Be it ever so humble...

With an official date and time scheduled for the closing on our land, Will and I still keep our fingers crossed, but we're cautiously optimistic. We're at least a step further towards selling it than we were last time. It also allows us to make a more desirable offer on a house, as we are now "contingent on closing" vs. "contingent on sale". Come September 15th, with any luck it'll all be taken care of!

We originally thought after closing we'd run straight to Linton and get started designing and building our new house, but it's become a more difficult decision than we had anticipated (doesn't it always). We've been working with our buyer's agent, and while we wait for closing we've been checking out other houses in the area. For the most part, the other neighborhoods were built in the early 90's, and many of the houses show it! I walked into a surprising number of houses that had grey, mauve and aqua brushstroke wallpaper, white tile everywhere, pink countertops, and pickled-looking maple cabinets. Blech. The 90's were not a good decade in terms of home decor. No wonder it's the decade that gave birth to the grunge era...the teenagers were sick of living in their parents stark white and tacky houses.

But I digress. Many of the houses were nice, but we would've had to've gotten different flooring, countertops, cabinets, paint etc. before I could've stood living there.

Then we happened upon THE HOUSE. The one that gave me THE FEELING. You know, the one where you utter a wide-eyed "Wow" and start to feel giddy? It was built in '93, but the owners have updated the countertops, appliances, light fixtures, paint colors, pretty much everything so that it feels very contemporary. It has a very nice backyard surrounded by leyland cypress so it feels very private. It is on a corner, so it has a larger than usual side yard, and no neighbors looking in your window on one side. There's a huge beautiful screened-in porch off the breakfast area, a fully finished basement, a really nice master bathroom, a traditional floorplan with enough interesting angles to modernize it a bit, the people even had an upstairs rubber ducky bathroom so I wouldn't have to paint to use all of my rubber ducky themed bathroom items :-)

It has its problems too, of course. No exit from the basement whatsoever, so the super-convenient dog containment system we enjoy now (i.e. putting them in the basement with a doggie door to the outside) is not an option. There's not much storage space to speak of since the basement is finished, but the closets and such are bigger so that may not end up being a problem. The laundry room/mudroom is tiny, although we can probably do a stackable washer and dryer to make that a little better. And it's certainly not as glitzy as a brand new home in a brand new community, but it's also not as expensive.

So now we're in the extremely difficult phase of deciding what will bother us and what won't. If we build at Linton, will it really bother me in the future to have 1/10 acre vs. the 1/4 acre we'd get with the other house? What about the construction noise for the next 5 years as they finish building the community? Will they actually end up building the community pool before my kids are too old to enjoy it? If we buy the other house, will it be a huge pain in the butt to handle the dogs without a basement exit, or will we end up figuring out something that works just as well? Will I drive by Linton and sigh, regretting the fact that we didn't opt for the bigger, newer, fancier house?

There are pluses and minuses to both. Both are perfectly acceptable options. What it really comes down to is this: is the extra glitz worth the extra cost? My gut says no.

So we'll probably end up putting in an offer on THE HOUSE. Their real estate agent is a blabbermouth, and has basically told us they're desperate to sell, since they have already closed on their new house and will shortly be paying 2 mortgages. He also told us the previous contract (which fell through because the buyers couldn't sell their house) was for $20,000 less than asking price, so I think we could get a great deal on THE HOUSE.

This means we could be putting in an offer quite soon, and closing on a house by mid-September! I'm still in shock over that, since I've always thought we'd build so I'd have 6 months or so to prepare. The prospect of being finished in a month with all this real estate mess is compelling though, because it really does take over your life.

It's definitely time. We've been married 5 years, we have a family now, I want to own my own house and be in the place we plan to raise our kids. THE HOUSE seems as close to perfect as we're going to find, and although it has surprised me how difficult the decision has been (you always seem to prefer what you've seen most recently), I think it's the right one for us. Besides, if we decide we made a huge mistake, property values will most likely go up in the next couple of years and we could always sell and build a house in Linton then.

So here we go! On to the next great adventure of home ownership.

-Sara

Maine-ly terrible

I'll just be honest, and say that our trip to Maine was not the best.  This was mostly because Emily was sick pretty much the whole time.  Not sick enough that we really realized she was sick, but sick enough that she was miserable, and therefore so were we. 

She had a runny nose when we set out, which we thought was due to teething issues since she was also irritable and drool-y.  On the first day of driving, she threw up all over herself in the car, and we had to pull over on the side of I-84 and scrape the barf off her and her carseat.  We chalked it up to carsickness, as she had done the same thing after eating in the car on the trip back from Ocean City.  We turned her carseat around in the hopes that riding facing forward would bother her tummy less (something I wasn't happy about but I saw it as the only option).  Our plan to drive until midnight the first day and then just carry her into the hotel while she remained dead asleep didn't pan out, as she woke up refreshed from her 4 hours of sleep in the car and ready to party.  Ugh, that night was tough.

The next couple days she was really clingy and her nose continued it's interminable flow, but Tylenol seemed to help so we again figured she was just teething.  Then on Wednesday she got a fever and threw up 3 times, once while we were in a bakery, once right after I had gotten her home, changed, bathed, and was giving her a little food again as a test, and once again in that damned carseat.  If you need to know how to take every single piece (including the straps and buckles) of a Britax carseat off, wash it, and put it back on, I have extensive experience.

So the barfing and fever made us finally realize that all the irritability, clingyness, unwillingness to EVER sit quietly and entertain herself etc. was because she was genuinely sick.  Of course we felt terrible :-(  And not just from the horrible lack of sleep.  Since we had to sleep in a squeaky bed in the same room as Emily (who herself is a very loud sleeper), no one got much rest.  Every time one of us rolled over, it would cause Emily to stir and it's difficult to fall back asleep when you're tensely listening to see if your baby is going to wake up.  You start to feel like you really need to roll over, go to the bathroom, do all sorts of loud things.  Emily also likes to shout in her sleep occasionally, I don't think I need to explain why that is disruptive to a good night's sleep.  Come 6:10AM every morning, Emily was awake and crying, except for Wednesday when she decided luxuriating in bed until the hour of 6 was pure decadence, and decided 5:30 was a much more reasonable time to get up.  Trying to wrangle a baby in a house full of sleeping people sucks, since even a happy baby is pretty loud, so I spent my mornings stumbling around Bar Harbor in the morning mist, wasting time until everyone else in the house woke up.  I admit that I did kind of enjoy walking around before it got busy during the day, and Emily and I had some fun throwing pennies in various town fountains, however there wasn't much else to do, as most places didn't open until 8 or later.  I did find some nice coffee shops, but I certainly couldn't find any healthy food at that hour to keep me going on my 1.5-2.5 hour daily trudge so my diet did suffer.  This also made me a bit sick of walking around Bar Harbor, so I didn't do it as much later when the stores were open.  I wish I'd gotten to do a bit more real shopping and less early morning window shopping, but I wish a lot of things about the trip.

