Relief

Yesterday, Dr. B stayed a little later in the morning than usual, eating breakfast with us, and listening to Morning Edition, while he waited for the next bus. We sat on the couches, coffee cups in hand and with dueling laptops, while Rowan played with her toys a few feet away. Soon, she crawled over to her dad and stood up, hugging his knees and bouncing on the tips of her toes.

He laughed and talked with her for a few minutes. Then, she turned her face to the side and leaned against his kneecaps.

"Pew!" he said, "I think she already pooped."

"Nope," I answered. "She's doing it right now. She's got a rather zen look on her face."

Just then, she lifted her head, gave him a big smile, and let out a breath.

"Ahhhh!!!!"

Oh, what a relief it is.

Need

She must be teething. I know, I say that a lot. But really, this time I mean it. I can see 2 teeth just below the skin, she's drooling (a habit she gave up months ago), and she lights up when the Tylenol bottle or the Orajel tube are in sight. She's running a little warm--probably no more than 99, but her natural temp is like her mom's, at a cool 97.1. Her diapers have been, um, let's just call them interesting. She wants to be with me all the time, and with me means ON me, climbing over my feet (which was fine at 14 pounds, but at 22 it starts to hurt). She tries to scale my legs, and wants to be carried constantly. When I'm sitting on the couch, she wants to be, too, though would rather crawl around it, over the end table, and pull the batteries out of the remote control, chew on the computer cords, push the computer buttons and stick her fingers in the USB drives, chew on pens and pen caps, "read" mommy's library books, play with the shutter on the camera, pull kleenixes out of the box and eat them... you get the picture. All the toys in the world are boring except the stuff of ours she can destroy or hurt herself with. This is stuff she does all the time, but usually she can be distracted with toys. Not now. With brief exceptions (that Scooby Doo rubber ball was a smart buy), she is only interested in what we have that she can't. And, of course, her favorite pastime--shoving her fingers in our eyes and mouths. (I really, really hate that. Ick.)

She cries and cries and cries, unexplainedly, and then stops and laughs uproariously. Then, sweetly hugs a teddy and lies down on the carpet to rest. For about 12 seconds.

Last night, a nightmare or a pain woke her at 9:30, and despite several attempts by both mom and dad, she couldn't be consoled enough to sleep on her own. I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and picked her up, carrying her over to the guest bed in her room. Within minutes, she was asleep in my arms. An hour and a half later, she was so deeply gone she didn't even flinch when I picked her up and put her in her own crib.

I may get frustrated. I may lose my patience. I may get angry. I may eat too many brownies. But last night, she showed me the thing I needed to hold on. She needs me. Just me. Angry, frustrated, worried, irritated, patient, loving, confused me. Her mom.

I'm not perfect, not by a long shot. I am not always a good mom. Sometimes I'm cranky. Snarky. Angry. But I will keep trying. I will be proud of myself when I am kind, when I am patient. I will feel good about the good things I am doing. I will forgive myself for the not-so-good, and try again.

Because no matter what, I'm the only one she's got. And that's enough.

TV People

We're not TV people.

OK, we'd like to say that, but the truth is we can be junkies. We'll go through times when we watch A LOT, then other times when the TV isn't turned on for days, at all. We read a lot, do quite a bit of surfing, and try to occupy ourselves constructively in and outside the house, but sometimes we do enjoy a good veg out in front of the boob tube. There are some series we love, so we do keep up with them in spurts when we have a free weekend. (Dr. Who, Torchwood, and anything SciFi for him, Mad Men, the Tudors, Big Love, and the defunct Meadowlands for me. OK, I admit it, I love Dr. Who and Torchwood, too.)(But his love of Stargate is just a sickness. Really. It's bad.)

Rowan hasn't been exposed much. DVD's she's received are still in their plastic packaging, and her attention span for TV is about 4 seconds, though the sound and music can calm her while she's playing, so sometimes Tom and Jerry make an appearance while she flings her toys around the living room and pushes her rolling seat around in a circle.

