Things I Did During My Last Exam

I can't decide if this is a How To or a How Not To, but this is how I took my 2-hour legal profession exam, for which I studied approximately 1.5 hours:

1. Read the first fact pattern, read it again, read it a third time. Wonder if there's really on two issues in it. Shrug, decide, two is certainly sufficient for a C and start reading an outline to learn something about the two issues I managed to spot.

2. Realize I am 37 minutes into the 120 minute exam and I still haven't written anything. Start typing, something- ANYTHING.

3. Finish question 1 after another 15 minutes. Since I am now 18 minutes ahead of my 1 question per hour pace, take 5 to have a mini self-identity crisis about the fact I will no longer be a student. I have always been a student. Who am I without a first day of school outfit, school supply shopping, and a planner? Relax as I realize all of these things will remain in my life as a lawyer- the first day of work outfit has already been planned and now school supply shopping is free in a beautifully stocked supply closet. Smile at the thought of all those pens and highlighters and little colored flags.

4. Look around the room and realize that I won't see any of these people on a daily basis anymore. Get incredibly sad at that thought (yes, I love my classmates, they are wonderful and smart and supportive and nice in a good old fashioned friendly way). Start to tear up, take a bathroom break to snap out of it.

5. Return focused and read fact pattern #2. Figure there must be at least five issues floating around in there but settle on two to learn and then discuss. In the process of reading the outline, get distracted by an interesting case about a horribly negligent lawyer and feel fury on behalf of the client. Note that the case is 25 years old, convince myself the client is fine now, and continue learning about the issues I need to discuss (which had nothing to do with the only case I have now read).

6. Get about half-way done and decide to take a break. Get out a piece of paper and write a to-do list of things to accomplish on the car ride.

7. Finish the second question. Debate whether or not to attack another issue and settle for flushing one out a little more. Get a little sad about the fact that I'm now a completely bare minimum kind of student, but decide the past few weeks have been insane and give myself a break.

8. Spend the last 10 minutes transferring all my now unneeded law school documents to my virtual recycle bin. Take great joy in pressing "empty recycle bin", wish the sound was on so I could hear the crinkling noise.

9. Wish time would move quicker so everyone else would have to stop discussing more issues than I did.

10. Time is called! Turn in exam, run upstairs to print out directions, go meet JP, little brother, Landon, and the cat to begin our 1100 mile, double car trek to Houston. Tear up again when walking out of the law school, laugh when I think about what my 1L-self would have said if someone told her she'd end up emotionally attached to that building. Realize there's a lot of things my 1L self wouldn't have believed she would do over the next three years and decide that's a good thing (tear up again, feel kind of proud of self, then shake it off). Open the back door to give a sleepy smiley Landon a big kiss on the forehead and jump in the front seat next to JP with my barbri book, iPod, and a package of Subway chocolate chip cookies he picked up just for me.

Drive off into the sunset- or more correctly, large thunderstorm with tornado warning; a special goodbye treat from Chicago to JP.

(I'm now writing this in Blytheville, AR a teeny tiny town with a Sonic and a motel that's almost halfway to our destination. JP is feeling good, Landon was about as cooperative as a 10.5-month-old can be on an 8 hour car trip during his awake hours. Hopefully he will remain as fascinated with empty plastic bottles and the fun sound a tylenol container makes when you shake it under close parental supervision.)

Last Supper

Yesterday was my last day in Chicago. I spent it organizing the nearly empty apartment, sitting in a hotel room with Landon trying to study, searching online for a new fridge because the one we ordered is out of stock (I found one, but it was $200 more and will be delivered 6 days later than we needed - argh), and trying not to let it sink in that we were moving the next day. For dinner we all went to Pizzeria Uno, a Chicago institution we hadn't been to yet. I had a Goose Island 312 beer and many slices of deep dish pizza. We discovered Landon loves black olives and lemon rinds (weird, right?). I'm really glad we're coming back for graduation in 2 weeks because this was NOT the final few days in my favorite city that I want to remember. I'm excited and happy about our move to Austin, but not nearly as much as JP is and not nearly as much as I feel like I'm supposed to be. I love living in a big city and I love living in an apartment. I love that everything is close together. JP hates all of those things. Austin is a compromise - almost small enough for him, almost big enough for me. I know it's going to be a wonderful place for us and I'll get more excited about the house once we're in it again, but right now I'm just really sad. I'm so glad I decided to accept my spot at a law school in a city I'd never been to- I may not have enjoyed every minute of school, but I'm forever grateful for our two years living downtown.

