After I got home I gave Jean the medicine and went to bed. Our plan was that Jean would pass Colette to me after 3 A.M. if she was still having trouble. Colette was up until about 2:30, but slept until 6:30. Jean opted to let me sleep then, and Colette slept again from 7:30 until almost noon.

I've had her since that time in a Snuggli (it's like a back pack to carry the baby, except it goes up front). It's now just after three and she's been asleep for almost two hours. I think she's still zonked from last night, but at some point I'm going to have to wake her up so she'll sleep tonight.

The neat thing about the Snuggli is that I have both of my hands. I can read, eat, even (and especially) compute. I've been trying to spend a good bit of today catching up on work e-mail and on documentation for the Alumni system (we have a visitor coming to campus on Thursday and Friday and I'd like to know enough to ask him some intelligent questions). This little baby carrier makes it possible for me to take care of Colette and get work done at the same time.

Jean's been doing most of the baby care tonight. I made pizza from scratch (our customary Sunday night dinner), and Jean kept Colette in the Snuggli or in the bouncy seat. We'd planned to watch a video tonight, but it's now later than I wanted to start a movie. Last week I learned it's easier on us all if I go into the office early instead of working late. Colette tends to sleep in the morning, so if I go into the office at seven or seven thirty, both she and Jean get to sleep.

So the movie is off for tonight; I guess we'll try again tomorrow night.

I'm feeling a little torn working on this entry tonight: Jean is taking care of Colette while I write this, and I know that she will most likely have a long night ahead of her. We've agreed that at 3:00 A.M. I'll take over, but it hasn't worked that way for more than half a week.

Jean is supportive: she reads my entries here, and likes the fact that I am chronicling our lives. We've both gone back to read older entries from time to time and it is nice to see where we've been. Still, I feel like I get to go off and play while she does all the work, and that's not the way I want it to be for us. During the day when I'm at work there's no choice: she's got to take care of Colette. But I've really wanted to take over in the evenings and on the weekends, and I don't feel like it's working out that way. Part of it is work. I've got tons to do and the next four weeks accelerated on Friday when I signed up for two Banner workshops in Pennsylvania (on top of my impending Banner conference in Orlando).

I called this journal "finishing the hat" because I was struck by the song with that title in the musical Sunday in the Park with George. In the song, George Seurat sings of his inability to balance the consuming world of his work against his need for the people in his life. It's a challenge I feel. There's so much to do, and yet I don't want to let anyone down, especially Jean.