This morning, as her dad left for a doctor's appointment and I was left with a baby who got to bed way too late last night (party at a friend's in the country), I needed something to keep her from freaking out and breaking my breakfast dishes. For the first time, she was exposed to Sesame Street.

I miss the old theme song (the new one just doesn't have the same charm as those initial chords did), but it's still a good show. We jammed to the Dixie Chicks singing about the letter "B", watched Gordon practice golfing with Telly helping by adding water hazards, sand traps and a wind machine, and then this song came on. Rowan loved it, and we danced to it as it played and again after I found it on YouTube.




I'm a little airplane nyow
I'm a little airplane nyow, nyow
I'm a little airplane nyow
I'm a little airplane nyow, nyow
And wangity-wang, wangity-wang
I'm a little airplane NYOW!!!

I'm tired of doing laundry.

So I'd really like to win another 12 BumGenius 3.0's. I love these diapers, and I'm not a squeamish girlie-girl who can't handle seeing poop twice (yes, that's totally a dig on my stepsisterinlaw.) I feel better about the lack of diapers in the landfill, I love that my daughter never has diaper rash, and quite frankly she looks absolutely adorable in them. But really, I'd rather do a bigger load every 2 days than a small one every day. Pick me! Pick me!

RIP Estelle Getty

You gotta love a show that you love as much as your grandma does. Despite the hairdos and the pastel polyester, the comedy is timeless.

Cheers, Estelle. Say hi to mom for me.

PhD in Horribleness

If you haven't watched it yet, please go NOW. It disappears Sunday at midnight. If you're a fan of pulp horror, musicals, Neal Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion (that guy that was Caleb the really scary but hot preacher on Buffy) or comic books, you must see this. And learn all the songs, so you, too, can sing along.

For which you will be handed keys to a shiny new Australia.

Go. Go. GO NOW!

And somebody get me the t-shirt for my birthday, 'K?

My hand isn't broken.

Thank goodness. It happened yesterday; Lucy needed a tinkle break, and just as I opened the screen door, she saw a rabbit and took off. Full force running from a 60-lb. dog who's been sleeping all morning and the leash became a noose for my fingers. It feels like my middle finger is broken, but according to the X-rays it isn't, so I guess now I can't complain about my poor broken hand. "My sore hand" just doesn't have the same sympathy-gathering power. Sigh.

I was also fighting a migraine and possibly Rowan's bizarre virus, so couldn't even enjoy the collective 6 HOURS worth of nap Rowan took yesterday. I tried, but I felt so sucky I knew I wasn't even doing it justice. Dr. B took care of her after supper and let me veg out in front of the boob tube, locked in our bedroom. So at least they allowed me to fight it, so today I feel pretty decent. We did an Ollie's run, got gas and washed the car, and had the oil changed, too, before coming home for lunch. She's down for her nap now, and after we're going to run more errands that I couldn't do while she was sick.

The doc gave me a scrip for Prilosec for my swallowing and heartburn issues, so I'm planning on cashing in on that free $25 gift card from CVS. I'll later transfer it to Target, but hey, money is money, especially when it's free.

Man, I am starting to sound like an old lady. Next thing you know, I'll be telling you about my Lumbago and wearing a mumu.

Ah well. I do love Werther's Originals and a good cup of decaf.

Oh how I wish she was teething.

According to the nurse, she's not. The fever is too high and the symptoms she has don't line up, so she is likely fighting a virus. After 4 days, we should take her in, but for now as long as she is screaming, that's good.

Well, that's what she said. I don't particularly agree, but...

So I'm running on very little, interrupted sleep, my house is a mess, and I can't do much because I am exhausted and she needs me all the time. If I walk from the room, she flips. She threw a fit when I tried to bathe her (which she normally loves) and she won't eat much more than a bit of fruit and cheese. She's nursing a lot, drinking lots of water, chugging down the Tylenol like nobody's business, and peeing a LOT. (I know, that's good, too, but it's not always so enjoyable when it goes down your pant leg.)

So if you're not busy, please send good vibes her way.

