A budding academic, as you might have guessed.

9:30 p.m. Tuesday night:

Small feet are heard on the stairs. The bug appears, carrying all the clothes laid out in advance for the next morning minus one small item.

"Where's my other clip?"

Matt looks up. "What's up, bug?"

"Where's my other clip? I can't find it. It's time to get ready for my new school."

"It's still dark. Go back to bed."

"But I already slept a long time! It's not bed time! It's time for school!"

"Not yet. Let's go back upstairs together. I'll help you find your hair clip."

"But I want to go to school, daddy. I want to get dressed and go to school." She shuffles slowly back to her room, under protest, locates the missing clip, and is tucked in by her father.

More proof that she is my daughter. I was always a terrific nerd about the first day of school every year and even still have a tough time sleeping the night before I teach my first class of the semester out of excitement. (And my second, and my third...). We dropped her off this morning and she practically skipped inside to hang her backpack on her hook and start exploring. I hope the day plays out to be as wonderful as her imagination makes it.

A fond farewell to youth.

Well, sort of.

Tomorrow is the bug's last day at daycare. Her preschool starts on Wednesday. Today was the first day of classes on campus, as well. Although there's almost a calendar month to go until the official start of fall, the start of school is the real marker of the end of the season for many of us. I taught my first college class in five years today, but that's another post...

Two weekends ago we went up to Brainerd Lake and I got this great picture of the bug:

I just love the thought of her looking out over the water, into the future, looking at the ripples she's going to make in the big wide world.

A big hug to all of you on your "first days of school" this fall.

Shortly after this moment she sat down in the water and soaked her pants, by the way. It's not all rainbows and lollipops here, my readers.

See, honey, it's science!

Just in case you were wondering:
Why men ignore nagging wives

Don't miss the last paragraph in which the husband-and-wife research team take away diametrically opposing conclusions from the same evidence set. Good stuff.

The page they tore out of the "parenting" handbooks, under "Childhood illnesses."

Not that we actually received such a parenting manual, but every so often it absolutely stuns me that kids come without directions. Thank God we don't have to assemble them. There are clearly some unspoken rules that it would have been nice to know in advance, but then, if this page was actually in a real manual, perhaps parents would be more wary of parenthood-inducing activities. :)

1) The week your spouse is out of town is the week your child will be sick.
2) When your child is sick, you will be sick.
3) If your child is in daycare, your child will be sick pretty much from birth until roughly the age of reason. (This whole full-time daycare thing is new to the rule writers; we're still gathering the stats.)
4) Two is not the age of reason. It may be the attempted age of reasoning with your two-year-old, but be prepared for failure.
5) Just when your child is asleep and you are on the verge of a nap, your child will need something involving you, desperately.
6) Something about motherhood makes all cold medicines cease to have any efficacy. Even DayQuil, your standby for "must-work" days for many years. You will just have to deal with nasal drainage and suckage for the foreseeable future.
7) The only person who produces more mucus than you is your child.
8) Kleenex get used more than once. more than once. More than ONCE. Why don't you just put them right from the box into the trash, then?!?! Oh, never mind. Blow your nose.
9) You will want to sterilize your entire house. No container is large enough and the Lysol company is alrady worth millions. Give it up and have a nice cup of tea instead.

And finally....
10) When you just can't take it one more minute and feel like screaming and crying and taking a Hoover to your nasal passages, your little girl will walk in, curl up in your lap, wrap her arms around you and say, "You look beautiful, Mama. I love you."

And then #'s 1-9 just don't matter so much.

How to impress a crowd

Last night I went back to my new office after hours, to pick up something I'd left behind, around 6 p.m..

I triggered the alarm system. My access code had not yet been activated so I couldn't shut it off.

I did, however, contact the campus police speedily enough that no SWAT teams descended upon the building. The alarm shut off by itself approximately ten minutes later, just as I contacted a co-worker by cell and got his access code to try to disarm it.

I work in a building that wraps around the theatre where the local Shakespeare festival performs. They had a performance scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. and a pre-show talk was going on when the alarm went off.

House management, backstage crew, actors, and theatre-goers alike all know where I work now, and that the alarm they heard throughout the building wasn't actually a fire alarm.

Did I mention the house holds 1000 people and the performance last night was sold out?

D'oh!

Overheard at breakfast.

I have run upstairs for the umptieth time of the morning to get something I forgot to put in my backpack. The bug is sitting at the kitchen table. Matt is making breakfast.

"Daddy, are you making toast for my friend?"

(Pause, while Matt considers the possible implications of a new imaginary companion)

"Who is your friend, bug?"

"Mommy is my friend."

"Yes, I'm making toast for your mommy."

"You're a good man. That's nice of you to take care of her."

I am not really seeking for my daughter to think of me as her "friend." That way madness lies, I believe, right past the "I can't be mean to her" and "Let's just do it to keep her quiet" warning signs. Still, this was a pretty sweet start to the morning. I especially love how she reinforces her father's positive and thoughtful behavior with compliments.