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JP update: We thought he was doing better yesterday afternoon - he went to bed with a perfect 98.6 temperature, but he's been taking tylenol and ib profen on the ER doctor's orders so it might have been an artificial temp. He was sure tonight would be a normal night, but he soaked through our bed, the couch, and then our bed again, and I have a hazy memory of him standing up with a towel wrapped around him (the only dry thing left) and shivering. We'll probably be back at the doctor after we get to Texas tomorrow. Although given his obsession with the place, I wouldn't be surprised if the sickness lifted once we entered its borders.

And now I'm off to take a final I never got to study for - my last day as a student feels so anticlimactic. This really isn't the kind of student I'm used to being.

Wishing For Tea

I have now switched to ice water in a big plastic cup, but I'm really wishing there was a way to make hot tea without tea bags, a kettle or microwave proof cup, or sugar. I have yet to come up with a solution. Last night was interesting... and something of a blur.

JP came home around 11 with all tests negative and a diagnosis of "viral syndrome" which he felt sounded more impressive and manly than "a virus" or "the flu". We curled up on the air mattress in the living room with folded t-shirts under his head and our fuzzy blanket under mine and tried to go to sleep. Now it gets hazy. I think I was close to comatose, but my motherly/wifely instincts kept me waking up to check on JP. Around 2 I discovered him hunched over on our wood floor with a sheet wrapped around him. Apparently he'd sweated through his side of the mattress and it was now wet and freezing and he didn't know what to do. Our apartment is all wood floors (which I hate, by the way, and will never ever have in a home I own) so there was nowhere he could move to lay down. He was freezing, I was barely responsive, but somehow managed to look up a hotel on line, call them to book a room immediately, write down directions for JP, and send him on his way to a clean bed in a warm room. He didn't even bring anything and his jacket was packed, so he was wearing a t-shirt and jeans on a 44-degree night, and running out to his car to drive downtown. He called me when he got there and I haven't heard from him since - I told him to sleep in as long as he could and enjoy the baby-free morning in a non-soaked bed.

Landon woke up super perky at 7:15. That's 11.5 hours again. There could be (and will be, as long as my life stops being so damn dramatic) a whole other post about how much fun and how good he has been for the past week. That fussy demanding baby of the wedding (and most of the past 10 months) has completely disappeared. I don't quite trust it to stick yet, but I am really, really enjoying it while it lasts.

Anyway, my brother flies in at 2:30 this afternoon to help us with our drive to Austin tomorrow. We have two cars, a baby, and a crazy cat, so we figured three drivers was necessary so one person can always be in the back with Landon. This turned out to be a really good thing because I don' t think JP can drive. I did bring up the possibility of delaying our trip, but JP said absolutely no way in hell was he staying in Chicago a second longer than necessary (my love for the city never took hold of him), and he would leave hooked up to a portable IV if necessary. The firm will pay for up to three nights hotel along the journey so if we have to stretch out the drive, we can do that. I still have another final (yeah, I kind of forgot too); it's tomorrow at 9. JP and my brother and all our stuff (so easy to pack now that there is nothing out except what we need) will meet me at the law school tomorrow at noon and we'll start the drive. Landon and I are about to get packed up to go check on daddy- we'll let him sleep a little longer, but he needs to eat and drink and I'm worried he's too out of it to do that himself. Thank you for all your comments yesterday- I told JP he was loved in the blogging world and that made him feel special (really).

So now we're at 1 day, 1 final, 1 super sick husband, 1 empty apartment, 1 happy baby, and 1 helpful brother. I think we're going to make it.

Big Plastic Cup of Wine

I'm not even sure where to begin to describe the past two days. I suppose it can be summed up by telling you that I'm sitting cross-legged on an air mattress, drinking red wine out of a huge plastic cup while JP is in a nearby hospital hooked up to an IV. For those who'd like to know more, I'll take it day-by-day:

