2008-10-23 - 10:37 a.m.

...stories you don't tell at faculty meetings....

Susi is getting bigger and more active everyday. Since her grandparents arrived a week and a half ago, the little one has started pulling herself up to standing position and has take a few steps. She even stands without anyone holding her for about 1-2 seconds (before she notices that she's doing it, essentially). She is a gloriously happy child who flashes an infectious smile with an ecstatic kick of both legs, the moment she sees grandma or grandpa.

This morning, however, she was NOT a happy one. A little warm, a little lethargic, a little coughing, and VERY whiny. It broke my heart to have to leave...so I stayed at home an extra hour to hold her so that she wouldn't cry.

I took her upstairs for a nap. She cried and fell asleep. And woke up. and cried. and slept. and woke and cried. I was thinking about when to take the little one to the doctor.

And then I heard some new, happy, cooing sounds from upstairs.

?

So...the pain comes and goes.

Teething? Something to do with the cough?

Finally the cooing and happy sounds had me so intrigued that I went upstairs.

There the little one STOOD, clutching the side of the crib, with a huge grin on her face, completely STARKERS from the waist down, standing over an open diaper that clearly indicated the - ahem - source of her discomfort. She'd stripped off her own diaper and was standing over it triumphantly.

K calls these dirty diapers "elephants." This was ONE BIG ELEPHANT.

As you might imagine, I haven't shared this story with many of my colleagues.