Run time.

I'm still planning to run the Boulder Backroads at the end of September. An unusually humid start to August has made my training more interesting, as running in Longmont is starting to resemble running in the humid Nebraska summers of my childhood. That is to say: hot, sticky, and somewhat more challenging than usual August running conditions around here.

The training plan I'm following is from Runner's World, and incorporates three runs a week: a run with speedwork, a "tempo run" which is just a little faster than my target pace, and a "long run" at a relaxed pace. I'm finding that the runs that are killing me are the "tempo runs" where I'm supposed to sustain a pace just a bit quicker than my usual speed for several miles. Speedwork is fun and I enjoy the challenges. The long runs feel good because I have time to really settle into a rhythm. But those "tempo runs" feel like I'm just pushing myself a little for a long time, perpetually annoying myself for the length of the run. I keep taking off faster than the "tempo" and then slowing down a few miles in and falling behind...this is week three of the plan, so maybe I'll get the hang of it a few more weeks in.

Another way I figured out it was unusually humid this week: I work in an historic building on campus, with wooden floors and wooden doors. On Monday, my office door swelled shut. I had to call someone to push against it from outside to get the door open. The weekend is supposed to dry out a bit, but I'm keeping my office open just in case.

And in bug news...

Due to a bunch of simultaneous events including my new job, we're moving the bug to a new school effective August 29th. She'll be attending a Montessori school in Gunbarrel, a place I used to work in graduate school. It's between Longmont and Boulder so fits tidily into our commuting pattern, and it's a beautiful school built in a few old houses on a few acres of land, so there is lots of space for the kids to play and experience the outdoors.

Originally we were going to wait until her 3rd birthday had passed and then enroll her in January, but a few things made us decide to let her begin at 2 1/2, when she's first eligible to enroll at the school. She's doing pretty well on the potty-training front, which is more than we expected or hoped for originally. (I wasn't sure she'd be secure enough by late August but she's around 90% accident-free at this point which is apparently enough for her to start there.)

Since she moved into the preschool room at her current daycare, there have been a few bumps in the road. She's gone from a room of 7 kids with one teacher to a room of up to 30 kids with 3 teachers. This has meant a lack of individual attention compared to her earlier classes, and while I think she's safe and they take good care of the kids, it's more daycare atmosphere than preschool atmosphere. She's gotten a lot more bumps and cuts since the move, part of which is growing up and playing more roughly, but some of that is also that they spend more time playing outside because it's less work-intensive for the teachers, I suspect. While I would definitely recommend the place we've been through the toddler age groups, we think the bug is ready for new adventures that her current location isn't really able to provide.

The new place has a garden that the kids tend to, a library room, and bigger spaces for all kinds of exploration, so I think she'll find it exciting. Lots of fun toys to manipulate and things to do. Also, this means we'll be becoming school parents instead of daycare parents. We'll be making lunches and getting school supplies and labelling everything and going to parent-teacher conferences and all those crazy things. Those of you who have known me for years will know that my eyes are glowing at the thought of helping the bug pick out a little backpack and lunchbox, and new school supplies...darn, I love fresh crayons and pencils!!!

Watch this space for more news on her new school and how she's adjusting.

Overwhelmed. But happy.

I feel like I owe you all several posts. I spent last week in New Orleans at my annual theatre conference and had some truly unforgettable experiences, as well as taking on some new responsibilities. I plan to write more about that this weekend.

The big news: I have a new job! Except I'm still in my old job... Well, here's the set-up: I am the new interim director of the campus language and technology center. The former director got promoted elsewhere in the system. She has a few months of leave without pay to see how the new job works out, and then she'll let the deans know whether she plans to return here. If not, a national search ensues for her replacement. If she comes back, it will probably be either at semester or at the end of the academic year.

Thus, my bosses needed to find someone to perform the essential duties of the position who was willing and VERY flexible schedule-wise in terms of end dates for the position. Thus, I am now working mornings in the deans' office at my old job, and afternoons at the center in my new job. Coverage is a bit problematic but they plan to hire someone half-time by next week to cover the deans' office phones in the afternoons.

As part of my new job, I have a staff of three people, one of whom supervises a language resource library with a staff of about 20. I have a staff! I've gone from being the person who makes copies to the person who has copies made for me! You should have seen the look on the program assistant's face when I asked him what my copy code was for the machine. He said, "Well, usually, you ask me and I make your copies." Wow. Also working at the center are an IT professional who keeps all the computers and equipment healthy, and a tech specialist who's really a language and pedagogy person. I'm going to learn a lot about foreign language instruction, staff supervision, budget structures, and so forth as a result; this is really a great opportunity for me.

The eventual hope is that if the former person does stay in her new job, I'll be able to transition into a lab-only position for the rest of the year and work, say, 8-2:30 and then go pick up the bug. I'll keep you all posted but wanted you to know that all your thoughts and prayers on my behalf have been very helpful in my recent job search. I'll still be on the market for a job for next year, but this gives me a great set of experiences in the meantime.