The rain was pounding fiercely on the roof last night, waking me repeatedly from my cold-addled dreams in which I kept finding myself wandering around a dark maze of a library pondering whether I had been making large decisions in my life based on passion or, as had been accused, on practicality. When I dragged myself out of bed this morning and flung back the bedroom curtains, I was greeted by a dark sky, and leafless trees below which stretched a slick mass of leaf-covered lawn with the stream roaring at full tilt across the bottom of the yard. It looked cold and wintery, but turned out to be, in fact, the warmest day we�ve had in weeks.

We had planned a full day of yard-clean-up, which will have to be postponed. AJ is much better, but still coughing, while I am struggling to stay off the slippery slope of preschool-induced illness by mainlining vitamin C and assorted liquids. I understand why people send their kids to school sick, really I do. But I do hope that whomever is responsible for starting this little epidemic was feeling guilty when she picked up her kids on Friday and heard everyone � kids, teachers, parents � coughing. It sounded like a tubercular ward.

Instead of yard work, we went for a drive this morning and ended up at a toy store where AJ and I had once spent a pleasant rainy afternoon. This time, however, all the demo toys were broken and nothing caught our fancy so we came home and read books until we were both sleepy. AJ is now napping, but I can�t seem to get myself to sleep, so I�m lying in bed watching an industrious squirrel run up and down the linden tree outside my window with mouthful after mouthful of leaves, which his is stuffing into his nest in a hole in the trunk, about two thirds of the way up.

He�s making me sleepy just watching him.

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