Waking up at an ungodly-early hour ensured that we would be freakin' exhausted unless we went to bed at 9:30 when Emily turned in, so that meant we missed out on watching the Olympics with my family, staying up playing board games and drinking wine, going out to the bars etc.  Many of the things that make a vacation with the family fun.  Emily also flat-out refused to wear a helmet, and Will flat-out refused to allow her to ride in a baby seat or a trailer without one, so the bikes we paid to rent all week were used a grand total of twice by us, and the rest of the week my sisters and their boyfriends had fun riding them around.

Emily did allow us 2 nice days, one where we went hiking all day and had tea and popovers at Jordon Pond, and the following day when she hung out with Grammy and Grampy while Will and I dangled off a rock cliff hundreds of feet in the air.  We accidentally hiked a trail rated "Strenuous", much to Will's delight and my terror.  The only way I made it up was because I had heard that there was an alternative way down.  Yikes.  It was an experience though, and a fun day without the kiddo who had made the rest of the week so stressful.  That night I sneaked out, leaving Emily with Will and my sister's boyfriend Christian and went to see Mama Mia at this awesome theater where you can order gourmet pizza and wine (along with other more traditional movie fare) and eat it while watching the movie.  I realized I like quite a few of ABBA's songs, and I really liked the movie, especially the part where I got to drink wine while watching it.

I am glad we went, but I will certainly never be doing anything like this again anytime soon.  I'll stick to places that are closer by and more kid-friendly.  And I know it seems I am blaming Emily for everything, but I truly do feel sorry for her and I know it wasn't her fault.  

I spent a lot of the vacation feeling a little depressed about the responsibilities of parenthood.  It was hard not to, when I was experiencing the hardest part of being a parent of a young child (dealing with a sick kid) while in the other room my sisters and their boyfriends snoozed until 10 then got up to go shopping/biking/out for lunch.  I will admit I felt some jealousy, but then I realized that Will and I had those times too, and very recently (although it doesn't feel that way).  The evil side of me realized that on future vacations I will have fairly self-sufficient pre-teens when my sisters are struggling to eek out 8 hours of sleep and endlessly wiping runny noses and changing barfy clothing.  And as dorky as it sounds, a song from Mama Mia really hit me at the right time.   The song "Slipping Through my Fingers", which is about how kids grow up fast no matter how hard we try to remember each moment, set me bawling and reminded me that even though I was exhausted from holding and entertaining and shushing a sick Emily pretty much every waking minute of my vacation, there will come a time when I can't hold her anymore and she just retreats to her room and doesn't want me to comfort her when she's sick.

So from then on I tried to just enjoy being with her, and kept crying every time I thought of that song :-P  It's mostly because I was hormonal, but I certainly wasn't the only one crying, even though Krista claims that no tears escaped the confines of her eyes, and Kathleen blames her tears on an accidental elbow to the eye from her boyfriend Dylan which necessitated an eye rub with a hand that turned out to have jalapeno residue on it.

So we're back, we survived, and pictures will be up here in a day or so when I get around to uploading them.

-Sara

Post Fragment

Since Emmy is snoozing, clothes and dishes are washing and "Pizzazy Pizza Muffins" are baking, I figured I'd sit down and blog for a bit instead of doing anything else productive.  That doesn't change the fact that I really should be packing, vacuuming, making calls etc., but yeesh, how much can a person do at once?

The next big event on the calendar is our trip to Maine this Friday.  I thought up until yesterday that we were leaving Thursday evening, but it turns out we're leaving Friday evening and that discovery of an extra day to prepare has made me feel like I have all sorts of time to get ready.  I am looking forward to the trip (as Will'll tell you (that's an awkward contraction (sorry to use parentheses inside other parentheses))) but of course there's still all the prep work to do.  Do you remember trips as a kid?  You were so excited you couldn't sleep for weeks beforehand, you'd start packing random things days ahead of time, and then the day of departure would arrive and all of a sudden your suitcase was magically packed with everything you'd need (even though you yourself had only packed a teddy bear and your favorite shirt), there were snacks handed out while you were traveling and sometimes new toys to keep you entertained for the long flight/drive.  You'd arrive and have so much energy leftover that you immediately wanted to do everything.

Well now I'm the one who has to magically get the suitcase packed, prepare and pack the snacks, buy and remember to bring the new toys and do all the other not-so-fun stuff that makes me less excited about trips these days than I used to be.  I still enjoy them, especially once we're there, but I am kind of sad that I will probably never have another trip that happens the way they used to.  

On the other hand, I kind of prefer it this way, because now I can make sure I have exactly the snacks and clothes I want, and I like exhaustively researching my destination and planning all sorts of activities ahead of time.

Sorry this post is about to end abruptly, but I never got around to finishing it, but I figured I might as well post what there is of it.

Everything else

So since we returned from our trip to Rochester, things have thankfully slowed down.  I have spent the past couple months getting ready for someone or another's birthday, going to graduations, packing for or unpacking from trips and generally being busy all the time.  Now I've had a couple-week lull, and it has been sweet.  I found the time to finally get my hair cut short, something I've been contemplating (agonizing over) for months.  I have some of the frizziest, most wildly curly hair ever, and on some days it would just flat-out refuse to behave so I'd pull it back in a ponytail and at least look moderately presentable.  I was worried my hair might try to form a 'fro on humid days if I cut it short, and I was frightened to contemplate what I would do on bad hair days with my limited styling skills and my ponytail option out of the question.  However I was pretty sure that sporting a ponytail almost every day is a sure sign that you need to do something new with your hair, so I got it cut and I love it!  Somehow it seems my hair likes being short, and I can just wash it , run a comb through it and let it air dry and it looks just fine all day.  If I had done that with my hair longer, I would have looked like I had a poufy, curly rat's nest on my head.

However there is one thing I'm not happy about, and that is once my hair was cut it was brought to my attention (by Will) that I have a single grey hair on the top of my head.  This is alarming because I don't like to dye my hair (too much work to keep up with it...although I will probably give in once I get greyer)  and I would like to have long hair at least once before I go too grey for it to look good long, so as much as I like my short hair now, I need to get growing.  I know going for long hair right in the middle of my procreative years will probably only result in me looking disheveled and having tiny fistfuls of hair yanked out on a regular basis, but I am running out of time!  I think if I get it trimmed and shaped every couple months I can keep it looking good while it's growing out.

