Victory, Victory

Last Friday Mike passed prelims, which consisted of an 80 page paper, a 45 minute presentation on that paper and two hours of being grilled about his past and proposed research. It's been a big project that he's been working towards for months, and he passed. His committee's only complaint was that he was trying to do a PhD-in-a-half and he needed to pare down. If he pares down they think that if he stays focused he can be done by December. I told his adviser that I really want him done by December, because Mike's dad offered to let us move in with him until Mike has a job. So Mike's a little upset that I'm hoping for him to finish soon and be jobless, but the thought of a bigger house, a fenced-in backyard, a California winter and last but not least, being around Mike's dad a bunch is really, really appealing. We'll see what happens. Mike's adviser said I should tell Mike I'm leaving in January no matter what so that Mike will stay focused. :)

"What a good boy am I"

So last night Caleb was coughing a lot, as he always does when he has a cold. So Mike was holding him on his chest to keep him elevated until the Benadryl kicked in to reduce all his drainage. When that finally happened, I took Caleb back to his bed and accidentally stepped on Brayden who had moved himself to the sleeping bag on the floor. After I put Caleb in his crib I reached down to see what was up with Brayden when he popped up and said "I leaked in my pants and underwear and I couldn't find any clean underwear." After talking through it a bit to make sure I understood, I realized the poor kid wet the bed and stoically was trying to take care of it all by himself in the middle of the night. He put his peed underwear and pajama pants in the closet (where the laundry hamper is) and looked for new underwear and pants. When he couldn't find them, he just crawled into the sleeping bag on the floor to sleep there instead of back into his wet bed. So when I found him he had quite the bare bum. I went and got him new pajama pants that were in my room in a laundry basket of clean clothes I hadn't put away. Unfortunately, he went commando style to bed because underwear were in the dryer. So as I put new pants on him and tucked him into his sleeping bag, he said "Mom, there was dirt in my bed" in a very sad voice. Poor Braydo. I gave his friend Charlie a nap in his bed. Charlie had fallen asleep on the car ride home and I put him in bed, coat and shoes and all and he had dirt all over his shoes. Anyway, short story long, I was pretty touched by how Brayden tried to be a good boy and handle everything independently and not wake anybody up. But I'm glad I found him so he didn't have to sleep with a a bare bum!