Commercial of the week: The one for Beyond.com, featuring a work-at-home nudist. Hysterical!

No Alligators

11:20 a.m. Day 4 of our new schedule, and we're managing to get out on time. We're up by 7 a.m. and out the door by 8:05. We drop Tab off in Princeton around 8:30, then we get Daniel to school just before 9. I like having a little more time in the morning, and I really like having family dinners again with Tab.

I planned to use some of that extra time this morning to go to Target, but I discovered an hour ago that Matthew is running a 101 deg. fever. I asked him if his ears were bothering him, and first he said, no, then yes, then no again. So it may be a return of his ear infection or perhaps something else altogether. We're in a kind of grey zone as far as our health insurance goes. Technically we are now covered by Oxford, effective March 1, but we haven't yet received our cards. We don't have copies of our medical records from HIP, and we have not yet made contact with our new pediatrician. I called Tab to tell him about Matthew, and we decided we'll wait and see how Matthew is tomorrow. If he is worse we can always take him to the walk-in clinic.

6:45 p.m. I finally got around to ordering an AC adapter for the scanner Lorraine gave me. Mustek doesn't take phone or Internet orders: how shockingly archaic. Since I didn't want to wait a week for the order form to arrive in California via US mail, I took it with me to Tab's office when we went to pick him up. While he was faxing it and gathering some of his equipment for his wedding tomorrow, I let the boys run around on campus. We drifted over to the little plaza between Clio and Whig Halls with the two huge facing tiger sculptures. Daniel and Stephen wanted to climb on the tigers, but Matthew (whose fever was down after his nap) declined.

We spotted a squirrel scrambling down out of the trash bucket with a huge wad of crumpled paper in its mouth. "Look, Mama!" exclaimed Daniel. "That squirrel's got the paper stuck on his head."

"No, I think she's taking the paper to her nest," I answered.

We watched as it skittered across the plaza to a holly tree, which it climbed almost to the very top. Nearly hidden in the branches, about 30 feet up, was a nest. The Princeton University campus is densely populated by squirrels, both the garden variety grey and the more exotic black ones, descendants of black squirrels imported from England many decades ago. The students feed them, which has made the squirrels almost tame. They often annoyed me when I worked on campus and used to eat my lunch outside in nice weather. Several of the cheeky little creatures would cluster at my feet waiting for a handout, and a very brazen one might even jump right up on the bench and attempt to steal something out of my lunch bag. My sons are fascinated by them, though.

Then Daniel decided to slide down the marble balustrades on either side of the stairs. The balustrades are only a few inches above the steps and the incline too gentle for the boys to work up any kind of speed, so I let them slide away. Stephen discovered he could go a little faster if he lay down flat on his back, so Matthew and Daniel also began sliding down on their backs. They were having a grand time. Three students walking by stopped to watch them. "That looks awesome," declared one guy. "I'm going to try it!" The student must have been about 6'2", and he looked so funny sliding down behind Stephen.

8:20 p.m. As I was putting the twins to bed, Stephen announced solemnly, "I don't want any alligators to come in my room, Mama." I assured him that none would.

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