I debuted my new hair to my friends on Friday, which happened to be my "birthday observed", which is what we called the day Will and I set aside to celebrate my birthday in lieu of trying to celebrate it while traveling.  Will arranged for everyone to go to Frederick Cellars (Maryland's only urban winery) for a tasting, followed by a yummy dinner at Quynn's Attic (one of my favorite restaurants) and then lattes and drinks at Cafe Nola (one of my favorite bars which also happens to be my favorite coffee shop).  Will got a big group together, and it was fun to see some of my out of town friends.  Right in the middle of the evening, we met our realtor right in the middle of downtown Frederick (literally on a street corner) and signed all the documentation for a contract on our land!  The buyers were anxious to get the contract in writing, so instead of waiting until the next morning, our realtor chased us down while we were out so we could sign everything.  I am trying not to get TOO excited because we had a contract on the land in June that fell through, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this one works out.  So with any luck, by September 15th we will have officially sold it (and we can break open the bottle of champagne that is patiently waiting in the fridge downstairs).  Then we can start designing and building our new house!  Exciting stuff.

Even MORE exciting, is that one of the gifts my sweet husband got me for my birthday is an introductory flight lesson!!!!!!!  I'm going to fly an airplane!  And more than that, once I've flown an airplane I am going to take flying lessons so I can get my pilot's license!!!!!!  I've often been known to wonder aloud "Wouldn't it be amazing to be able to fly your own plane?", to which my poor, often airsick husband's reply was usually "Not really".  But all the same, he has started me down the road to being able to do just that, and I am ridiculously excited!  I have to sit down and figure out when a good time to start would be, so that I can get in all the flight time I need in order to earn my license, but for now I'm still just reeling at the thought :-)  

And last before I close, I'll mention that I'm starting to learn Spanish.  I used my birthday money to buy the whole Learning Spanish like Crazy set, (it looks ghetto, but it's supposed to be even better than Rosetta Stone) and I am now eagerly awaiting its arrival.  I took French in high school, mostly because I liked the idea, but now I'm realizing how much more useful it would be to know Spanish.  I've been to several Spanish-speaking countries, and I plan to go to more in the future, plus there are more and more Spanish speakers in Frederick.  Also, if I decide not to go back to work after my kidlets are in school, I could always go the volunteering route and I think Spanish would be helpful for that too.

The main reason though is that I think I am missing using my brain.  Not to the point where I would rather work than stay home playing snuggle bunnies with Emily (that's our game where we wrap up in a soft blanket on the couch and wrestle) but to the point where I'd like to take on a learning project of some sort.  I love languages, I think if I lived forever I would make it my goal to learn every language in the world, so this makes sense.  And I was shocked the other day to realize the new vet at the practice where we take our dogs is about my age (oh yeah, I am now giving Mingus Benadryl twice a day, eyedrops twice a day, ear ointment once a day, skin wash once a day and ear wash every other day...this freakin' dog is only 6 and already a huge pain in the butt.  I can't wait until he's 15).  The point being, if I had stayed in school this whole time instead of the whole getting married, working, reproducing route I took, I could be a doctor by now.  I am immensely glad that I took the route I did, and there's no way I have what it takes to be a doctor, but it's still shocking to realize I am just about old enough to have completed med school.  And I have a grey hair.  Did I mention that?

When you order Learning Spanish like Crazy, they send you the 50-CD set in the mail, but right away they let you download a couple lessons to get you started, one of which is "Insultos vulgares".  So I'm old enough to be a doctor and have grey hair, but learning to say things in Spanish that I shudder to say in English still sends me into fits of giggles, and the thought of learning to fly makes me dance around like Emily upon receiving her morning banana.  They say you're only as old as you feel, and I hope they're right!

-Sara

Rochester, again

Our trip to Rochester ended up going much better than expected, as most things do. The morning of departure found us frantically checking airline websites, calling the pediatrician, calling Will's mom, and googling "flying with a sick baby". Emily had been showing signs of a cold in the days leading up to our trip, and the morning of she emerged from the crib extremely congested and miserable. We were very worried about how the pressure changes would affect her while all stuffed up, but the pediatrician told us to just give her Benadryl, and Grandpa's health was not in so precarious a state that being exposed to a germy toddler would endanger his life, so off we went. I never wanted to be one of those moms who drugs their kids for flights, but I'll admit with the pediatrician's ok and a legitimate reason, I was pretty happy about the possibility of Emily sleeping through the flight.

When the time came to board, I sent Will on to get the carseat strapped in and stow what luggage he could carry and I waited by the gate, figuring that the less time spent aboard the plane, the better. I made our plans known to the agent at the gate, and Will did the same with the stewards/stewardesses on the plane. Even so, a stewardess came running up to the gate and said "Your husband is waiting for you on the plane". "Duh" was my thought. "You'd better board now, we're about to close the doors". When I got on the plane, Will said the steward had loudly pointed and Will and remarked "Well everyone's on board except we're waiting for HIS wife and kid". Thanks for the advance notice guys. It wasn't like I was just standing inches from the gate waiting for the final boarding call or anything.

The flight was quick and easy, although I discovered that despite the shortness of limb, a child in a carseat can easily kick the seat in front of him or her, and does so with reckless abandon unless the child's mother spends the entire flight desperately distracting said child or holding down their legs. I am a bit of a psycho about making sure Emily's ears pop on ascent and descent, so she got all-you-can-drink apple juice during the flight, and I was only irritated a LITTLE bit about the fact that it was not organic, as we were limited to whatever was available after security.

One of the things that made the trip easier (in my opinion...you'd get a different response if you asked Will) was the Sit 'n' Stroll 5 in 1 carseat/stroller that I purchased before our trip.  Emily had fallen asleep the minute we hit the ground, and we were able to get her out of the airplane seat, deploy the wheels, roll her down the airplane aisle, through the airport, and to the car rental desk without waking her.  That is amazing to me!  And now we can use it as a backup carseat, although the way it straps into the car is a bit annoying.

We more or less enjoyed our stay in Rochester.  Since we had Emily with us, we spent more time at the hotel than we usually do.  We tried out the pool and Will and I agreed that the last time we actually stayed IN our hotel long enough to swim in the pool was quite awhile ago.  We ended up with a jacuzzi suite (not as impressive as it sounds) and Emily quite enjoyed mounting the one step up to the jacuzzi and throwing food into it.  

It was nice to see Will's mom's side of the family, especially the cousins that are around our age, although I felt badly for not being able to help out much due to being responsible for a toddler while in a decidedly non-childproofed house.  There also wasn't nearly enough Sara-friendly alcohol to be had...when Will and I went to the liquor store he bought quite a bit of beer (there are tons of microbreweries in upstate NY and I think Will felt it was his duty to sample them all) and I bought another local specialty, icewine.  This showed little forethought though, because icewine is good for sipping after dinner, but a very poor choice for drinking throughout the day at a family get-together.  So while everyone else was enjoying their beers, I was drinking extremely diluted and spaced-out spritzers so that I didn't get sick from drinking too much sweet wine.  A little buzz would have been very welcome while dealing with extensive picture-taking by people who seem to think 14-month-olds enjoy sitting still for long periods of time.

