Happy Birthday X2!

Does the title of this post sound familiar to anyone? It is actually the title of the post I wrote on my birthday when Graham was one week old. Now, we are wishing Happy Birthday to Uncle Brian and Grandpa Koch who are also exactly one week apart. For three straight generations now, we have had family members who are born exactly one week apart. My mom's birthday is one week before her father's, my brother's is one week before my dad's, and Graham's is one week before mine. In each case, the member of the younger generation is exactly one week earlier. So, I guess Graham's future child could be born on October 19?!

Happy Birthday Uncle Brian! We love you!

Happy Birthday Grandpa! We love you too!!
(Let's be sure we take a picture when we see you next month, so that we don't look like we are in a massive time warp with little baby Graham!)

Even in Australia

One of my favorite stories from growing up was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, and let's be honest, I still get it out and read it over every so often. Poor Alexander has one of those days where seemingly anything that can go wrong does. From not getting the toy surprise in his cereal box to having to wear his railroad train pajamas to bed. Nothing that day went Alexander's way.

Last week, I didn't just have ONE of those days, I had several, all in a row, 6, to be exact. Last week was, in a word, rotten. In retrospect, it really wasn't that any one thing was all that horrid, but when you added all the bad things up it became one of my worst weeks ever. It started with teething, feverish baby and a massive lack of sleep on Sunday night and ended Friday night with our computer completely crashing due to a corrupted hard drive. In between there were extra meetings, two late night School Open Houses, bad classes, worse classes, zany students and staff, and a teething, feverish, and sick baby. Needless to say by Saturday, I was at my wit's end!!

In the story, Alexander keeps threatening to move to Australia. Only to discover in the end that his mom says, "Some days are like that, even in Australia". My solution was to seriously contemplate packing everything into the car, driving to Iowa, and living in my parents basement. Of course, my parents still can't drive down their street due to construction, the basement would need a lot of work, and oh yeah, I guess we wouldn't have any source of income, but it really didn't seem like a bad idea at the time!

So I had my "escape" all planned out in my head, but yesterday the sun rose again, Graham finally felt better, and the Hawkeyes pulled out an amazing victory! Sure enough things are turning around, at least I hope. So for now, I guess I will stay put and just remind myself that "Some weeks are like that, even in Iowa."