eye boogers

Sam's long-running cold has morphed into a more aggressive upper resp infection; I was called to pick him up from daycare on Monday afternoon because his eye boogers (spreading up from infected sinuses) looked too much like conjunctivitis for them to risk contagion, and then last night he had a fever. So I'm home today; J. gave my exam to my class this morning while Sam and I saw his ped. (confirmed it's a likely viral infection, take it easy and warm compresses for the eyes); we then hung out and read books and watched Fantasia while I sorted 5 months worth of credit card receipts and did other general filing. Ugh. I love the feeling of having all my paper organized and neatly put away, but filing stuff like credit card statements and car insurance paperwork never seems high enough priority to make it to the top of the to-do list and it's too easy to let piles build up instead of staying on top of it, which would of course be more efficient. But I can't really work while hanging out with Sam when he's in a cuddly/cranky state, so whee, the piles are gone.

This is the second ped visit in as many weeks; last week he had a rash that showed up a day after I slathered him with a buttermilk-based 'sensitive skin' lotion. Though it might just be the (mild) fragrance he's allergic to, it might also confirm his suspected dairy allergy; in any case, we needed a note stating that _that_ wasn't contagious.

Between the goopy eyes and the rash, we have no new pics, but here's an old one from the new camera, from about a month ago when Sam was still in his hat-obsession phase (he still likes hats, but no longer puts anything on his head and announces "hat" the way he's doing in this pic):



Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt L. visited last weekend for Uncle D's surprise birthday party and are coming again next week for Thanksgiving. I'm so, so glad that Sam is really getting to know his grandparents and aunts and uncles. I only know one grandmother out of all my grandparents, and though I know all my uncles and aunts, all of them live an ocean away in one direction or another, and so we very rarely get to share holidays and birthdays.

This past weekend we were uncharacteristically social: J. and I had a date on Saturday night, an early movie (Borat, our first dose of pop culture-while-it's-still-pop in years) and quick dinner while Sam played happily with his new babysitter. On Sunday we had our neighbors and another family over for brunch and lingered most enjoyably into the rainy afternoon talking with them. Then that evening we met another family with a toddler at a nearby restaurant which caters to the family-with-young-kid crowd with a stocked play area and kids' menu, but also has good food and a wine list. This coming weekend is Sam's social weekend, assuming he's all better by then: he's got the birthday party of one classmate on Saturday, and another on Sunday; he's also spending some time on Saturday morning with his babysitter while I participate in the semi-annual "parent work weekend," painting and renovating his daycare classroom.