I am dying for this semester to be over. Of course, I always feel that way at this time of year, but particularly this year. For those of you who are teaching, pursuing double doctorates, and have two young children at home - take note, adopting a third child at the same time can be a little stressful. Stock up on chocolate. Also, please e-mail me. I've never met anybody else doing what I do, and would love to know I'm not the only crazy person on the planet. Take note that I am NOT at a conference that I should be at today. Tough tiddlywinks, I'm just too tired.

On a happier note, we all went to the Downtown Aquarium for dinner with Grandma Jean on her birthday. I, of course, forgot my camera (fortunately, Jean brought hers, but I need to get those pictures). We had a very nice time, and their restaurant has the added side benefit of built-in entertainment: a huge tank with reef fish and sharks taking up an entire wall next to the dining area. Sarah and Genevieve always love it there, and Eleanor had never seen anything like it in her life. On one hand, I could tell Eleanor was very interested in everything she saw. But she also just sort of took it in stride, perhaps figuring it wasn't much weirder than everything else that has changed in her life recently. Yeah, yeah... come to America, move in with strange people in a strange land who like to eat in the presence of sharks. No biggie.

Sarah's class won the Geography Fair at school. She came home happy and proud yesterday afternoon - her class had never won the fair before. Eleanor came home with a stack of homework from her kindergarten teacher, a packet of 10 worksheet pages that is supposed to be completed over the span of a week. She sat down last night and carefully completed every single page, while I sat with her and interpreted the instructions. She has loved going to school - when she gets up on weekday mornings, she brings out the clock, and wants me to show her how many times the big hand has to go around before we leave. And apparently, she loves the homework, too - we'll see how long that lasts! She's also a perfectionist, wanting to get every letter she writes perfectly shaped (she could print "Eleanor" with perfect penmanship within her first week of kindergarten)... we'll call Aunt Meg when the "build an Egyptian shadouf" project comes in (love ya, sis... and no, you'll never live the shadouf thing down). For now, though, Eleanor is an eager little sponge, who ADORES to be taught and sat with and read to. She's learning English very quickly, and I have no worries about her excelling in first grade next year. And Zitao has been adopting "Eleanor" more and more since interacting with more people outside of the family. At home, she's Tao-tao, or Eleanor, or Zitao, or Eleanor Zitao (which she particularly likes to say while walking around the house, in a sing-songy voice - El-ea-nor Zi-TAO!) But nobody else says "Zitao" right - or even tries, most of the time - so she's been using Eleanor. It seems to suit her just fine.

Sarah is a wonderful example as an older sis, since she's devouring books every few days lately. Her most recent interest is in dragon stories (such as Saphira from the Eragon series, and the Chinese dragons we saw everywhere on our wonderful trip, Haku the dragon from "Spirited Away," and of course Smaug from her old favorite, the Hobbit). I love that Sarah loves reading so much; it will serve her well for her entire life. Genevieve is a bit young for reading yet; but she does have quite a few of her bedtime favorites memorized. So Dave is held to the LETTER when he reads in the evenings. No skipping!! And now Eleanor is learning some of these stories by heart, too - so Gen's got backup!

This weekend I'm spring cleaning and trying to complete some IRB paperwork for our EEG lab. Yesterday, I finished our new website - it's at http://www.colorado.edu/slhs/eeglab (check it out, I think it came out rather well). On Monday, I actually have some landscape help coming for the projects we've started but never completed, like the side yard which has had landscape fabric laid and raised beds and an arched trellis that I built myself (and am rather proud of) installed since last fall, but no gravel mulch or fill dirt put in yet. The neighbors will be very pleased to see something actually happening, and I won't feel like I have to sneak around the yard to avoid them (those darn Nashes - they come out for the mail, but they can't finish their projects!). And Dave will be perfectly happy not to be behind a wheelbarrow on this one, too. Yes, we actually had a PLAN when we didn't water the east lawn - it's getting the remaining sod ripped out, landscape fabric laid, bark mulch put in. We've already put in Austrian pine and Colorado blue spruce, I'll add some more waterwise shrubs, and it will be good for our water bill and the planet all 'round.

If our intrepid China travel companion, Auntie Di, is reading - we are thinking about you. Every day. And hoping healing comes your way. We love you.

As for the rest of you anonymous readers (I know I have hundreds of you visiting every week according to my web host, and yet you lurk while my comments sections and guestbook remain lonely and empty...), I'd love to find out who you are! :) And if you choose not to share, that's okay. I'll just take comfort in thinking that perhaps what I write is worth reading. Since my other work is in academia, I know that anybody actually voluntarily reading what you write is a high compliment!