And, if you would, please put in a prayer for my friends MagE and Sarah, their family, and especially her dad, Bruce, and the doctors and nurses who are operating on him right now. He has Ossification of Posterior Longitudinal Ligament or OPLL, which basically means the ligament that runs the length of the spine is calcifying in the neck or cervical spine area and is squeezing his spinal column. He's in the midst of a 12-hour surgery right now, and it's very serious. I wish I could be there to support my friends right now, but at least I can ask for those who will to add a little umph to my pleas.

Red!

It took 4 coats, but my Bolero red wall is finally done, and the other walls are looking gorgeous in their pale, peachy-beigey-light-tannish color. (Flan! It's Flan!) The Handi-Tak yellow is finally history, and we painted the ceiling a clean, pure white. Tomorrow I will touch up the trim, and hang new electric plates on the walls. I'm really looking forward to having everything done and put away, so I can get back to normal in this house! I'm glad to be done with the red paint--it looks gorgeous, but I had the icky feeling that someone, poking through our garbage, may wonder if I was a serial killer or something. Going on, it looked like ketchup, cleaning up resembled surgery, and the rags in the trash looked rather, um, frightening. But it's done, and it looks fabulous, if I do say so myself. It fits our home, our personalities, and our furniture so much better than that sickening, migraine-inducing yellow.

We decided not to paint the cabinets after all. In discussing it with my FIL, he thought it would affect resale (though the cheap, tacky cabinets we have are not my idea of a big boon to the selling price), and he didn't think everyone would share our taste. (What??? Crazy talk.) But the decision was finally made when he said, "it'll take you the rest of the summer." OK, that's decided then. I still hate them, but I don't want to live on paper plates and take-out for 2 months, so they stay as is. (Or until I win that lottery I never play and get all brand-new cabinets put in by professionals, that is.)

I still want to replace the light fixtures, but the ones that are there are less obnoxious than they were with yellow walls, so it can wait a little while. I haven't decided on cabinet pulls, but those will be changed, too. We also have to order curtains for the living room and our bedroom, choose final colors and paint our bedroom, and buy and install shelving in the laundry room. The never-ending saga of homeownership...

I promise to post pictures when we get it all done and everything put back where it's supposed to be. Please be patient!!! I'll get some up, soon--well, as soon as it's cleaned up and the laundry is done, that is.

In other news, we spent yesterday afternoon at the Arts Fest in town. Found a great little wooden truck for Rowan (which she loves playing with) and a gift for someone who reads this so I'm not going to elaborate but let's just say someone in North Dakota is going to love what they're getting for Christmas. And if they don't, I'll take it because I love it. And I wish I was super-rich and could buy one for everyone I know. OK then.

It was hot, but Rowan enjoyed a bit of time playing with her new truck in the grass and sharing crackers with a caramel colored standard poodle named Toulouse, while some sort of bugs crawled up my shorts and had a feast on the backs of my thighs. We walked around, checking out the booths and people-watching, while Dr. B had a meeting with his student. When he was with us, I noticed that he was greeted by many university kids. "You must be a good teacher, if the students say hello to you in the street," I said. After going home, laying Rowan down for a nap, and pouring a cool drink, two of his other students called and said they had a gift for him. They stopped by and joined us on the patio, bringing with them an adorable Life is Good monkey blanket (they think it's hilarious that Dr. B calls Rowan "Evil Monkey".) You don't see students bringing gifts to professors they hate--so this is proof. He is very good at what he does!

We had supper, and Rowan threw a fit mid-meal. A shot of Tylenol seemed to help, but it reared again, so I gave her a finger full of Orajel, and she stopped crying right away. (I couldn't find my teething tablets, but those were next.) At 3 AM, she woke us up. I sent Dr. B in to soothe her (if I go in, she usually needs to nurse to calm down, but if he goes in, she'll go back to sleep without it.) He said she was hot, so I came in to take her temp while he went down to lower the temperature on the thermostat. She was running around 100.8 or so (she kicked out the thermometer before it really finished, but it was right around there), so we gave her more Tylenol, I nursed her, and she slept with me while Dr. B took up residence in the guest bedroom (for as small as she is, she takes up a lot of space in our bed.) She slept until after 8, and woke without a fever but in a good mood. Off and on today she was fussy and warm, and really had a hard time at dinner once again, despite doses of Tylenol and teething tablets. Her fever at 8 PM was 102.4, so the teething is wreaking havoc with her system. Poor little bug. She's going to sleep with me tonight, and Dr. B will again take the guest bed.

