Stream of Unconsiousness

It's been 5 or 6 years since I've pulled an all-nighter, but for the last 2 nights, I've been nocturnal. See, in my career, I've gone from making germanium crystals in about 3 days, to making silicon carbide crystals in a bit under a week, to making sapphire crystals that take 2 or 3 weeks.  And that means sometimes equipment needs someone to keep an eye on it over night.  I never had to do that at DC (mostly because you couldn't see anything while it was growing - you just put everything together, hit go, and then come back days later and see if it worked).  But now I'm in much more of an R&D role, and we've got a big (really big) new furnace, and it needs some baby sitting.  Luckily, tonight is my last night of hanging around here.  I've done reasonably well with this whole staying up late thing, which isn't to say that when 5:30am rolls around I'm not ready to pass out anyway.

So, from my sleep deprived brain, some stories about the girls.

Julia is growing up and has recently learned how to think about other people.  In a way, it's amazing to see little kids and realize that they really no notion of how much of an imposition they are nearly every moment of their lives.  Ella really just doesn't understand that I'm not waiting around all day to go wipe her bum at a moments notice.  But Julia is figuring things out more and more, and as the sensitive soul that she is, trying to make people feel better.  So, if she sees me or Shannon stressed out (usually because of Ella) she'll come over and gently stroke my hand, or give me a hug or something.  It's very sweet.

Ella, on the other hand, just gets goofier every day.  The girls usually take showers, not baths, these days.  I'm not entirely clear why, since they seem to want to stay out of the shower stream as possible, but that's what they pick.  Anyway, while in the shower the other day, Ella declared that she was having a "bum party" and starts doing her little booty shake dance.  Which brings us back to one of the rules we have to go over and over at our house: no dancing in the shower.