Splish splash I was takin’ a bath.

Following Erin’s get-well instructions to the letter helped confine the worst of my symptoms to the weekend. I’m still a little sniffly, but I’m also feeling remarkably better than I normally would at this stage of an illness. Erin’s curatives included lots of sleep, chicken noodle soup, and toasted cheese sandwiches. There’s something else as well, but it escapes me at the moment. Hope that’s not the lynch pin of the antidote; apologies if so.

Jonah’s eating a lot more solids, by which I mean mush from a jar. We’ve started up peas and green beans, and we’ll have additional items soon enough, I’m sure. We also tried doing some oatmeal instead of barley as a main part of the meal, but he’s not taken to it particularly, and most of it ends up on him rather than in him.

Jonah and I take evening baths (with Erin’s help) as part of Jonah’s go-to-bed routine. He’s more excited about the prospect of bath time than the actual bathtime itself. (Plus he likes being naked.) We’ve started splashing about a bit. He likes that, but not as much as he enjoys attacking the yellow rubber ducky when it floats into view. He’s got a couple of yogurt cups (which we use to dump water on him as necessary) that he also likes to gnaw on when the opportunity presents itself.

I wish his sleep patterns could have maintained their solid 12 hours, but Jonah now needs a little less sleep than before. He’s still pulling around 9 or 10 hours (with an interruption or two) plus a couple of naps during the day. I can’t complain. Or rather, I shouldn’t, but I probably will.

I’ve started working on music projects in the evening. Most days I drop Jonah off at school in the late afternoon which gives me a few hours to plunk around. It’s not enough to finish recording a song, but I can make progress which, over time, is all I need.

I’ve decided to make Undeserved the second album I record. In part this because of the difficulty I’m having in taking what I write on piano and creating a full production of the same in the studio. It might seem like there’d be a lot of overlap—and there is—but it’s not enough that I’m yet able to get what I hear in my head successfully translated. (The Who We Are demo is the closest I’ve come, and as much as I love the song, the production isn’t as good as I want Undeserved to be.)

At the same time, I’m liking a lot of what’s happening in studio. When the creative process starts there it’s much easier for me to get a song into a final form with which I’m pleased. Imbued, for example, could have never been written on piano, yet it has a sound and a vibe that makes it album material. (Hopefully, you agree.)

This new album is tentatively titled God’s Eye View and, if I can get the money together in time, should be out the door in late summer or early autumn of 2004. At this point, I have two songs for it finished and three others in demo form. I’m aiming for 12 songs on the CD when all is said and done, so that provides a reasonably accurate update as to how far along I am with the process. More to come—including additional b-sides to the Music section.