Speaking of which, it is getting late and I've finished my book, so I better head to bed myself. 3 AM comes early...

Motorboat

Motorboat, originally uploaded by TeecNosPos.

When the breastfeeding Mom eats Kashi GoLean Crunch and then feeds her daughter broccoli for lunch, the power could be harnessed to propel a small watercraft (with dual motors).






Thanks to TeecNosPos for the illustration.

I have no cute stories for you today.

Sorry.

Been waiting to be inspired, and it's just not happening. But, stuff is happening, just nothing very anecdotal or cute or funny.

So I'll just make a list of sorts. Take from it what you will. There will be NO FLOW and the grammar is going to be bad. Don't say I didn't warn you.
*****************************************************

Yesterday was Dr. B's birthday. I sent out an email to various area friends to meet for wings and beer if they wanted to come to Quaker Steak and Lube. 25 people showed up. We had no idea we had that many friends here. It was great. Dr. B was thrilled. (And to those who didn't show up, you missed a heck of a par-tay.)

Rowan has 5 teeth now, so she looks less like Vampire Baby. Waiting on #6. She's been really growing lately (30" and 21 lbs. 2 oz) and is looking really leggy. This is bizarre for the two stumpy people who are her parents. She's in the 75% for height and 50% of weight and head size. This is a relief to her ginormous-headed mother. Maybe she'll be able to wear hats someday.

But she hates hats. Rips them off her head and the heads of anyone in her reach who is wearing one. She also hates glasses and sunglasses. Sometimes, she hates her shirt and we find her topless. She has to wear some sort of diaper-covering item, because she has figured those out and likes to remove them and let her cheeks wave in the breeze whenever possible. She is like her father: she loves naked time.

I love the spray sunscreen for babies. I can put it all in her hair (no hats) and if you don't touch it, it dries eventually and doesn't plaster her hair down and make her look like a Guido.

Her latest game involves crawling at lightening speed while you chase her and screaming with laughter. She also likes tossing a ball over her head and behind her, and pushing her chair for her little play table around in a circle. That's pretty funny, too. She's eating everything we are (cut into tiny pieces) and especially loves ice cream. She's also big on chocolate graham crackers, but really makes a mess with those so they are confined to the high chair. She loves her fruits and veggies, and will leave the pasta/potato/rice starchy items and chow down on the green beans or red peppers. She loves black olives, too.

Our living room carpet smells really doggy. Tomorrow I am renting one of those machines to shampoo it. Maybe with next year's tax rebate we'll put down hardwoods in the living room. We now have a take-down shower head so it is my new shower head resolution to bathe the dog more often. (With a bucket, it just sucks, and I didn't do it enough this winter.)

We are choosing paint colors. For our bedroom, I think we're going to do a wall of chocolate brown with some sort of creamy beige elsewhere. The carpet is blue, and that has to stay. Our coverlet/bedding is a pale champagne color. May do a pink pillow or something for a pop.

The kitchen will be a pale peachy-beige (called "flan"). We're going to do the ceiling back to white and paint our cabinets. Bottoms will be a barn red ("bolero!") and the top ones will be some sort of creamy white. Not nailed down yet. Have to go into Sherwin Williams again. This is a pic from their color visualizer. The red wall is Bolero and the beige wall is Flan (it looks darker in our kitchen). Right now it is Handi-Tak Yellow and makes me want to gouge out my eyeballs with a cocktail fork.

Dr. B's folks are coming this weekend. They said they'd help paint, and they are bringing beer from "out west" as our friends here call where we're from. We love them so much. Heh.

