Back Home From an Interesting Work Trip

After 6 days in Toronto, I got home from my work trip today. It's amazing how noticably Eli changed. He's now seriously running everywhere (which is even more exhausting), and he's mastered a few new words, including "turtle" (his Aunt Marla sent a new bath toy) and "coral" (from some nature flashcards Grandma gave him). His hair also seems to have grown some - it's definitely curly in the back. We also talked on the phone (or tried to) every day, although Eli's conversation mostly consisted of "hi", "Ma" and "yeah."
Saturday night the guys went out with Craig (Eli's avuncular webmaster) for dinner and some photo ops at the playground. Meanwhile, I was spending the evening listening to some very odd lectures at my conference. It was the sort of crowd where one attendee described their brain-implanted microchip that can be remotely controlled, and where there were sessions on all sorts of futuristic--and sometimes bizarre-- topics like nanotech, transhumanism, and transkinetic monkeys, although it was interesting and useful overall. Definitely broadened my horizons! But the days were very long, trying to pay attention to sessions that were either totally mind-blowing or mind-numbingly boring. Since some of the sessions lasted until the night, I didn't get to see much of the city, although I did get to walk around some since we were right in downtown. The hotel was nice though, although I didn't have computer access so it'll take me a while to get through my emails. But I did get to do some reading - The Working Mother's Manifesto; book report forthcoming. Hoping to go back to Toronto with the fam for a mini-vacation to check out the sites.