Saturday 5:12 p.m. ET

Eli continues to improve. She started eating moderately well this morning, Lia climbing up awkwardly next to her, but threw up again when medical staff gave her a vitamin and an iron dose in tandem. They decided that, since she’s eating anyway, they’d forego the vitamin, and Eli hasn’t vomited since. This morning she was pretty frustrated because she seems to sense that she doesn’t feel sick any more, but is painfully aware of the fact that she’s attached to an incommodious concatenation of tubes and whatnot—and she can’t move. She’s cheered up throughout the day and has begun to laugh and smile again (gentlemen, beware!).
This morning Julia and I went with the rest of the YLS class of 2009 to hike to Sleeping Giant with Dean Harold Koh. Julia was, predictably, a hit—especially with the ladies of the class (I was bombarded with offers of free babysitting), though she affected a timidity that was really coyness daring not to speak the name. At the picnic, Julia sneaked away from me while I stood in the chow line and sneaked back with a chocolate cookie in her little paws, grinning widely. In a few moments, she found herself in a blissful rapture, with a hot dog in one hand and a cookie in the other, taking a bit now of the former and now of the latter, bounding from one paradise to another.
I carried Julia on my shoulders all the way up Sleeping Giant, and was looking forward to a postprandial nap when we got home. Julia, however, had other ideas, and the nap project proved abortive. I went on line to ksl.com to listen to the BYU-Tulsa game, but within about three minutes Tulsa scored a touchdown, BYU’s offense went three and out, and Tulsa blocked the punt which went out of bounds at the BYU 15-yard-line. I decided that was enough and now we’re headed back to the hospital in a few minutes.