Happy Birthday, Haley

Monday, 8/7 was Haley's 8th birthday! I don't know where the time is going; all you new parents out there watch out! They'll be slinging iPods and picking out their own clothes before you know it. Its tremendously bittersweet. Its a bit of an indulgence to give an 8-year old a little iPod (only 1 gig, after all) but Haley is responsible and I ask her to do a lot of really "big girl" things as the oldest in the family so I felt like I had to back up my expectations with acknowledgment of all she does for us because she really is very capable, very responsible. I think this is a big lesson I've learned watching my kids grow---the oldest kid in the family really has bigger expectations and tighter rules. Tracy, Mom, I'm sorry I made your lives difficult around this issue. There's also a very good reason why it just so happens that the younger ones get more breaks, more indulgence. Of course I always understood that! But those other issues I made your life miserable over? You're still on the hook for those! Gotta love me, I'm the baby!

Its hard out here for a pup...
Noodle is figuring things out. Like that I'm in charge. That he's bigger than Otis and that has certain advantages. He naps a lot; its hard to play and grow and eat and sleep. He has a very very sweet disposition. Just a big lovable lump, I think. Kinda' like Rob.

Otis is perhaps not as dumb as I had thought. Since Noodle is young and not really in command of all of his body parts, Otis has taken to pouncing on top of Noodle as he passes by and then hopping to safety back onto the couch. But one of these days, Otis, that won't work. Noodle has also begun to try to creep up slowly and quietly on Otis and attack. I'm so pleased for how happy they are to be together.

Big Day
Tomorrow I have the second of my CATI meetings. This is the really big show; four hours of sleeves rolled up really hammering out the technical specs so we can begin the process of soliciting bids, buying hardware and software. After this, its really kind of all over except the crying. It feels like graduation to me: I've anticipated it for so long, I'm so ready to go, its all about me and my work. I have three representatives from a software company traveling in to consult and provide a demonstration and we have a great lunch being brought in. At the conclusion I should be able to walk away from the discussion of servers, telephone dialing protocols and other gadgetry and focus on the public health content. Its been a long time coming. It may be time to retire to the lecture circuit...

I'm technically out of the office on Thursday and Friday which might have been nice were it not for the mid-day conference call that I must attend and the 3:30 meeting I need to show my face for on Thursday. But anyway---one of these days I'm going to begin to do Mommy things on my "days off". I can't wait.