Rowan's sleep patterns have been weird lately. Some days, 1 nap, some 2, some 3. Some days she wants to nap at supper time and then stays up really late. One night, she was up until 11. Some days, she won't sleep unless we drive. We ate supper 2 hours away last week just to get her to sleep, after hours of yelling (by her). I also sat in the parking lot at Walmart reading my book to get her to sleep at all the following day (again with the yelling until I had driven 2 blocks and then she was dead to the world). Then, weird days like today, she passes at 12:30 (I hadn't even given her lunch) and sleeps until 4. That's 3 and a half hours!!! She was so happy when she woke up, I put her in a fancy dress and took her for portraits. Can't let that opportunity pass. She even smiled for them!

I'm ticked at Bloglines. It's not working for crap.

I got milk at the Meyer Dairy. It tastes so good I can't stop drinking it. I have to go get more. I ran out of 2% and I'm afraid I'll like the whole milk too much. (We buy it for yogurt making and for Rowan.) I'm not just saying this because it comes in cool, refillable 1950's style glass bottles, either. Though that's a perk.

We got our school district taxes bill today. Ugh.

I love our library. I am reading a lot, and really enjoying it. Gotten into the Ursula Blanchard mysteries. Not as good as Cadfael, but Ellis Peters is dead so I'm out of luck on that one. I'd love some good book recommendations.

Lightening bugs are out. I love that, though it weirds me out a tiny bit. I keep seeing them out of the corner of my eye and thinking someone is sneaking up on me.

Walking Lucy the other night, our neighbors invited us over for burgers. I'd only met them once before. Really nice people. Our age, 2 kids (one is Rowan's age.) That was cool.

Went to a music festival downtown with friends and heard Chicken Tractor. What a name for a band. We ate strange nachos and tried to teach their son to drink from a straw like Rowan. We failed. But he's really cute.

Lucy needs to be shaved again, but I really don't want to do it.

I bought a hose and cleaned our patio really well. There was major crud between the fenceposts. It's much nicer now. We got a little gas grill and small patio set with our tax $, and I hung up some lights. It's all festive now! I love eating out there, and we do even when we don't grill. It's just so pleasant.

I think I'm going to color my hair. I can't deal with it anymore--it's so mousy. A friend's kid described it as "kind of tan". I don't want kind of tan hair! Never went back after the pregnancy, so I give up. Plus, it has pretty much stopped growing. I don't have any idea why, but it just isn't getting any longer. It gets bushier, but not longer. Very weird. Trying to decide if I should go blonder or get crazy and go red. But would I look too much like Cynthia Nixon? That is not my intention. (I used to get that a lot, that I looked like her. I don't agree.)

I put up new pics on Flickr. A few from the Hershey Factory tour (fake tour--plastic candy and pumped in chocolate smell while cows sang at you. It was rather trippy.) and some others.

I am finding more and more old friends on Facebook. Crazy. Neat, though. I just wish I could find my old college roommate. So if you know Jennifer Olson from Hibbing who is/was a pilot for Mesaba, tell her to look me up. (You wouldn't believe how many Jennifer Olsons there are in the world.)

I made Dr. B his favorite cake for his birthday: Yellow cake from a box with chocolate frosting from a can. I even did the layer thing so it looked JUST LIKE THE BOX. It doesn't taste that good, but I'm dutifully eating it anyway. What I do for my husband...

I am re-watching season 1 of Mad Men and eagerly awaiting season 2.

OK, it's late and I have a feeling she'll be up early, so I'm off to turn off the outside fairy lights and go to bed. Hopefully I'll be inspired soon and have some lovely little story to tell you, but for now, this is all you get.

Have a good Tuesday!

Music Geek

It's proven.

On a walk with Lucy and Rowan, we met a new dog. I asked her name.

"Joplin, her name's Joplin," her mom said.

"OH! How cool! Joplin, like Scott Joplin, the famous ragtime composer who wrote the Maple Leaf Rag!" I said, happily scratching the little mutt behind the ears.

There was some uncomfortable silence. Then I looked up, noting Joplin's mom's long hair, broomstick skirt, tank top, and earth shoes.