Tuesday: JP thought he was feeling better Monday morning, but did too much taking care of Landon all day. And I let him because I was overwhelmed and at the library and wasn't around to watch him deteriorate (and on the phone he insisted everything was fine and he was feeling great and I should STUDY and stop calling to check in). When I dragged myself home at12:30 AM he was on fire and shivering underneath the mountain of blankets on the bed. I took his temp and it was 104.4. He said he'd forgotten to take tylenol all day, so I gave him some and his temp dropped fairly quickly. When I fell asleep at 2 he was hovering around 99.0. He sweated through all our sheets again and woke up looking like hell. I had a final in two hours, but there was no way he could handle Landon, so I made a frantic call to Maya and she immediately agreed to take him during my final (a new baby has taken his spot, so she couldn't handle him all day). I drove to campus in unusually terrible traffic, dropped the little guy off, and entered the law school 60 seconds before my M&A final began. The exam itself was okay- my analysis was very superficial and I hate that, but it was all I could do. I was supposed to spend the next 12 hours at the library learning something about environmental law for the first time in two months, but I had to go get Landon from Maya's. So I spent the afternoon taking care of both my boys. I finally started studying at 10 when they were asleep and called it quits at 2 AM. I was reading so slowly by the end that I didn't even make it all the way through the outline a good friend and classmate so graciously gave me. Luckily I was too tired to let the fact that I had never read the names of the some of the statutes and most of the cases that would be on the final in seven hours(!) keep me from falling asleep.

Today: JP had terrible night sweats twice - once on our bed and once on the couch after he moved there. This morning he was burning up again but I had to take my final at 9 and the movers were arriving at 8. I showed them around the apartment, told Landon to be nice to his daddy, and left the apartment 5 minutes later than I absolutely had to. I had hoped to finish reading the outline before the exam but didn't have time. I ran into the room to find it full and had to make a whole row of people scoot over a spot just so I could sit down, all flustered and clutching my stack of unopened books. Luckily, oh so VERY luckily, our esteemed professor wrote the exam with four separate questions, each focusing on a different statute, so I could read the question, ctrl+f the outline to find the statute at issue, read about it, and then answer it. Less luckily he reduced the time for the exam by an hour so I spent about 10 minutes teaching myself the topic and 20 minutes writing about it. It was a crazy, unsettling way to take an exam, but I think my end result was satisfactory. I picked up lunch for JP, me, and the four movers on the way home and arrived to see an apartment almost completely empty. It feels so zen; I now want to get rid of half our stuff. The movers were very nice and did an excellent job (I'm trying very hard to focus on some of the positives).

JP had deteriorated to the point of curling up on our borrowed air mattress under two blankets and shivering. We decided it was finally time to go the ER (he had been very resistant and the nurse I spoke with Sunday said that as long as his temperature responded to Tylenol, we were okay). So we piled in his car and drove to the hospital a few blocks from us. JP walked in while I got Landon in the stroller. Once there we found out the wait was several hours so the nurse recommended we try a different hospital in our neighborhood. We walked back out to discover that I had locked the freaking keys in the car. I have never done this before so of course it had to be when JP is really sick, it's freezing outside in May (in the 40's!) and none of us are dressed for it, and the only spare is on a semi-truck headed to Austin. I called AAA, renewed our expired membership over the phone, and they dispatched someone to rescue us- which already pays for the cost of renewing our membership. Despite our misfortune we had some luck on our side - the realtor was showing our apartment to prospective renters so she could let JP and Landon in to get warm. (Thank goodness it was a short walk). I waited outside his car in a crappy neighborhood wearing flip flops and a thin long sleeved shirt until a very nice man broke into JP's car in about 45 seconds and retrieved the keys (it was frightening to see how easy it was to get the doors unlocked).

Once I got home with the keys I will never again lock the door without, JP took off to the other hospital and I bathed, fed, and cuddled the Landon. For the past several hours I've been watching the Top Chef weekly marathon on Bravo, trying to do things without necessary objects (like eating without any cookware or sharp utensils - I finally broke into a package of turkey with my car key and ate that standing up by the counter. I believe that was my dinner), and thinking about JP. The last time I talked to him he was hooked up to an IV and they were running a bunch of tests. He said he was freezing though they kept putting warm blankets on him. I just realized that all our pillows were packed and I'm wondering if he'll be admitted to the hospital. The cat is freaking out about the empty apartment and Landon is snoozing in his play yard. He has been a perfect child since I threatened to take away his future siblings- sleeping 11-11.5 hours a night and doing absurdly cute and smiley things. I just realized this post is very rambly and possibly incoherent, but my god I am tired. Tired and worried and suddenly very preoccupied with our lack of pillows.

My Kentucky Dandy

While I'm being raked over the coals in my M&A exam (I only made it halfway through the class slides and read a 12-page outline once through), I thought I'd share these pics of my dapper little man from my cousin's wedding in Louisville this past weekend. The first set involves a mini bottle of Blanton's Bourbon (JP's favorite) that was in our wedding weekend welcome basket in the hotel room. Landon was excited to see that the hostess thought of him in the party planning.