The best part of the weekend though was watching Will's grandparents renew their vows.  His grandfather had a stroke and several other medical issues last year, and while in the hospital they had to cut off his wedding ring.  Being very religious people, he felt that even though they had the ring re-made, he didn't want to wear it until it was blessed by a minister again.  So on the occasion of their 60th anniversary, their minister blessed the ring and they exchanged vows again under a big old tree in their backyard, surrounded by their 4 children, 8 grandchildren, 1 great-grandchild and various spouses and significant others.  The whole trip turned out to be more enjoyable than I thought it would be, but I am very glad I was there to see that because wow!  60 years together and every member of your family there.  That was definitely worth celebrating.

Sleep Therapy

I can't go to sleep tonight. When I try, my mind wanders, and no matter what it wanders to I get angry and worked up. So in an effort to get some things off my chest, I am posting to my blog and hoping that writing things out will let me calm down enough to get some rest.

Reasons I am inordinately angry:

#1 (The biggest one) It's time of the month and I'm hormonal.

#2 I was not able to take my Salsa Aerobics class tonight because it is now limited to 40 students only and you have to sign up ahead of time and I wasn't ever alerted, so I drove to Frederick for no reason today. Apparently my gym has decided that instead of perhaps allowing us to open a door to get some air into the studio they are going to punish their paying members by making us remember to call the day before every time and submit to having our name checked off a list like a kindergartener on a field trip. Yes this caused me to cry for over an hour tonight, but all I can say is see #1.

#3 I had to have a confrontation with Emily's Pediatrician today to keep him from giving her 5 shots at once (9 vaccinations in all). I have discussed with him before that we want to space out Emily's vaccines, so I didn't appreciate the pressure he laid on me to get her vaccinated for EVERYTHING at once. Honestly, Hep A? I don't think Emily has booked a trip to any 3rd world countries without my knowledge, so I think we're safe for a little while there. At least I won that one, and she only had one vaccine today.

#4 I bought some meat from the butcher while I was at the Menonite Market today exchanging a table for my mother, and I apparently paid but left the meat sitting on the counter.

#5 I have to spend all day Sunday shopping for, traveling to, preparing food for and cleaning up after a small gathering for my MIL's birthday. I wouldn't mind this so much, except for the fact that....

#6 I have to spend MY birthday recovering from a flight up to Rochester with Emily and attending an informal family reunion of my MIL's family. Normally I would just resign myself to attending something like this, although I am dreading the flight, but I am selfish about my birthday and this is probably THE single way in the world I would least like to spend it. I know 27 isn't all that momentous, but since I've become a mother I cling to those few days of the year when I can do whatever I want without feeling guilty.


So I guess in order to be therapeutic I should now make a list of reasons I have to be happy.

#1 I have an awesome husband and a fantastic little girl.

#2 My fantastic little girl went to sleep without a fuss tonight, after 3 nights straight of hours-long epic bedtime battles.

#3 My awesome husband is planning a "birthday observed" for me sometime in the near future to make up for the fact that I have to spend my real birthday in less-than-fun pursuits.

#4 Tomorrow will be busy, but it will be spent hanging out with some of my mom friends at a toddler playdate, going to the gym (grrrrrrr...remember Sara, this is the happy list) and attending some sort of dinner/cocktail thingy in the evening, which Emily is invited to!

#5 The things on my angry list right now are forgetting meat, missing an aerobics class and family reunions and not anything that would make me angry while not hormonal like losing my house in a flood (not actually having a house makes this less likely), facing persecution, being the victim of a crime etc.

#6 I'm feeling sleepy now.

Goodnight.

-Sara

Happy Birthday Emily!

Emily can officially turn one on Wednesday. She's had the party with so many people she was totally overwhelmed, she's eaten cake for the first time (yes, I finally decided to just bite the bullet and make her a real cake, which she took 3 bites of and decided she liked her cheerios better, much to Will's delight), and she's gotten the requisite crapload of new toys. All is as it should be.

I have been scarce recently because for the past couple weeks I've been spending quite a bit of time planning the party, looking for things I need for the party, going back to the drawing board when they can't be found, looking for new things, driving to 4 stores to find rubber duckies (seriously, those things are harder to find than you would think) and cleaning/baking cakes/coordinating/setting up for the party. All this for a gathering that lasts about 4 hours. But it WAS a great party, and it was all for Emily even though she won't remember it.

The biggest hit of the party (and something I would advise any mother not to overlook at her child's first birthday party) was the alcohol. I set up a bar with 6 recipes for blue drinks glued to yellow notecards and sat out plastic martini glasses with rubber ducky drink picks and let people make their own blue drinks. I was worried people wouldn't take advantage, but it was enjoyed by all and made for a more fun party.

Today I have been gradually untangling the mess of boxes and wiry twist ties that contain Emily's new toys. The toy packing methods these days must've been thought up by evil geniuses intent on causing as many cardboard cuts as possible to anyone so foolish as to think they might be able to liberate the toy from the box. I'm sure it has cut back on toy theft, but it has made it all the more difficult to get the toy out of the box and into the waiting arms of the frantically excited child jumping around beside you.

But with the big party behind us, all that remains is the party on Thursday for Emily's Little Gym buddies, and I intend for that to be more of a playdate with food than a full-on birthday party, since that seems to be the best way to go with 1-year olds.

In the future I will probably try to have her birthday party elsewhere so that my house isn't repeatedly ripped apart over the course of her birthday week, but for the first birthday I felt like it should be here at the house where she's most comfortable. I believe it went well, but I am really glad we don't have to deal with this again for another year!

Drawing the line

Today marks the day I draw the line.

I love my husband, and I love his job. Sure, working for a family business has its drawbacks. Business has become personal more times than I can count. Our finances are intertwined with those of the other family members much more than I would like (we will not be getting our economic stimulus check anytime soon because my husband, at age 27, needs to get information from his mother on one of his accounts that she couldn't find in time. Gotta love being financially independent). And there are other big negatives that I probably shouldn't mention.

But there are way more positives than negatives. So many more that I feel like an ungrateful wretch even mentioning the negatives, but it's human nature to complain I suppose. My husband enjoys unparalleled job security. I get to travel, enjoy expensive dinners and drinks that vendors buy for us, wear fancy dresses and go to receptions and luncheons and events and just generally enjoy the awesomeness that is the newspaper industry. I also get to dress up like a businesswoman, wear a nametag and go to conferences. I enjoy this way more than you might think, as it allows me to occasionally feel like a powerful woman of industry, even though my job actually only entails changing diapers and cleaning the house.

But I'm realizing that sometimes being the ever-present wife of a newspaperman is at odds with being a mom. I spent the beginning of this week at NEXPO, the biggest newspaper conference in the country. It was being held in DC this year, so Will attended all 4 days and I joined him for one night. The thing that struck me most about this particular conference is that had I wanted to, I could've been plastered for the entire time I was there. Practically every booth on the conference floor boasted a bar, some with hot hors d'oeuvres and plasma TVs mounted above where you could eat and drink for free. I heard all 3 presidential hopefuls speak, and was generously plied with alcohol throughout the Obama and Clinton luncheons (perhaps to distract from the tough, over-salted chicken served at both). We were invited to more dinners and receptions and "thank-you" cocktail hours than we could attend.

