Yesterday was a really hard day for us. I had to stay in Philly until 10:30 PM, so Jill had to do dinner and bedtime with the May and El Destructo by herself. Whenever I miss the witching hours with the kids, I try to get Jill a chance to get out of the house by herself and do something she enjoys, for example, walking around the town and listening to MP3s of NPR.

Yesterday morning, I was watching the kids while Jill went for a walk. While I was using the toilet, Ben (aka El Destructo) tried to go down the stairs holding the railing and fell. He got a tremendous goose egg (worse than his fall in his grandparents RV) on his forehead. Later that day, El Destructo was struggling with his sister over the position of the cabinet doors of the television armoire. El Destructo lost that battle in a very dramatic manner when his sister smashed the armoire door into his head to give him a matching goose-egg on the other side of his forehead.

El Destructo knows a new word now. He can say, "Out-side." Or if that's not clear enough for you, he points at the door and says "OUT! OUT!" when he wants to go outside to play.

May is really into The Jungle Book lately. She found a stuffed teddy bear that she's called Baloo and a stuffed jaguar that she calls Bagheera. Bagheera and Baloo live a perilous existence at our house and are constantly plagued by diarrheal viruses, tonsilar problems, and scraped elbows. In between these dramatic problems, they have the more mundane trips to the potty and bedtime rituals.

My friend Mike visited this weekend. It was great to see him. We went to a bar and ate chicken wings and watched some of the Phillies game 3 loss to the Rockies. I was really glad to see him, but after he left I felt very sad and lonely.

This afternoon I got the score back on my immunology and virology exam and was pleased with my performance.

When I got home, Jill was very determined to bury some rocks in the back yard. She took apart a small pile of broken asphalt, and for each piece, dug a hole with an edging spade. After burying each piece of broken asphalt, she raked the dirt over the burial ground, and explained her plan to rearrange the kids' outside toys. She seemed pleased with the burial.