Eliza Chattering and Monday Catch Up

• Chattering is Eliza's current method of communication, which consists of a whole lot of Russian and German sounding "words". She is very expressive when she does it and usually spits a lot or just plain drools through the speech. It's very funny to watch, at least for us. Other things happening in the video: she cleans the floor with a baby wipe, the wipe becomes a phone, she reads, and she falls. This is all at bedtime last night and she's beyond hyper since she missed most of her naps through the day.
• In other news (I say that a lot don't I?) we got a virus on our computer last night and went through a panicky few hours trying to reboot our system to see what we'd lost. We DID NOT lose our pictures or my school files, thank goodness, but we did lose all of my work files and our Microsoft Office applications. Thanks to the fact that the MS Office disks are in storage, we won't have those features back for a couple more months. Fortunately, I have the applications on my work laptop so I'm not completely stuck using note or wordpad.
  
• In reference to the above bullet point, if you get an email from us or anyone else that says "check out this link" with no other information, DO NOT CHECK OUT THE LINK!!!
• Also, take this as a reminder to backup all of your photos on discs or web-based hosting sites so you don't freak out over losing the birth pictures of your child.
  
• Brian just finished his Master's degree comprehensive exam on Saturday. He had no idea what to expect going in to the exam except that he had 8 hours to complete whatever they gave him. So off he went to the library with his proctor and found out that it was the kind of test where you choose from a list of topics and have to only discuss a certain number. He ended up getting done after 5 1/2 hours of typing about four topics to total 15 pages of discussion. I'm pretty impressed since he had to do this without accessing any resources-no internet, no notes, no textbooks-he had to do it all from memory. Way to go!
  
• I just finished up three straight weeks of exams and am happy to be enjoying Spring Break this week. For a distance student, Spring Break really doesn't mean much. I'm just glad to have less to do on the school side of things so I can focus on rebuilding my work files. What a mess!
  
• We watched the movie "City of Ember" a couple of weeks ago and really like it. I just read the sequel "People of Sparks" and also really like it.
  
• Nothing new here - Eliza still has no teeth.
  
• I went swimming on Friday for a workout and it totally kicked my behind. I now have a great respect for people who can actually swim for more than just fun. I ended up swimming 1/4 mile in about 15 minutes. I could have cut that time down if I hadn't stopped after nearly every lap to rest. Which reminds me, I totally panic now and can't breathe out under water. I used to be able to do freestyle and breast stroke swimming just fine, but SCUBA really messed me up for breathing and I can't seem to get out of the funk to get back into a good stroke rhythm. Not that I was ever a great lap swimmer, but I could at least keep my breath going. Now I turn my head up, suck in some air, put my face down and hold my breath. Not exactly what I want. Any tips? I am going again today so any help is greatly appreciated.
• We're thinking about hiring an au pair for Eliza's child care next year. Any opinions?