The Hall Monitor: Weak and Powerless...

This is the first update in a few days. We've had a weak, puny, sickly child for the last few days.

Jaxson was sick Friday. (Remember--I stayed home and watched the History Channel with him.) He didn't really feel that all that well until yesterday afternoon.

This was the first time that he's been really sick. He's had a runny nose before, but this was more than that. He had a really runny nose, cough, congestion--the works. He didn't feel well, and he made sure to let us know that. I don't ever recall him being quite as fussy as he was over the weekend.

That being said, it appears that all that is behind us. By Sunday afternoon, he was ready to resume his normal duties. He felt so well, we went up to the church to play some volleyball, with Jaxson in tow.

Jaxson was the hit of the event. All the ladies wanted to play with him. There were long periods of time in which we weren't sure exactly who had him. We just knew that he was being well taken care of, by ladies who adored him.

Like I said, he was feeling a lot better.

Tara and I had a good time, too. We discovered that we aren't as young as we thought...but we had a great time.

When we got home from the big event, we discovered that our power was out. It rained about six-and-a-half drops at our house Sunday afternoon, and apparently, that was enough to wreak havoc on our local electrical grid.

According to Travis, the power had been out since 5:30--a little over three hours. He figured that the power would be back on soon.

Travis was wrong.

We sat around a little candle for the next two hours or so talking. It was kinda nice. The TV was off, Jaxson was in a pretty good mood, and we all bonded--in the dark--but it was really nice.

Around 10:45pm, it was time for Travis to go to work, so Tara and I decided to go to bed.

With the power out for the last 5+ hours, it was starting to get pretty balmy in the house. What little rain we'd had earlier in the day made it a little humid. The house was getting uncomfortable. We both hoped that the power would come on soon, otherwise, we wouldn't get a good night's sleep.

The good news is, the power did eventually come back on. The bad news--it was 4:00am when it did.

By then, Tara had decided to open the windows to the house, hoping for a cooling breeze. There wasn't one to be found. Simply stated, the night was sultry. The air was still, and that still, sultry air had settled into our home.

When the power came back on, it was 86° in our home. We were drenched with sweat. Jaxson was too, but oddly, he was sound asleep.

We cranked down the thermostat, and when we woke up a few hours later, it was a bone-chattering 67° in our home. Those last two hours of sleep were wonderful.

Today, Jaxson is feeling a lot better. In fact, he's back to his usually playful self. Here's a picture showing his playful mood:

He wanted to see what he'd look like as a silent film villian.

I also included a picture of him raising his head up to look around. He's getting pretty good at this. For a while, he had no head or motor control, but we've been working on it. As you can tell, he's curious to see what's going on around him.