We have been visiting my grandmother Bettina since Sunday and it's been very pleasant. The week before my last exam, Grandma was in a car accident and totaled her car. She had to be pulled out by the jaws of life. She thinks that she blacked out and then ran off the road. Good fortune and a graceful diety guided her car so that no one else was hurt. She told her hearing aid technician that she's decided to give up driving.

She has not yet decided to give up being driven, however, and we've been running a lot of errands with her.

Grandma has had some limited nursing care since we've been visiting, but is feeling a lot better. Apparently she cracked a few ribs during the accident and is quite sore. She's been complaining about her chest being sore the entire visit. I said to her, "Well it ought to be sore; you cracked a few ribs didn't you?"

Grandma replied, "Yes I did, but they're down here." She pointed at her hips.

Yesterday May got to watch an Animal Planet show hosted by the late Steve Irwin's ten-year-old daughter. She thought it was utterly fascinating and is the only non-cartoon television show in which she's ever really been interested. This morning May was eating her breakfast and she pointed at Jill, Grandma, the nursing aide, and her self and said "We are all females. They," pointing at Benjamin and I, "are males."

We had a terrifying moment in the bathtub a few nights ago. Grandma's bathtub is very slippery and has a slope at one end. El Destructo was scrambling around the tub and slipped, landing teeth first on the side of the tub. There was a little bit of blood on the gumline and the tooth was chipped. Jill and I were totally freaking out. I wouldn't have felt so guilty but had had a few glasses of wine and my reflexes and consequence-prediction-ability were both impaired. We took him to Grandma's dentist who said that his adult teeth would not be harmed, nothing further needed to be done, though there was a possibility that Ben's tooth would change color. Grandma's dentist didn't charge us for the visit.

El Destructo has also learned how to climb out of his pack-and-play. He climbed out during his 'nap' yesterday, ran around his room screaming, and locked the door so Jill couldn't get into the room. Jill finally picked the lock with a paper clip and took him and his sister to the park.

Tonight for bed, May wanted to read her 'Jimmy Neutron' book. She said, "I really like this Jimmy Neutron show. It's on Nickelodeon."

I asked her, "What do you like about Jimmy Neutron?"

"I don't know," she replied honestly.

Benjamin took some very poor naps this afternoon. He slept for about 30 minutes this afternoon and insisted on no morning nap. This is not enough sleep for a 16 month old baby to be getting. Jill told me this morning that he spends all day either getting into trouble and making mischief, or having painful accidents falling down, tripping, or leaping off of things he shouldn't. I did manage to see him playing in the sandbox this afternoon without being naughty or getting hurt. He spent about 10 minutes trying to shovel sand into a bucket.

When I got home from dinner, I noticed that Jill was in the process of forgetting about and throughly burning the beans I had asked her to boil briefly this afternoon. I think her plan was to burn the beans and then force me to eat chicken. I foiled her scheme by opening a can of beans and beginning the meal from scratch again. My only regret: canned beans, though still inexpensive, are slightly more expensive that dried beans.

We visited my grandma last weekend and really enjoyed ourselves. It was very relaxing and the kids were very well behaved. They got to spend most of Sunday playing with my cousin's son, Ariel, and they loved it. Grandma was in good spirits, and my aunt and uncle were able to visit for lunch before running back to the office to work on Sunday. We drove back late Sunday and I studied until midnight. I've been feeling a little behind all week.