An Update from San Antonio

Burgundy, Holden and I are in San Antonio, visiting the most awesome sister-in-law and brother in the universe. We drove over here Wednesday evening, and we're leaving Sunday.

Burgundy spent the first part of spring break at our church doing UM Army. This was her first time to participate in an actual UM Army event; last year, she attended "boot camp" in the summer, which is intended to prepare youth who are too young to participate at the full event. UM ARMY stands for United Methodist Action Reach-out Mission by Youth. Young people from churches all gather at one church, organize into teams, and go out into the community to perform work for people who need it. This week, Burgundy's team tore out and replaced the subfloor and floor in a wheelchair-bound man's bathroom and repaired the floor in his kitchen. They also patched his siding, leveled his stove, and hauled off a broken refrigerator. Other groups, painted, built wheelchair ramps, repaired rooves, and served people in our community in many other ways.

Holden will be 12 weeks old in just four more days. At last measure (9 days ago), he was 14 pounds, 12 ounces. He currently wears size 3-6 months clothes. In short, my son is huge. He tries to talk to us now, cooing and gurgling and occasionally squealing. He smiles often and beautifully now, and when he does, it lights up my world.

Today, he started trying to use his abdominal muscles to pull himself into a sitting position from a semi-reclining one. When he was 3 weeks, 2 days old, he lunged at me from Mark's lap. The last month has seen copious drooling, and he spits up at least once now after every meal. He still doesn't care for car seats or long car rides, but 3 days ago I bathed him, and he appeared to enjoy it. He even smiled at me a few times.

Everyone tells me that he looks like me. I think he must, because the only features that I can really identify as Mark's are his eyes. They are large and rich and beautiful; however, he even inherited my slight slant to his eyes. He hair remains mostly blond, but sometimes in the sunlight I think I see a glint of red. I want a "ginger" so desparately. But I'll love him even if he's blond.

Burgundy competed in science fair again this year with wondrous results. She placed 4th in her school for health and medicine, and she placed 2nd in the district; she'll go to the Houston-wide science fair in April now.

She made a 190 on her PSAT this year, which as a Sophomore qualified her for an invitation to an exclusive and very effective prep course for the exam. The PSAT/National Merit Scholar classification is the pivot point for a number of scholarships.

Right now, I still have a chance of sleeping tonight, so I'm signing off.