While we were in DC, Emily stayed the night at Grandma's house.

So far everything was fine.

But then, upon returning home we were invited out to dinner by the company who sold us the press. And today, we were invited to a Maryland-Delaware-DC press association dinner honoring Will's uncle as a past president. On May 3rd there is a Gala at the Newseum. Next week we have a murder mystery dinner in Carroll County given by one of the newspaper's clients. Not to mention various Frederick-area events that pop up without warning.

Now you start to see where I'm going with this.

Today I just said forget it. The thought of leaving my baby overnight with my mom for a second night this week was too much for me. I backed out in a panic, and my sister-in-law Margaret graciously stepped in so my ticket wouldn't be wasted. I realized I have been trying to keep up with my former schedule, and that I just can't without sacrificing more time than I'm willing to give up with my daughter.

Emily loves my mom and is totally comfortable at her house, but I just can't take the guilt. Will and I were never big party-ers, I honestly prefer staying home so I was glad that I wouldn't have to miss going out once we had a baby. But it turns out I do have to give up some socializing. I had heard "Who's keeping Emily?" one too many times recently, and although it was always intended as small talk, it made me realize that as much as I enjoyed my event-filled, glamorous pre-baby life, I prefer sitting on the playroom floor seeing a proud, seven-toothed grin on my daughter's face as she toddles toward me. That doesn't mean it's easy to opt out of these things. I do still want to dress up and go to dinners, etc. and that's what I wasn't really prepared for. I want to be with my daughter MORE, but that doesn't mean I now DON'T want to go at all. I also feel like a crummy wife sending Will to dinners and conferences alone when I used to be right there with him every time.

I know it's going to be a comparatively short period of my life where I'm going to have to miss things like this. By the time my kids are 15 they'll probably be begging me to go out so they can have some time to watch whatever they want on TV without mom telling them to wash the dishes. Maybe they'll even be accompanying me to some of these events. I also know I am the most spoiled person in the world to even be troubled about things like this, but hey, writing them out here helps me sort them out in my head.

So from now on, I am going to cut back on these events, especially when it means that Will and I will be getting back after bedtime and therefore Emily will have to spend the night at Grammy's house. It's sad to think of the dresses that will remain un-purchased and the cheap wine that will remain un-drunk, but there you have it.

Busy weekend

Ok, I backdated my last post because I really did write it weeks ago, I just didn't get my act together to add the pictures until this morning.

So here we are, a week and a half later and Emily and I are still sick. It has been mild, luckily, and Emily has the gleam back in her eye that tells me she is not feeling TOO badly, but her poor little nose has been running like a faucet for over 2 weeks now. Again, I would think what I am dealing with here is allergies, as I now have a nice cough but danged if Emily isn't coughing right along with me, which kind of negates the allergy theory. Maybe we'll feel better by summer.

But anyway, today is Emily's 11 month birthday! For some reason 10 months freaked me out a little more than 11 months has. 10 months was when I realized that she was quickly closing in on 1 year. I guess I've had a month to come to terms with that so it's not as big a deal right now, although I am starting to panic that I only have a month left to get her party together. Having been a procrastinator all my life though, I know it will get done, even if the stress level is through the roof near the end. Being a mother has taught me to work ahead when I can though (nothing like leaving everything to the last minute and then having your darling daughter get into the plant and dump dirt all over the floor/get sick/throw a fit and prevent you from being able to finish), so I flatter myself to think I have gotten a little bit better in that area.

At 11 months, Emily seems to finally be settling into a nice routine. I have made it a point to establish a bedtime routine and to feed her her meals at specific times recently. She eats pretty much whatever food I give her, she's even letting me sneak in kale again. She is napping regularly in the morning at around 10:30, and if I'm lucky she'll take another one around 3 in the afternoon. She'll only fall asleep if she's in the car or riding on my back, but I'm just grateful for the naps right now, we'll work on the rest later.

Her favorite pastime is pointing at things, if she is especially interested in something she'll say "Zzzzzzzzzzz!" while she's pointing. She loves to dance, and she loves moving her hands around to music, almost like she's conducting the song. She still coughs to get attention, even though she has a real cough now too. She has started playing with Mingus, she'll crawl very quickly while giggling, and if he follows her (or even if she thinks he's following her) she bursts into laughter. She still doesn't seem to be near talking, but she's close to walking. She can take a few steps on her own, but she usually leans forward too much with her upper body to be able to stay vertical for very long.

She really is a good baby...she made it through this very busy weekend in excellent spirits. We went down to DC 2 days in a row to visit my friend Jen who had come down from Minnesota (who I had never actually met before). It was nice to spend some time with she and her daughter (and her mother and aunt when they were there) and to finally meet the person I've been talking to online for years! We saw the cherry blossoms, went to the aquarium in DC (which Emily loved!) and did a lot of touring on foot. Saturday we did the zoo, where Emily was usually more interested in the people or the animals' habitats than the animals themselves, although she enjoyed things that were big and moved a lot, like the Orangutans and the turtles.

Immediately after our second day in DC, we drove down to Mary Washington in Fredericksburg to see my sister Krista's last dance recital of her senior year of college. Emily hung out with Aunt Kathleen while Mommy went to the recital and to dinner afterward. Dinner, unfortunately, did not occur until around 10:15PM, and the way mommy was feeling reminded her forcibly of her trip to Japan last year (i.e. so nauseous from both exhaustion and lack of food that I was calculating the shortest route out of the restaurant should the need to vomit become a degree or two more severe and trying to figure out which way to direct myself for the softest landing should I start to pass out) so mommy wasn't the nicest dinner companion. Afterward, as mommy tried to fall blissfully into the arms of slumber at long last, Aunt Krista's neighbors went outside under mommy's window and had a pogo stick party. The things college kids do these days.

After making the 2 hour drive home on Sunday, I fell into a weak, sickly heap on the couch. My wonderful husband made dinner and washed all the dishes by hand, since our dishwasher is broken (more on that in a subsequent post). After last night's wonderful rest though, I feel like a new person. A person who periodically doubles over with fits of coughing, but a new person nonetheless!

Sickly Easter

Good Lord, if I don't feel better soon....well I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll have to wait until I feel better and have the energy to think of something dramatic. By then it'll be too late of course, but I really don't care right now. For now, I'm on my 8th day of feeling crappy, Emily's 7th and Will's 5th, although Will is feeling better now. I've had ups and downs along the way, but I shouldn't still be feeling this wiped out after 8 days (in my medical opinion). I would blame allergies, but Emily is too young to have seasonal allergies, and yet after 7 days her nose continues to run, her eyes are still glassy and her whining still incessant. I've spent 7 days trying to distract her from and lessen her misery, even though doing so increases my own. I know, I know, if I had wanted the luxury of lying around all day and getting plenty of sleep when I'm sick, I shouldn't have made the decision to (be born a woman) become a mother. I especially shouldn't become a mother of multiple children, but even now I'm not second-guessing my decision to have more some day. I'm not looking forward to having 2 (or more) sick kids at once, but what can I do, the procreative force is strong in this one.

