Enid has been sick for the past several days with a runny nose and cough accompanied by a low fever. We took her to the doctor on Saturday, and he said that it was just an ordinary upper respiratory virus and should clear up in a few days. Her fever does seem to be going away, and the cough seems to be getting better, but Sunday she had an upset stomach with diarrhea and vomiting, which was an unexpected and unwelcome complication. Today she seemed to feel better, but her energy level was rather low, so we kept her out of school. Hopefully she’ll bounce back tomorrow or the next day.

On Sunday morning Robin ran a 10K race that she signed up for about a month ago. She didn’t really feel ready for it, since she’d had a cold herself that messed up her training regimen. But she did manage to finish. The race was right here in Del Valle. Enid and I went over after breakfast and arrived at the finish line just in time to see Robin finish. That was fun.

Later in the day I took the bus over to a big book fair that was happening at Parque Fundidora. Apparently it’s an annual event. The plan was for all of us to go, but when Enid started to feel bad that became impractical. So I went alone. I was on a quest to get Enid some new books, since I’m getting extremely bored with the ones we’ve got, and the public library here sucks. The book fair was inside a big convention center, and there were dozens and dozens of publishers selling their wares. It would have been a great place to browse for Spanish books for myself, but I stayed focused on the children’s books. There were plenty, but obviously there were all in Spanish and I wanted to find some in English too. So that took awhile, but eventually I found a seller that had some. In the end I spent my 500-peso budget on a nice mix of both Spanish and English books.

Speaking of reading, Enid is starting to sound out words. It’s amazing how quickly she is growing up! New abilities just seem to appear out of nowhere. She’s getting such a personality too, and a real sense of humor. It’s fun to see. The reading thing is especially nice, because she’s always loved books and I just know reading is going to be a great pleasure for her. I don’t know if she’ll keep going with the sounding out at this point or not. Maybe once the novelty has worn off it’ll be too tedious to hold her attention. But it’s obvious that once she starts school reading will come easily to her.

Have you noticed that I haven’t talked about work yet? WELL I’M NOT GOING TO! That’s because I’m sick of work. Literally. It was driving me crazy. Other stuff probably contributed (like the sick kid) but mostly it was work. For weeks I wasn’t sleeping well, and then several days ago I started having symptoms of acute anxiety that were extremely unpleasant, to say the least. By Friday afternoon I got to the point where I was genuinely worried about my mental health (which of course made me even MORE anxious). After spending all weekend trying to get my mental and emotional equilibrium back, I’ve decided that life is too short for that kind of nonsense. So I’m reigning in my ambitions at work. No more trying to move mountains. Someone else will have to be the hero this time.