Sophie's World

11:00 PM Finally getting around to doing an update, although there really is not that much to report. Sophie continues to have a nasty cough, but she seems to be fine otherwise. Elisabeth returned to school today and seemed to manage just fine (she complained about some aches and pains, but I don't think it detracted from school at all). I, on the other hand, must have hit a wall today. I went this morning with Bob from church to deliver fruit baskets to several members of the congregation and returned around lunch time. After having my lunch, I could barely keep my eyes open so I took a nap. For two hours. I cannot remember the last time I slept for two hours during the middle of the day! I don't know if it was the flu shot or the stress and strain of finals and final papers, but I was wiped out.

Tonight Susan had an awards ceremony for work, so the girls and I were on our own. We had dinner at Andy's and made an early night of it. Both girls seemed cooperative, for the most part, and bedtime was relatively easy. We're working on Sophie's bedtime ritual (actually, we're trying to replace her ritual with our own), and tonight was a pretty good success. Mostly, it is the same ritual we had/have for Elisabeth--bedtime is bedtime, but if you need to stay up a little while longer, you are free to do so with only a small light on and with minimal noise. Sophie can turn her own lights on and off, so she's pretty much into the independence thing. At some point, I heard the toilet flush and when I checked on Sophie, she was finishing up in the bathroom and had already turned her light off. She stayed up a bit longer reading and singing ("Frosty the Snowman," at the top of her lungs), but nodded off to sleep before too long.

I'm really proud of Susan. She and some colleagues won a "President's Award" from RTI International. The award was for their work on the evaluation of the Serious Violent Offender Reentry Initiative, a study of Federally-funded programs for prisoners who are going to be released back into society. Susan really enjoys her job a lot, so it is an added bonus when something like this happens. She got home not too long ago and is pretty tired (not surprisingly).