Attention, Internet predators: Jacob and I are alone in the house tonight. All alone. Just us two.

But we're not defenseless. We've got barbed wire around every available entrance, a big slobbery guard dog in each room, and a whole pailful of dirty diapers.

Willem and Emily are having one last birthday celebration for Emily - the day itself was, what, six weeks ago, but one of her gifts was tickets to a sleepover at the Museum of Science. Can you imagine anything cooler for a 6-year-old? For that matter, can you imagine anything cooler for a 29-year-old??

So I've been doing my best to have a fun evening here with Jacob. I doubt he'll remember a whole lot, but I like to think that somewhere in the recesses of his brain he's storing this up. We made a big marble maze and then played with marmles. Consonants in the middle of words are extraneous to him, and I just like saying "marmles." Go ahead, say it out loud, it's fun. I envision very small furry things, like a chinchilla.

We discussed the pros and cons of dinner for a while. We could have had cheese-stuffed pizza sprinkled with cheeseburgers, and no one would ever have known. But instead we decided on little tiny dinners and a huge ice cream sundae. We watched "America's Funniest Home Videos" and laughed like a couple of idiots, and then we brushed the cat. And when the cat got tired of us and walked away, Jacob informed me, "Kitty cat tantrum." I like him.

I had a physical for my new job on Thursday. Which was really weird to me - I can't figure out why I needed one. I'm supposed to interview clients in the emergency room, not bench-press them. I think. But fine, they required a physical and they paid for the physical, so I went. And I had one of those experiences that always weirds me out a little, wherein another person knows more about my own bodily processes than I do. Last time it happened was when I was pregnant with Jacob and had an ultrasound - and the technician remarked, "Oh, your bladder is full." Which I generally don't expect other people to know, unless maybe I'm doing the peepee dance in line outside a public restroom. Similarly, this time, I was directed to provide them with a sample (and how cool is this setup? Instead of wandering back from the bathroom to the lab with a little cup o' waste and feeling kinda icky about it, they have a little tiny two-door contraption between the bathroom and the lab, so I do my thing and leave the cup on the ledge, and then they open their door and pick it up. I don't even have to make embarrassing eye contact afterward!) - and by the time I got the rest of me back to the lab, the testing was all done and the technician told me, somewhat sternly, "Your sample was fine, but you didn't drink enough water today." I was chagrined.

The good news is, at the end of the physical, they agreed that I'm still alive. And even able to work. Hooray! I was very careful to downplay the whole agonizing-pain-in-my-back thing, and it reminded me to take a trip to BJ's to get the industrial-sized box of those stick-on heating pads. I love those.

And Vicodin. I like that stuff too.