"Oh. Or like Janis Joplin."

"Yeah. I've never heard of the other guy," she answered.

"Well? If it weren't for Scott, Rock 'n' Roll probably would have never existed!" I cried, desperately trying to backpedal.



This is why I will never be one of the cool kids.

The Sun shines out his...

I am very proud of my husband. Read here to see what he's been up to lately.

Groovy Girl

Rowan dancing to "Un rayon de soleil".
Originally uploaded by MrsBinParis

Checking up on my blogs today, I listened to a tune Vivi had posted. While it was playing, Rowan started to dance. I grabbed my phone to record her in action, and after a second or two of staring at me, she again caught the groove, and started to "sing" along.

She loves to dance, with or without help, and will groove to anything from the Brandenberg Concerti to AC/DC to French pseudo-Zydeco to commercials and cell-phone ringtones. We played it again and two-stepped around the room. She tired herself out so much, she's down for a nap.


*Note: I proved what a geek I am in that I just spent five minutes trying to decide if it should be 'concertos' or 'concerti'. I went with the Italian, but do also have a good argument for the English version.

Meeting

More soon, but this is from our visit with her cousin of sorts (my first cousin's daughter) in Hershey, PA. I'll get more on the ball soon and get my photos uploaded, but here's a clip. Rowan was determined to give Lilia kisses, and spent the first half hour trying to do just that.

Clean

Rowan and I spent two lovely weeks visiting family back in North Dakota (doncha know), while Dr. B toiled away here, sneaking back for a quick 1-day visit. While I was gone, he kept me updated by phone with what was going on and lots of "how do you..." questions. Basically, he was bored and not eating very well, so he did projects around the house. "It's really a mess around here," he said one night, "I need to straighten up. I leave a lot of crap around when you're not here to pick up or yell at me and when I don't have to worry about Rowan." He promised to pick up and even vacuum for me before I got home, something I had wanted to do before we left but hadn't had the chance until she was asleep (and then didn't want to take a chance on waking her).

We arrived late, collapsing on the sofa (Rowan in the crib) and ignored the house the next day while we celebrated Father's Day. Then Monday came, and I began the big clean-up. I cleaned both bathrooms, mopped the floors (twice, because they were really bad--it had been a while), cleaned the kitchen and started the laundry. I vacuumed the entire house, emptying the canister several times, and put away clothes and various other junk we brought with us.

Dr. B came home.

"Wow! The floor looks... like a floor!" He said. "And the bathroom sink! How did you get it so shiny?"
"I cleaned it. That's what soap does. It leaves a film."
"Is that why you clean it so often?"
"Yeah, that would be why."
"Huh. Well. Um, I don't have any pants for tomorrow. Or underwear. Except the ones I don't like. The skeevy ones."
"Did you do any laundry while I was gone?"

He paused.

"Yes!" he said, with a big grin. "I washed some towels!"

I guess he does need me.

Overwhelming

We're back. The trip was great, and we had an awesome time with family and friends. We survived a very long day of traveling that went surprisingly well, considering the horrid situation (an hour of driving, four airports, three flights with a baby, arriving home at 11PM). Prayers were said faithfully as we taxied down the runway, and Mom/Grandma Judeen intervened, including good baby behavior for most of the flights (save a bit of crying during #2 when she was too tired to function.) Though I got stuck in the very back of the plane in front of the stinky bathroom and penned in by the college student who was way too cool to even acknowledge our existence (I hope she gives birth to triplets with colic who turn into ungrateful teenagers and no one gives her any help EVER), Rowan was a doll and played happily with the window shade, safety cards, airplane magazines, and barf bags and I managed to keep her from pulling the hat off the guy in front of us (I should have let her--jerk put his seat back, leaving me with exactly 3 centimeters of breathing room--breathing the stale air and odorific air-toilet stank). But we made it home, she went to bed, and I consumed mucho chocolate and a glass of wine and caught up with Dr. B. Father's day was spent recovering, and today I've been busy cleaning, doing laundry, and thinking about going grocery shopping. Admittedly, there's a looooooong way to go, but at least I've made a dent. Two weeks away leaves a lot of things undone, and it's not like I left the place spotless and in perfect order when we went. But I'll get to it.