Woo hoo, baby sized bourbon! Party time!


What? What do you mean I can't have any?
I thought we'd pre-game before the rehearsal dinner.


Fine, I'll open it myself. It's a party of one, baby.


Hmmm, maybe I can just suck on the top like I do with those bottles.

The next day Landon had a slight hangover, but managed to get his sailboat tie on straight for the wedding ceremony.

That program is seconds away from going in his mouth and about a minute away from losing a chunk of the top corner. The kid is obsessed with paper. Immediately after the processional, Landon and I headed outside so he wouldn't dominate the wedding video with his very special squeaking noises.

Thirty minutes later we were the first to see the bride and groom exit the church. Landon looked more confused than impressed, but I'm sure he was happy for them. It was a nice weekend, even if stressful for me by the end. I'm glad we saw my dad's side of the family and the first of my ten cousins get married- and I admit, dressing Landon up was half the fun :)


Author's note: No alcohol was ingested during the above baby's encounter with the wee bourbon bottle.

A Lag Liv Family Miracle

After another scare last night when JP's temperature jumped up to 104.4 and took its time coming back down (I have never felt someone so burning hot), we have experienced a Memorial Day/Exam Week/Big Move miracle. I gave him a dose of tylenol at 3:30 AM and when I woke up at 7:30 his temperature was a perfect 98.4 degrees. Unfortunately accomplishing that 6 degree drop involved sweating through our only extra set of sheets, two blankets, the dry-clean only comforter, and our mattress, but he is feeling 100% better and I was looking for an excuse to get a new bedroom set anyway. And because one miracle wouldn't have been enough to fully recover from the past few days, Landon was a perfect, playful little guy all day yesterday and then slept 11.5 hours last night! Hope and happiness reign once again in the Lag Liv house.

I've spent the morning enjoying my smiling boys and getting all the packing and organizing done for the move. Because my M&A final tomorrow is followed immediately by environmental law on Wednesday morning (the same time the movers come), I need to have everything arranged now. My firm provides a full service move (packing, loading, unloading, taking apart the furniture and putting it back together - these are the kind of perks no one asks about at OCI but really make a difference during this crazy summer), but we'll need clothes and other items for the 10-14 days before the truck gets to Austin. I've finished with our bathroom, my jewelry, Landon's room, and my closet. All JP has to do is keep the movers away from those suitcases and a few other things we'll need for the 2 nights we'll spend in our wood-floored furniture-less apartment (like the air mattresses- those will be very important).

Now armed with rest and an early morning sense of accomplishment, I'm heading down to Hyde Park to spend my Memorial Day holed away in a corner of the library leaning something about mergers, acquisitions, and maybe environmental law. I may have mentioned this before, but I cannot wait for law school to be over - FOUR more days! (Although right now that sounds more scary than happy...)

Switching to Intravenous Diet Coke

I have a half-written post from Thursday about the graduating student's dinner and how much I don't want to leave Chicago, but the events of the past few days require me to write (whine) about something else first. It all began Friday morning when my baby morphed from sometime demon-baby to full-time demon-baby just as I started packing for our 2-day trip to Louisville. JP was swimming so I was left holding a screaming fussing non-napping Landon and looking around helplessly at all the things that needed to be done. We left late, but made the drive in just over 5 hours and arrived in time for the amazing rehearsal dinner at the Churchill Downs museum. It really was beautiful- and in such a neat location! We got to take a tour of the track, learn about the history and horses, and eat and drink lots of delicious things. Unfortunately, Landon was not as impressed as we were and fussed pretty much the whole time. My aunt (mother of the groom) has a friend with a baby one month younger than Landon and after seeing how good natured and easy this baby was, and hearing how he slept 12 hours at night and had never been sick, JP and I definitely felt a little sorry for ourselves. Later, when Landon was up every few hours and we were so tired, I just started crying. Every now and then on really bad nights JP will say something about not wanting any more kids, and that night, for the first time, I told him I didn't either. And I really meant it- and I might still mean it. We spent Saturday walking around pretty downtown Louisville and hoping Landon would take a nap. He did not. We went to the wedding ceremony, spent 90% of it outside in the grass so that Landon's squeaking noises wouldn't dominate the wedding video, and then took off for the 5-hour drive back. Given that Landon didn't sleep all day we were sure he would sleep in the car ride home, but he instead chose to scream for nearly two hours before petting his blanket and settling down for a little nap.