Of course our house is falling apart, with Will having been home 3 days this week and me not feeling well enough to care for a sick but still active baby (she just dumped my tea on the floor and is now pulling the childproofing foam off the fireplace) plus a sick husband and still keep up with the house. I just want to lay down and sleep for a couple of days until I feel better.

Ok, I believe you understand now how terrible I feel, so I'll move on to a new topic. Doesn't this weather suck? Seriously, rain or clear up, stop being so freakin' dismal all the time!

Just kidding. The weather does suck, but I won't complain any longer. Instead I will post some pictures of our Easter, which we enjoyed despite feeling not-so-hot.

Emily in her Easter dress:



The little lady playing with Daddy at Grammy's house:


The fallout from the egg-dying debacle:


Easter morning!


Chatting with honorary Uncle Brad at Nana's house:


I don't think she liked the terrifying chicken Will's mom (Nana) got her:


Zonked after two days of partying:

Who needs sleep when you're blogging?

Well, my whole family is in bed now, except me. I should be in bed, since my amazing daughter who can thrive on very little sleep is sleeping and therefore so should I be, but no, here I am at the computer. I've been busily rinsing out diapers, finishing the dishes, and mixing up my own home made Taro to kill the ants I just found by the fireplace before Will sees them tomorrow and flips out. The poor guy spent hours on Saturday up to his elbows in ant spray, irradicating the disgusting ant nest from under our Aerogarden after my various homeopathic methods failed to get rid of the ants. They actually seemed to enjoy my various methods of vinegar, cayenne pepper and bay leaves. "Pour us some olive oil so we can mix up a tasty salad dressing for the queen!" they seemed to cry.

So after doing all my before-bed chores, I am enjoying some computer time. I miss the computer, since our laptop is in its crotchety twilight years and will now only charge if it feels like it, so it's difficult to use the laptop which is normally how I spend all my time online. Using this computer upstairs in the office is a trick, since the office is pretty much the opposite of babyproofed so I can only use it when Emily is not awake and in my care. Will says we can't get a new laptop until I stop dropping them on the floor :-/ In all fairness, our laptop has met with the floor an amazing number of times, but most of them were because of dogs or babies or jerks in the security line at the Miami airport who crash into me while I'm taking the laptop out for inspection. I say we should just get a toughbook.

Emily's first friend birthday party went off well last week. There was no pressure to give my child cupcakes or other junk, and it was lots of fun to watch 7 babies play with each other while getting a chance to talk to other moms. Now I have turned my attentions to Emily's party which will be here before I know it. I am weighing the pros and cons of a couple of different themes (Rubber Duckies or Safari Animals?) and trying to decide if I can make a cute and tasty cake with cream cheese and pineapple juice frosting from my "Super Baby Food" book, or if I should just say screw it and make her a sugary confection to dig into on her big day.

The rest of this weekend was spent dining with Brad and Kim, celebrating my youngest sister's 20th birthday (which is actually today...HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATHLEEN!) and Eastering with the Randalls. When we weren't celebrating, we were wallowing around in self-pity, because all three of us have been sick. We probably all have the same illness, but we're exhibiting it in different ways. First I started with a raw, sore throat, sinus pressure and body aches. Then Emily started with a nose that won't quit running. Today Will woke up with sore throat and just generally felt wiped all day. We thought we were experiencing allergies, but as I am getting better and seem to have passed it to everyone else, we are now thinking it's more of a cold. Will said this morning when he woke up feeling awful, he decided he needed to "man up" since I had functioned for 2 days with whatever this is, so he bravely contributed what he could to the day, even though he was feeling like crap. There were still quite a few more Smash Brothers Brawl characters unlocked at the end of the day than there were this morning, but still, I'm proud of him for proving that not all men are babies when they're sick!

And as the week goes on, we're going to be exploring some exciting possibilites. I hate to be a tease, but we're being secretive now. I will explain all when the time is right, dear reader(s?)

Babies learn scary fast

This week has been a productive one for Miss Em. On Sunday she not only learned to clap on command and perfected her response to "How big's Emmy?" (the answer..."So big!", which is expressed by throwing both arms into the air and grinning from ear to ear), she took her first step! We were over at Grammy and Grampy's house for our St. Patrick's day dinner, and she was standing up holding onto their humidifier and trying to disassemble it. I sat down on the floor next to her, and she let go, stood there unsupported for awhile, then took a step towards me! Of course on the next step she just fell forward into my arms, but there was one official, solid step in there!

We also went on a jog on Sunday, and she wore her little pink snowsuit for the first time, an adorable first that I can't help posting a picture of:


Then today, at my friend Mandy's suggestion, I went out and got her some "Lil' Dippers", which are innovative feeding utensils that help babies learn how to self-feed (so says the Gerbert website). They're like little blunted forks that eliminate the need for all the fancy maneuvering that makes spoons so inconvenient.

I sat Emily down with a Lil' Dipper and some mashed up sweet potatoes and she quickly grasped the concept.  I wasn't surprised that she understood to eat food off the dipper, I was surprised that within 2-3 demonstrations, she grasped the concept of dipping the utensil into the food and then bringing it to her mouth.  So what if she just slammed the thing sideways into her bowl, she was still dipping it into the food, then bringing it to her mouth!

I found that it worked best if I had her dual wield two dippers at once, that way her free hand couldn't sneak into the food and wreak havoc.  That girl put away over half of a sweet potato though, and she hasn't been too fond of sweet potatoes of late:

Yes, I did forget to put a bib on her.  But luckily it's not too difficult to clean her up, since by some miracle, my daughter knows how to use a fingerbowl.  All I need to do is place a bowl of warm water on her tray, and she'll daintily dip first one, then the other hand in it and swirl them around a bit to clean them off.  My daughter's like, totally classy and stuff.

I'm just excited to be getting to the point in parenthood where I really feel like I'm teaching my child something!  When you first bring your baby home, you sometimes feel like you're just putting food into this creature and removing the food once they're finished with it over and over, simply keeping them alive until they become a person.  You still love your little screaming baby, but when they get a little older and more interactive it's much more rewarding.

But with the rewards come the difficult decisions.  For example, Emily is invited to a birthday party this week.  I still can't decide whether or not I should give her a bite of cake...she hasn't had any sugar or junk food whatsoever yet, and I always kind of thought her first sugar would be in her own birthday cake.  I also always said to myself "I'm not going to be one of those mothers who sends healthy alternatives with my child to birthday parties, a little sugar now and then won't kill them".  However, in that scenario I always pictured a 5 year old child, I never thought about the possibility of having to decide such things when she is only 10 months old!

