This weekend, I had an opportunity to attend a number of free virtual conferences hosted by the University of Michigan to help me renew my teaching certificate.  Free+virtual=I'm in.  Just about every conference was awesome. The presentations were all an hour or less and used platforms that allowed for participation from the audience that didn't interfere with the flow of the presentation.  Overall, great.

However, that means I watched a total of 20 hours of presentations over the course of three days.  Some presentations were back to back, meaning I had to plan out my meals, snacks, and bathroom breaks in advance.  Also, my dear darling Atticus had to go to my mom's house on Saturday, church without me on Sunday morning, and stay out of my hair (somewhat) Sunday afternoon and night.  

The plan for Monday was to take him to my mom's again so I could finish the seminars and do some real work--as in, the stuff I'm paid to do-- and clean the house a bit before doing even more professional development.

Atticus had other plans.



He's usually good about me leaving him with my mom.  Today it was non-stop crying and whining from the moment we got there until I decided he just needed some quality Mama time.  So we came home and played outside until nap time. 


And oh me oh my, I needed it, maybe more than Atticus did.  It's quite possible if I hadn't stepped away from the computer, my eyeballs might have fallen out and my brain might have melted and dripped out of my ears.  Humans aren't meant to stare at screens all day long.  I needed the sun, fresh air, grass.  I needed to look at something other than a box of light 20 inches from my face.