Luckily, the Landon seems to know when he has us at a breaking point and he did sleep from the time finished unpacking at 1 AM (he crawled around for that 30 minutes) to 7:30 this morning. I hadn't touched a law book or outline in three days and planned to move into the library until my M&A final Tuesday morning (which will be immediately followed by Environmental Law on Wednesday morning, the same day the movers come). JP started feeling sick yesterday, but I figured it was just due to extreme lack of sleep and he'd get over it with a good night's rest. But starting around 2:00 this morning (1 hour after we got in bed) he was on fire, but shaking with chills. He was covered in blankets and clutching a heating pad and said he was freezing. This morning he woke up soaked in sweat, still burning outside and freezing inside, and feebly insisting that I go to the library while he took care of Landon. Of course I ignored him and spent the morning nursing him and keeping Landon from yanking all of Lilly's hair out. We had a scare when his temperature shot up to 104.1 from 102 in 45 minutes, but with more liquids and some tylenol we got it back under control.

It is now 8:45 and I am opening my backpack for the first time since Wednesday. Both of my boys are asleep and I have a very long night of studying ahead of me. I'm desperately hoping JP is better in the morning because I will be staring at a blank word document on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings for those exams if I don't do spend tomorrow cramming. I still haven't even read an outline and while I was feeling okay about that a few days ago I'm getting that suffocating panicky feeling right now. I have 5 days, 3 finals, 1 move, 1 mercifully pleasant baby, and 1 very sick husband. I know things will work out and I know that in a month we'll be settled in our house, I'll have my JD, and we'll joke (or at least not cry) about this week. But right now I feel like diet coke and some sort of survival instinct are all that's keeping me from collapsing in a teary little puddle on the floor.

Spinning Wheels

I'm at something of a loss for how to begin my exam preparation. I always start my outlines late (usually no sooner than the week before exams) and spend the days leading up to finals in a frenzied state. This has actually worked well for me- I get to enjoy most of the quarter and I figure that the week before exams sucks for everyone, so making it suck a little more is worth the tradeoff for not worrying about finals until those 7 days out. However, I have always arrived at that "week before" deadline having attended nearly every class, completed every reading assignment, and briefed every case. My notes are already in near outline form, I just spend a day or two reading them and reorganizing them into overarching class themes.

This quarter is, well, different. I haven't attended Environmental Law and Legal Profession since the third week and haven't read since the second. I've been going to M&A but haven't read for it. My "week before" studying plan doesn't work when I'm staring at a nearly blank class notes document. I know I should be busy doing something, I'm just not sure what to do first. Do I open the casebook? Do I just read outlines? Do I go to the zoo with Landon and JP like I really want to because I'm screwed anyway? I do need to pass, and in the case of M&A I'd like to do better than that.

So far I've printed several outlines and they're sitting next to me in a nice little stack. I should feel panicked, but my first exam isn't until Tuesday, and after spending days in the library frantically working on papers that were due in a number of hours, six days feels like a leisurely amount of time to study for three finals. Although, given that tomorrow night will be spent at the graduating students dinner, and my weekend will be spent driving to and from Louisville for a cousin's wedding, I am more pressed for time than my brain seems willing to admit. But here I sit, staring at my outlines, and googling "nail salons" so I can get a pedicure tomorrow. I am not as stressed as I should be. I have an unsupported, yet unwavering faith that I will not fail my classes and I will walk across the stage on June 13.

I believe this is the very essence of being a 3L.

Done, but not

I finished the paper at 2:05 AM. I battled a gut twisting stomach ache that made my legs shake and left me tucked in a ball under my table (twice), a frozen computer, and jittery caffeinated hands which taunted me in the final hour by hitting the wrong keys any time I typed faster than 20 wpm, but I emerged victorious. I got home around 2:45, took forever to fall asleep, and got about 4.5 hours in before waking up late and racing back to campus to meet with my professor to discuss the paper. I think there's nuggets of good information and analysis buried somewhere in the 28 pages, but I really can't be sure. I'm afraid to read it now.