Likewise, we recently decided not to accompany Will's family on their cruise around Alaska for Christina's graduation.  All along, we had said we would go.  We really wanted to go, and we figured it would be a pain with a baby, but we could make it work.  But as it turns out, we would be boarding the cruise in Anchorage, not in Vancouver, which makes a big difference.  There are direct flights to Vancouver from our area, and while a 6 hour flight wouldn't be preferable, it would be doable.  But there are no direct flights to Anchorage, which is further away anyway, and we just couldn't commit to spending 12 hours trying to restrain a child who has recently learned to walk.  It just wouldn't be fair.  Added to that would be the 5 nights of eating in the cruise ship dining rooms with a baby, and my stomach just formed knots every time I thought about it.  We had to back out, and it's quite a disappointment, but it was the right thing to do.

Probably the most difficult decision we've made as parents has been to vaccinate selectively and on a delayed schedule.  I've done quite a bit of research and truly believe this is the best course of action, but it's still scary, and it's all on us as the parents!  What if Emily somehow comes down with something before she gets the vaccine for it and we could have prevented it?  What if, even though we are being as careful as we can, she has some reaction to a vaccine that we are really only getting for her because she needs it to get into public school and if we really fought it, we could probably have her exempted from?

I should be grateful that I haven't had MORE difficult decisions so far, like some mothers out there.  Decisions like whether or not to have a surgery performed on my baby or which course of treatment to choose for an illness.  But even though we've had a remarkably easy go of things so far, it's still difficult and I imagine it will only get moreso as the years go on.

"Carma" will get you every time

DISCLAIMER: My laptop is doing a wonderful new trick where the cursor just clicks about every 15 seconds even though I'm not touching the button. I will be typing along and suddenly realize I am typing right in the middle of a sentence 3 lines up, or worse, that I carelessly left the cursor near the little X on my active tab and it closes itself. I have learned some lessons the hard way and am trying to practice cursor placement awareness, but if you notice a strange typo here and there please forgive me because I am fighting with my laptop (and eating lunch, and watching Emily) while typing this.

Now to the topic at hand, I wanted to update about the History Bee, which is an event for 3rd 4th and 5th graders sponsored by the newspaper that is similar to a spelling bee but the questions are about the history of our county and state. It's always a good time, and Will and I were proctors this year as usual, which means we get to ask the questions in the first two elimination rounds, and I always enjoy working with the kids. It's when the parents decide to get involved that things get annoying, but we had a minimum of that this year until the end when a loud, rude man started shouting directions on how things should be run from the stands. It's ok though, he was a soccer referee and therefore eminently qualified to run a History Bee. The first, second and third place winners were all kids who had been at Will's and my tables in the elimination rounds. Will says we inspire greatness.

AFTER the History Bee though, Will and I were leaving the FCC campus by making a right turn on a green light. The people across the intersection, who were making left turns on a green light didn't seem to know much about traffic laws, because they felt they had just as much a right to make their left turn on green as I had to make my right turn on green and they were all going right ahead. One guy was totally ignoring me and proceeding through the intersection directly towards my path, not yielding at all, so I honked at him. Not a loud rude honk, just a short tap to say "Hey dude, WTF?". Well THAT got his attention. He began to gesticulate wildly in my direction, venting his road rage over his shoulder at me. In fact, he was so focused on making sure that I got a good yelling-at that he ran right into the median and blew his front tire! It was absolutely fantastic.

He swerved all over the place for awhile, finally coming to a stop at a traffic light. There he got out of the car to figure out which tire was blown, and as he circled his car he kept up a steady stream of unintelligible but angry muttering, periodically crescendo-ing into a shout that showed his long, rat-like teeth to their best advantage. His long, grey grizzly hair blew softly in the wind as he paced around in the road...however his righteous fury was directed at the silver van sitting behind him in traffic, and not myself. I guess he figured that since it was silver like my Highlander, it must be the offending vehicle.

I would be completely, gleefully happy about the whole course of things, except for the fact that he had a young child in the back seat. I feel awful for the child that he had to see his guardian making such a display, and while I don't care if that jerk had to risk getting his head crushed by passing traffic while changing a tire since he brought it on himself, I do regret that the child was inconvenienced because he had nothing to do with it. Of course I didn't run the guy into the median myself, so I really shouldn't feel bad at all.

The rest of the weekend passed in a slightly less dramatic way. Emily enjoyed a playdate at our house with Sam on Saturday:


The parents enjoyed it too. That night we all went out to celebrate St. Patrick's day at the Corner Pub in Hagerstown. We didn't realize it ahead of time, but apparently the Pope had decreed that St. Patrick's day be observed on Saturday anyway to keep everyone from drinking too much during holy week, so even though most of us aren't Catholic we agreed that if the Pope wanted us to go out and drink on Saturday night, who were we to argue? We even witnessed a drunk dwarf falling off his barstool. While I felt bad for the guy, I think everyone in their lifetime should be treated to the sight of a drunk person falling off a barstool, and the fact that the person I witnessed making the fall was a dwarf just makes it that much more unique of a story to tell afterward.

Sunday we had a nice St. Patrick's day dinner at my parents' house, then spent a little downtime relaxing at home for the first time the whole weekend! So as a whole, I count our weekend (filled with drunk dwarves and grizzly rat men though it may have been) as a success. We squeezed in time with each of our families, met work obligations, were able to get in our exercise both days, spent some time with Emily's baby friends and our own adult friends.

There was something for everyone.

The sweetest place on earth

To those who've never been to Hershey Pennsylvania, images of rivers flowing with chocolate and Hershey Kisses falling like rain might come to mind, and those images wouldn't be far off. The whole place smells of chocolate, especially if you stay in the Hotel Hershey or the Hershey Lodge, as Will and I do every year for the America East Newspaper Conference. Every year I go with the most noble intentions of allowing myself a bit of indulgence at a meal or two, but keeping myself under control for the rest of the time. And predictably, every year my resolve lasts until about the time we check in to the Lodge and they hand over free candy bars and give us keys to a room whose coffee and tea setup includes packets of drinking chocolate.

I still make the sacrifice and go every year. I want to be a supportive wife to Will. Hershey is only about an hour and a half from our house, so if anything were to go wrong with Emily (who we left in the care of my mother) we could be back to Frederick in no time. And the conference is a manageable 3 days long, so we only had to spend two nights away from Emily. And I'll be honest, the allure of having the time to shower, do makeup and hair and dress up to go out for free dinners and drinks didn't sound too shabby.

Oh, and there is also the tiny matter of the Hershey Chocolate Spa being up there. But that was merely an afterthought in my decision to go. I certainly didn't spend my nights awake with Emily during the bout of Roseola thinking to myself "Just two more weeks and I'll be at the spa....just two more weeks".

Even though the spa factored so little into my decision to accompany Will to the conference, I decided to make the best of it and book a day there. As luck would have it, they have a special 20% off package for weekdays, so it seemed the smart thing to do to take advantage of the savings.

