I’ve been out of the office for exactly a month. My last day at the office before today (1/5) was Friday, December Fifth. I’ve never done that before, and I liked it, maybe too much. Now I’m back, and not sure what to do with myself. I’m now used to sleeping in, eating breakfast with Max, doing nothing for a while, contemplating doing something, doing something, then going right back to doing nothing. Now, I’m at work, where “something” should be done. I’m having a hard time picking that something…

There are things I haven’t told you yet that I did with my time off. Since Jen was sick, and her parents were only here for a week, that meant that Max and I spent a lot of time in the week and a half after Christmas entertaining ourselves. We played a lot of video games (Tiger Woods 2004 wherein Max loves to repeatedly hit the ball into the water, and SSX 3 wherein Max refuses to steer), went out to breakfast, to Best Buy, the mall and the library (where I cried reading The Man Who Walked Between the Towers – yeah, I cried, sitting in a tiny chair at a tiny table, surrounded by parents and their tiny children). We had a good time, for the most part. I lost it a couple times when I found out that Max is actually quite good at Tiger Woods, but refuses to hit the ball correctly when he can just hit it in the water. He was also reeeee-ally moody one day, and I just couldn’t take it anymore, so I sent him away to watch his Spongebob DVD until I could handle him again. We also went to the new Air and Space Museum out by Dulles Airport. I love going to museums with Max! We saw the whole thing in less than an hour, and at incredibly high speeds. Max doesn’t wait around to read signs and ogle shiny chrome (which is my excuse for such strange pictures – plus, the lighting there is complete crap). One suggestion though, if you’re planning on going and live in the area – wait six months. It’s not finished, and you’ll be doing a lot of stairs. I don’t think all the planes are in yet either, and you can’t get close enough to the Space Shuttle. Otherwise, it’s fun.

I think I’ll close this one with Max’s latest obsession: the human body. Max will gladly tell you where your femur is, where blood cells are made, what his medulla oblongata is doing right now, and that his phalanges like your phalanges (where he got the last part, I don’t know, and body parts are interchangable… my “internal organ” likes your “internal organ”). My mother and I both got him books about the body for Christmas, and he’s just devouring them. He loves to ask me how the heart, brain, stomach, small intestine, muscles, bones, etc work, and will ask completely out of the blue, insanely funny questions about his body. I love it.

The kid is scary-smart. I’m almost to the point that I want to get him tested. He learns things too quickly, and retains too much for this to be normal. He’s been reading for two years, although frequently refuses to read because I think he likes it when we read to him. He remembers the dates of weird little things that happen, and will bring them up out of the blue and asked how I was feeling on October 14th, or some other day when something miniscule happened. It’s cool, and I love it, but it’s kind of freaky at the same time. For example, he drew his skeleton at church yesterday on a little cutout body, and then his heart, and the blood moving around. Granted, it wasn’t complex, but it was there, and he remembers me telling him that the heart pumps blood all over, where it is, and that red blood cells carry hemoglobin, which carries oxygen to other cells in the body.

I think we’ll do astronomy next… but thinking that is kind of silly. The boy learns what he wants, and drops what he doesn’t. It’s fascinating to watch him pounce on a topic and go all out asking questions, looking for answers, and then going deeper once he’s got the basics.

Ok, enough Max-bragging. Back to work with me…

I hope you all had a merry Christmas. We had a great, although different, holiday this year. Jen has bronchitis and I had a root canal on Tuesday, so things were a little slower this year. Thankfully, Jen’s parents are here, and have been taking good care of us. I don’t think my mother-in-law is happy unless she’s cooking, cleaning or doing laundry. Her dad has already completed a large portion of my honey-do list, and well, I’d be happy if they stayed clear on through till May when the baby’s born. I won’t have to do anything ever again… I can be even more of a lump than normal!

This was also Max’s first Christmas where he was aware of the whole Santa Claus thing, and presents. He helped pick out his present for Jen, and even got a present for the new baby (six months early, but he wanted to get it, and I didn’t want to discourage him).

Now, we’re hanging out watching football and snacking… It doesn’t get better than this.

I’m home, off from work, and you’d think I’d been gone a lot longer than a week. So, I’ll be even quieter than I have been. Off spending time with the family, getting the house ready for visiting in-laws, and doing the last minute food and present shopping that always comes up the week before Christmas. If I don’t post again before the 25th, have a safe and happy holiday (whatever your holiday may be)!!