This paper had a backstory that was supposed to make my life easier (and it did), but which also added a unique stress to the finished product. In the fall when my world was crashing, one of my favorite professors insisted I drop two of my classes and replace them with an "independent research" for him, to be completed at a later date. This is what allowed me to ignore law school almost entirely for those two months and I am so, so grateful for that. I planned to write something during the winter quarter, but then Landon got a million ear infections and no one was sleeping and I was constantly behind and I just never worked on the topic he gave me. Over spring break I went into his office, full of apologies and confessed to not even remembering my original assignment. He waved it off and gave me my choice of a few options, the last one being a particularly interesting topic that I was actually excited about researching. It was so refreshing to write a paper with a purpose beyond the grade and credit; I was going to help him write a law review article by gathering, organizing, and synthesizing information on a fairly new corporate law topic. But then my four classes and other outstanding paper got in the way, and by the second week of class I was freaking out and feeling guilty for neglecting his project. When he heard I had another substantial he said, "why aren't you just getting that credit for me?" and I replied, "because I didn't want to ask you for anything else." He said that was ridiculous and told me his paper could be my second substantial (all law students have to write two to graduate; almost any seminar paper can be made into a substantial one with the requisite length and level of research). That was one of my happiest days this quarter. My cyber law paper now only had to be 15 pages long and I got to write a substantial paper on a topic I actually found interesting for a professor I actually liked.

The downside to all this was that I now really cared about my paper. It didn't help that my two best grades in law school were from this professor's classes (corporate law and securities) so he had a uniquely high opinion of my intelligence which I didn't want to disillusion. I haven't felt smart in this building often and it would be sad to tarnish the only two times in three years that I did. So even though my professor insisted he didn't want his project to be a source of stress, it was. It was no longer about getting credit, I wanted to do a good job, and I wanted the paper to be useful to him in his own larger project. I hope it succeeded; I put more time and effort into it than I really had to give. It was almost refreshing to care again about my work product. I haven't been kidding when I've said I've lost any emotional connection to my grades - this year has become about survival and graduation. But I used to care, I used to be proud of the things I handed in, and I used to count down the days until grades were posted because I knew it was going to be a good one. That all came to a screeching halt after my 1L fall grades came out, which I think kicked off the depression and self-doubt that plagued my 1L year (but that's a different post entirely).

The point is that while I can check another item off my to-do list, my lingering attachment to the paper is making that check mark less immediately satisfying. Also crashing the "Hooray! I'm done!" party is exhaustion and the fact that I have yet another paper due at 4pm today for my workshop. I need to read a giant article and write a 3-5 page reaction. Small potatoes compared to my last two projects, but the thought of staring at another blank word document is almost nauseating. At least I'll be coming home from school tonight on the same calendar day that I left in the morning. I'm giving Landon his bath, soaking up all the giggles and cuddles before bed, and enjoying some down time with JP. It's been about four days since I've talked to him outside of IMs, whispered phone calls in the library, and Landon hand-offs out in front of the law school. I'm also looking forward to eating real food at a table and not over my laptop.

And then tomorrow I'll start studying for those three exams I'm supposedly taking next week. Ten more days...

Fading Fast

I'm at 23 pages for my corporate law substantial paper and fading fast. It's technically due before the end of the day, but I think that as long as my professor finds it in his inbox tomorrow morning, I'm fine.

I've left the library well after midnight the past 3 days. Last night I noticed around 12:30 that I lost the ability to spell- I had just written a sentence with three words misspelled so badly that spellcheck didn't know what to make of them, and neither did I. I stared at the screen for a good minute, racking my brain to remember the right order of the letters. I gave up, turned off my laptop, and headed home for a few hours of sleep. I have a lot of research and a lot to say on this topic, so I'm not hurting for lack of material, I just have nothing left to give. The fact that I have three finals starting a week from tomorrow is incomprehensible. And the fact that JP has done 100% of the parenting and house keeping for the past few days and all I seem to do is snap at him makes me sad.

Landon, on the other hand, is an absolute delight. He and JP came to visit me for a little while this afternoon and I just wanted to soak up his laughter and excitement at everything around him. He was squealing and crawling and giggling in the green lounge and let me hug and kiss him all I wanted. He's having a grand time with his dad and in eight days has become a champion crawler. I took this video clip on Saturday and he's improved even more since then (I apologize for the shaky camera work and bad lighting):

Seeing him gives me the biggest smile, even when the edges of my vision are blurry and my fingers no longer hit the keys my brain tells them to. I know studying for the bar exam is going to be a lot of work this summer (as is unpacking and organizing a new home), but so much of me is looking forward to two months of being in the same place as my boys all day and working towards one test with one deadline. And even though there is a huge list of things that must happen before May 30, I'm counting down the days (all ELEVEN of them) until we are in a loaded car driving towards Texas, with all of law school behind me.