Rowan is still down for a nap, which was much needed, and I've been surfing so as not to wake her (and because I was tired. I did 2 bathrooms, 3 loads of laundry, and cleaned the kitchen this morning, and then made and cleaned up lunch from the empty cupboards when Dr. B biked home to join us.) She had a bit of a meltdown prior, after being scolded for unrolling a full roll of TP, and sobbed and hiccuped herself to sleep in my arms. So, I've been catching up on my reading. Apologies to all my blog buddies--I skimmed. I had over 3500 entries to read. I just couldn't face it. If something really, really important happened in your life that you want me to know about, please email me. I may have missed it.

And now I need to comb my hair for the trip to the store that's quite necessary.

And of course, now the thunderstorm hits. Guess Mom's busy elsewhere. Sigh.

Father's Day

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

A tender moment with a 7 year old.

Aunt LaR: "We're sure going to miss you guys when you leave tomorrow."

Cousin #2 of 4: "Yeah, me too. Especially Rowan."

He sighs and looks wistfully around the room. I smile, expecting a hug, or a nice statement about how great his new cousin is, or maybe even both. A pained look crosses his face.

"Who farted?"

Vacation (have to get away)

Scene: a few months ago. I was helping Dr. B pack for a business trip.

Dr. B: Shirts? Check. Pants? Check. Sport coats, ties. Yep. Socks? 5 pairs. OK, we're good. Underwear?

Me: Here you go.

He began counting because he had accidentally not packed enough on his last trip and had to rewear. Ew.

Dr. B: One, two, three... wait. There's 7. I'm only going for 5 days.

Me: I always pack at least an extra pair.

Dr. B: For what? In case I shit my pants?

Me: Uh, well, yeah. I mean, you never know. What if you eat a curry or something and it just gets nasty? And it's humid so if you wash out in the sink they don't dry and then you have to wear nasty wet shorts and ick! Or just go commando, and because of the curry you really don't want to do that...

Dr. B: So, I've got two extras. That means I can shit my pants twice?

Laundry is going, lists have been made, and the packing is waiting. We take off tomorrow. Rowan and I are flying back to Norski-land for 2 weeks, and Dr. B will join us for his folks' 40th anniversary BBQ. Unfortunately, he can't stay, but we will spend some time there because we can and because it's cheaper for us to stay around than to fly back immediately. We'll start in Bismarck (Dad is driving to Fargo to pick me up, because it wasn't originally in the plans when I made the reservations) and then hitch a ride with my SIL and nieces and nephews to Grand Forks on Thursday. Big party, water park, Rowan's birthday--fun plans. And hopefully, a chance to see a few old friends from our college years.

And (here's the shocker) I'm planning on leaving my laptop at home. *GASP!* I know, it's hard, but I just can't do the airport with a baby that is hell bent on going going going plus all the security crap and the weight. Both families have computers, several each actually, so I'll be able to check my mail and stuff, but may not post as often. I'll be too busy sitting in the hot tub, shooting pool, eating some Fighting Sioux Champion Chip ice cream (Dick, you better stock up!) and dunking chips in my favorite Blue Moose spicy spinach cheese dip. (I have the recipe, but I still enjoy going there for a bowl, plus my favorite beer of all time on tap. I hope it's still on tap.) Though my 'to take' list is already two columns long, I'm going to try to limit the stuff, and do laundry while there. I usually pack enough for three armies (with extra underwear), so I'm going to try to be more conservative about it. It is civilization after all, and they have Target there. And Old Navy, for which Coinstar and Dr. B's pockets gave me a lovely gift card, so I do plan on hitting it hard. (Aside to the Old Navy people: we NEED one in State College. There's a good spot right next to Target.)

The trip wasn't expected or planned originally, but we are so glad we have the chance to go and spend some more time with our families. So, if you're reading this from Bismarck or Grand Forks, we'll be there soon! Give us a buzz!