Jeff!
He really is the best husband in the world for putting up with me the last 5 days, well not exactly putting up with me 'cause I've pretty much been gone since Thursday, but you get the idea. He managed to keep Pearl alive and happy (for the most part), go swimming, do some shopping, and get to daycare/work while I slaved away on my graduate exam. The past few days have been a blur really and the only way I could do it was knowing that all was well at home and that Pearl was ok. Not only did he manage to keep things under control at home and keep Pearl out of our bedroom so I could sleep in a little, but he also made me laugh at 2:30 AM on Saturday when he woke up from his "nap" on the couch (Pearl had completely worn him out that day and he fell asleep around 9:30 watching sports) and told me, "These late nights are killing me!" What could I do but laugh? Then I think I hit him or at least gave him the evil eye because while he was sleeping, I was up until 2:30 or later (or is it technically earlier when it's really "morning") reading over 40 journal articles, typing a 20 page research paper, and putting together a presentation.
Oh, and for everyone who's curious (I know at least 4 people who have gone through this monster before are)...a big applause for me too! I passed!!!! Hooray, I can finally graduate! Let's just say that attempting to save the world by solving the infant feeding dilemma for HIV positive mothers in Zimbabwe is no easy task. Yes, that's the "question" my group got. I was really lucky that we all worked well together and somehow managed to pull this off. It was grueling and I have to complain just a bit that they conveniently forgot to tell us there was a typo in our instructions and our oral presentation was an hour later than we planned so we ended up sitting at the University waiting for the torture to finally come to an end for an extra 2 hours!!! After 4 sleepless nights, more stress than I could have imagined, a grilling by the faculty for an hour, knowing full well that no Christmas shopping was going to get done until Tuesday night (yes we did our shopping today), and now a cold/flu, it was seriously the last thing I wanted to hear. But I did it!
Does anyone have any ideas for how I can show Jeff how much I love him and how grateful I am for his support this last weekend? I just can't put into words how wonderful he is for putting up with my crazy idea to go back to school. And XOXOXO's don't work for Jeff...he wants presents!
