Westmoreland Asays

Aaron, Edward, and Meg all have differing levels of illness at the moment. But Aaron seems to have it the worst. His fever has peaked around 103, making him somewhat delirious. I'm used to dealing with Aaron's middle-of-the-night-wakings, but he came into our room around 2:30 a.m. to announce that he had found his sock, which he had lost during his 12:30 a.m. waking (and which I had refused to look for, despite his incessant crying). He was completely alert, apparently happy and fever-less, but I led him back to his bed and said good-night again. He made his final appearance to our room around 4:30, hot with fever again. This time he wouldn't stop talking about the white and pink elephants (never mind this image's page source) that were in his room (no, we haven't read any Dumbo stories for several months now). But they weren't the scary part: it was the mom and dad monster that drove Aaron to our bed. Even though he said they left through the door, he

The Ducks really fooled me today . Aaron and I were jumping up and down with every exciting play, at the sight of USC's confusion and frustration, and with the thought that this could be their day again. But you could feel it slipping away during the second quarter, and I knew it was over once USC got in front. I just hope they don't let this get to them, that they come out again next Saturday and beat the crap out of Stanford .

I was walking to the bus stop, headed home for the work week, when I caught the backsides of Meg and Aaron walking to the same place. They had gone shopping at Pioneer Place and decided to surprise me--and pleasant treat indeed. I directed Meg to drive to Jamison Square ; it's a neat park in the Pompous_Pearl, perfect for the kids to splash around in during the warmth of summer, and awesome for watching all the silly people walking their even sillier dogs; it's amazing how many GenXers prefer dogs to kids, and how much money they blow on their animals.

Aaron usually wakes up at 6:30 a.m. and eats breakfast with me. He came out to the kitchen just as I was finishing up, so I got his breakfast ready before gathering my things and heading out the door for the big_city_office. When I said good-bye to Aaron, he went ballistic: screaming uncontrollably, shedding streams of tears, and chasing after me in an attempt to prevent me from leaving. I tried to calm him down, but nothing worked. He's NEVER done anything remotely close to this before. This outburst woke up Meg, of course, and she was just as unsuccessful at calming Aaron. I questioned whether I should hang around for a few minutes, but I ended up leaving the situation unresolved. Meg called around 10:30 a.m., and she said that Aaron still hadn't calmed down yet. I don't think I was listening very carefully, though, because I just said, "Oh." I don't think Meg could have fooled me with such trickery (which was of course the case--Aaron had long since

Friday We started off by watching a dumb movie, Sahara . Avoid it like the plague it portrays. Saturday Aaron and I ran to the nearest MAX stop and rode out to Hillsboro for our morning run. Boy, what were we thinking. Hillsboro? There's a reason we live in Beaverton. We cleaned out Meg's car (while taking inventory of our food storage) and installed Aaron's booster seat (and moved gave Edward Aaron's seat). Aaron and Michael later attended the Portland Beavers game at PGE Park ; we had to go because how often can you see a major leaguer on the mound ( Shawn Estes --and boy, was he good)? It was a pitchers' dual the whole way, with the Beaver's man taking a no-hitter into the 6th. The Beavers lost it all in the 9th, just as Aaron fell asleep in my lap. He woke up as I carried him to the MAX stop, and he denies ever falling asleep. It was a great night. Next year (I've already been building Aaron up for it) we'll head down to Eugene for Du