the april report

The past few months have been a blur of travel, illness, and (as always) lots of joy and napping. Some of the highlights from April, which now seems so long ago:

Two work trips for Mama -- San Luis Obispo and Imperial Valley/San Diego. This second trip shows how my work takes me to *all* the hot spots in California. Er, not so much.

One work trip for Dada -- four days in Cary, which makes it official that Jean-Max sees my Dad more than I do.

One major illness for Luke -- five days (count 'em FIVE) of a 104 degree fever. Some other numbers that might interest you.

• 1: number of consecutive hours that Luke slept at night (i.e., he woke up every hour all night long for nearly five days).
• 1: number of parents in the house when Luke was sick (of course, this all happened when Jean-Max was traveling!).
• 2: number of doctor visits in a four day period.
• 2: number of hours it would take for the Children's Motrin to start working (i.e., I would give my cranky feverish boy a dose of medicine, and it would take two bleeping hours for it to help him feel better).
• 2: number of pounds Luke lost that week, while he was so sick and not eating.
• 3: number of times each day that I called Dada to report on how Luke and I were doing.
• 102: the lowest that Luke's fever was during this five day stretch.

The doc never got a great look at Luke's throat, but we're pretty sure he had Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. Sounds horrible, and it was. Poor Luke was sooo sick. But then, on Day 6, he woke up like nothing had ever happened, and was back to his normal, happy, active self. It was cah-razy.

Pretend play -- One morning in April, Luke woke up and all of a sudden, he started telling stories. Long, elaborate, complex stories. And, he started "pretending." Like, let's pretend this is an apple and eat it. Let's pretend this is a cookie and have a tea party. Let's pretend this train is Little Puffer! With a sudden leap in cognitive ability, Luke jumped feet first into being a preschooler.