juma playing with some hot wheels cars, sound effects and all.

Enjoy!

it's beginning to look a lot like...

We went to the lighting of the huge New Haven christmas tree on Wednesday. Juma went on a hayride and we enjoyed what will probably be the last mild evening of the year.

Here are some pictures: