It was a roller coaster. Matt's flight out of Syracuse was delayed enough to guarantee he'd miss his connecting flight. But then they got him on a whole different flight path, going through Pittsburg instead of Boston, and he wound up getting home an hour earlier than originally scheduled.

We had a great weekend -- Matt and Penny had just loads of fun, and we also took advantage of my parents and daycare so that Matt and I had a little time just for us, too. We were both very bad on our diets, but it was fun, so nyah.

There were some tears on Monday when I took Matt back up to the airport.

Yesterday was Penny's tube/adenoid surgery, and she was a champ. I lucked out -- she's come down with a little bit of a cold, which was just enough to suppress her appetite (no food allowed before the surgery, and I wasn't looking forward to putting her off) without making the doctor want to reschedule it.

She was super-good at the hospital, despite an hour delay. Of course, the drugs they gave her to make her sort of dopey helped -- once they kicked in, all she really wanted to do was lay on the bed and watch Dora the Explorer.

They put her under with gas before attempting to put an IV in her -- which is good, because apparently she's a difficult stick. I found at least three attempted sites on her hands and arms before they got it going in her foot.

But the surgery itself went very well, and the doctor came back to tell me that she was a champ, jumping right from the rolly bed to the operating table on her own, and not trying to get away from the gas mask. And he described her adenoids in TMI detail and said it was definitely for the best that they came out.

She was fussy and out of sorts from the drugs when they took me back to the recovery room, and very irritable that we wouldn't let her take the IV out of her foot. But eventually we got to leave, and as soon as we were in the car and headed home, she calmed down and was content to just stare out the window.

We spent most of yesterday watching DVDs and sucking down juice, though after she'd had lunch and taken a nap, she was pretty much back to her normal happy self. We got Matt on the computer after dinner and she talked to him ("Hi, Daddy! Hi, Daddy! COOKIES! Hi, Daddy!") and then went to bed clutching the little bear hand-puppet the hospital had given her.

This morning while I was getting dressed, Penny dug into the box of retiring toys and retrieved the Love Monkey. She named him George, and lugged him around with her all morning. At one point, she decided he needed to go to the doctor.

"Look in ear! Look in other ear! Okay, George! Good boy! Hold still! Look in nose! Good boy! Look in mouth? George, open mouth! Check ear? Okay! Good boy, Geoge! I'm sorry! I'm sorry, all done! Good boy, I'm sorry!"

When I looked around, she was petting the top of George's head comfortingly, exactly like I'd done yesterday as she was waking up in the recovery room. She asked me if George needed medicine, and I let her have one of her medicine droppers, to pretend to give George his medicine. I tried to take a picture, but of course my camera battery chose that moment to die.

I let George ride with us in the car to school (though I drew the line at taking him in to school). She talked to him the whole way. "Look at trees, George! See? Sit on lap! See trees?"

Now, of course, I'm back at work. It'll probably take me most of the day to get caught up with all the stuff that's piled up while I was gone. And at some point (maybe tomorrow) I need to go down to the bank and get them to reset the password for my online access. Yay.

--Liz