So after a nice day on Monday, where I managed to sneak in a short nap and a late dinner at an old Victorian Mansion with representatives from the company who sold the newspaper the new press and hosted us in Japan last year, I rose early on Tuesday and presented myself up at the Hotel Hershey. I spent some time working out in the gym, then ambled up to the spa, donned my sandals and robe and plunked myself down in my favorite chair in the quiet room. I got a coffee body polish, which was ok but I was a bit more naked than I ever enjoy being in front of a stranger. After that was a facial, which strangely enough I was supposed to get naked for too, but that time I had a blanket so I didn't mind quite so much.

As a sidenote, I've decided I really don't like facials. The first one I ever got, the therapist accidentally shoved some sort of exfoliating goo up my nose, causing me to sit up sneezing and sputtering and my sinuses didn't stop hurting until a day later. My second facial, which was this one, I just spent the whole time feeling like the most monstrous excuse for a human that ever climbed on her table. Yes, I know my skin is dry, but thanks for telling me it's some of the driest you've ever seen. Yes, I know my eyebrows kind of give up and disappear halfway across my browline, and thanks by the way for asking in such a snotty tone if I fill them in. Yes, I know my skin turns pink when you scrub on it, and no I don't think it's the beginning stages of Rosacea. Getting naked and being told all of the things that are wrong with your face was just not my idea of a relaxing good time.

Now the Hershey Spa is evil too. They offer free breads (usually chocolate), pastries (also usually chocolate), coffee, tea, and hot chocolate to their patrons, and there are bowls of Hershey Kisses and mini candy bars just lying around everywhere you turn. They also have "The Oasis", which is where you have lunch while getting your spa treatments, and fully half of the buffet is taken up by chocolate cream pies, chocolate cheesecakes, truffles, mini creme brulees and all manner of other hip-widening things. I managed to stop just short of eating myself sick (I'm like a sheep that way).

My lunch was followed by a massage, which was wonderful except for the fact that the therapist spent the first 10 minutes trying to crush my mastoid sinuses and they're still sore. But by the end of the treatment I was just a big puddle of person on the table, which is how one should be after a successful massage. After a manicure I was finished and returned to the world outside my happy place. I was relaxed enough and in a charitable enough mood to act as a buffer and a distraction between Will and the overly-zealous company president who took us to dinner that night to convince Will to buy his software (Why yes, please do tell me more about golf and who at your company is lazy). The bright note of the evening was a fantastic old man who looked like Dwight Eisenhower and was friends with the aforementioned company president and so came along for dinner. He has been in the newspaper business for quite some time and he spent the cocktail hour telling me secrets and dirt about various people in the industry (including the family) that I never even knew. During dinner, when our host became overexcited about a certain topic, Mr. Eisenhower would take him down a peg. The two of them together reminded me of the two old men who sit up in the gallery and yell insults on the Muppet Show.

And so yesterday we came back home, rather more tired than when we had set out. I learned that if I want to get extra sleep, I need to go to bed earlier and not depend on sleeping in in the mornings, because Emily seems to have taken that ability away from me. Staying out until 11:30 at dinners is not a good way for me to catch up on sleep, it turns out, but I can't complain.

Now we're home and I have my Emily back, and she seems to've adjusted well to the time change. I know we were punks for leaving her with my mom to deal with right after we sprang forward, but it all worked out and now we're all back to our previously scheduled program.

Desperate Stay-At-Home-Moms

Today has been a great day. It started with a bad night though...Emily decided at 1AM that she did NOT want to go back to sleep so I was in and out of bed for over an hour trying to get her to settle. I toy with the idea every now and then of just letting her cry it out, but she has honestly never abused her crying privileges, so I am hesitant to just let her cry when every time before she has had a genuine need (usually for food) and once I figure out what that need is and meet it, she'll happily go back to sleep. Last night that need was a ton of formula, which sent me downstairs twice to get more. I don't enjoy trucking up and down the stairs in the middle of the night...I really wish she was still breastfeeding at times like that! I long for the days when I could just stumble into her room, instantly have all the milk she could drink available at the perfect temperature, then stumble back to bed. Now I have to mess with measuring water and powder and finding all the parts for bottles, and I don't usually remember to have any upstairs because I am a hopeless optimist and always assume she'll sleep through the night.

But after we got through the night and got everyone fed this morning I headed out to the outlets. I got Emily two freakin' adorable outfits, and I got myself a Coach purse! I went to the Coach outlet not expecting the purses to be all that much cheaper than the ones I'd been eyeing, but wow! They were about 50% cheaper to start out with, and then starting today they were all 30% off that price, so I feel like I got a really good deal. I ended up getting one of their scribble pattern purses, because although they came out with it last summer and it's kind of dated already, it has a couple different springy colors in it, so it'll be easy to match with almost anything. So now I finally have my coat and my purse and I look like a respectable housewife and not a bum off the street.

After the outlets, we went to The Little Gym and took a free trial class there. My friend Mandy invited us out because some moms she'd met in her mother-daughter swim class recommended it. We've tried Gymboree and My Gym before, but this is the first class where there was actually more than one other kid there. When I arrived (10 minutes late because I seriously misjudged how much time it took to get from the outlets to the gym) there were 4 other moms and babies, all of them were about my age and all of their kids were within a month or so of Emily's age. Perfect! Emily really seemed to enjoy it! She was crawling around interacting with the other children and that was lots of fun to watch since she doesn't ever get to do that otherwise. I think we'll be signing up for the classes on a weekly basis.

After THAT, we all went over to the Menonite market, a place I love to go anyway for cheap and fantastic food and we all had lunch. It was hilarious, there were 6 of us at that point, all with strollers and diaper bags and we took up A LOT of space. We all fed our children their various lunches (from yogurt with fruit and ground flaxseed to canned babyfood to pizza) and then wandered a bit, blocking the aisle as we went. We were the kind of group you roll your eyes at when you are not a part of it, but it felt really good to be a part of it. Talking to moms about what their babies were and were not doing yet, trading babies so we could shovel a couple bites of food in ourselves here and there, and knowing that everyone around you is dealing with the exact same stuff you are was refreshing. Of course most people our age and older know what we're going through, but most of what you get from the older set is "Enjoy them, they grow up so fast!". Of course I enjoy Emily, but it's nice to discuss with other moms who are not wearing nostalgia's rose-colored-glasses how difficult it can be to enjoy your baby when they are screaming and smearing beets on everything in reach.

So I issue a public apology to anyone who happened to be sitting near us or trying to get by the great wall of strollers at the market, but realize that that's the only way new moms can go out, and we all REALLY needed it! Back in the days of cavemen there were always plenty of new moms to talk to and learn from, but in today's society of single-family homes and upscale restaurants it's easy for a new stay at home mom to feel a bit cut-off and wonder where all the other people like her are hiding. Well, I finally found some, and the people at the Menonite market are just going to have to deal with it!

-Sara