Overdone

Jingle Bells!Something smells! Toddler barfing all the way!

Hey! And happy holidays, loveys. Were yours as festive and positively overblown as were ours? We drove through the night from Beantown to Motown, awe yeah, all fourteen hours to Detroit about 10 days ago. Saw Lovey's family. Then headed to Cleveland to see my homeslices. Then we continued the marathon theme of pushing all reasonable limits on carb-loading and shopping and napping and playing the "Little People's" Christmas album until we made ourselves sick with it all. And then we drove back last night. Baby Girl basically marked the passing of every state line with a memorial vomit. Poor kid was upchucking her way back home, and while you are busy composing your comment on this blog about What Kind of Parent persists in driving home while her kid is ralphing all over the back seat -- let it be known. We would have stopped at a hotel room and made her do a kegstand of Pedialyte, but then none of us would have slept and we would be none the closer to home. Whereas by 6 a.m. we were snug in our barf-laden pajamas all nestled in our beds, visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads. HURRAH!

It's clear, though, that Baby Girl's projectile pukes were a sign that we had all royally overdone it this year. The visits, the cookies, the presents, the planning of my 15 year grade school reunion? Yeah, it's totally what the midwife ordered for a 5 month preggo mcbeggo with a toddler. Highly advisable.

So the only resolution Lovey Loverpants and I can devise is one of the following: 1.) Relocate to Somewhere Closer to Family 2.) Relocate Our Family Closer to Us 3.) Forget Our Family; they are a costly, geographically undesirable lot. Stay tuned for more in 2010 as to which course of action the Loverpants decides...

And in the meantime, enjoy the sights and sounds of Holidaze 2009!

Baby Girl having an awesome time with her granny at Java Jungle

About to clear the little ginger kid who was smart enough to stand at the end of the turbo-slide:

The gift box that smacks of clothing within: To open or not to open.... My auntie MJ and I admire the festive banquet table set by my gifted stepmum Grade School Reunion. Yes, my nametag does say: "Hello, my name is: Most Likely to Become a Supermodel"

Plum Tuckered

I went away for a weekend to visit my sister in O-HI-O. While I was busy eating dinner uninterrupted by a toddler littering sugar packets all over the floor MESSSSYYYYY, sleeping in until the obscene hour of 10 blessed 30, and generally basking in the flatland friendliness of the Mid-West, my Baby Girl was steamrolling every last sapling of energy from my Lovey Loverpants' veins. He was plum-tuckered out when I arrived home. Here's what happened while I was away:

Someone finally took out the trash.

Vehicles were ridden without seatbelts.

Monkeys were pushed.

Hair-raising experiences were had.

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Oh, and while in Ohio, I got to tell my sister that she was going to be an auntie...again. :) Pee Wee Loverpants, volume II, due May 2010

Vows, Whines, Sniffles, Smiles

Lately I am having trouble keeping my vows. Not the 'until death do us part' or the 'for richer or for poorer' ones. I am struggling to be faithful to the 'I will love you even when you're cranky and I'm overtired' ones, which I take as a subset of the 'In sickness and in health' principal queen mother vow. Yeah, I'm not really that into that vow right now. Much easier to just tend to your own crankiosity or overtiredness than actually have to pretend like you care extend the mercy to your beloved. But that is why we make vows. To remind us that marriage is still in session even when the feelings that moved us to marry are absent, even when the marriageable parts of ourselves are malfunctioning, even when we haven't slept in three straight days. ***

Been a rough week for the Loverpants family. Our car died on the NY freeway. She just sort of pooped out like an elephant that was all lifting her legs and trunk, doing the elephant walk with all the rest of the Dumbos, and then she just said, mid-circus ring, "Meh, I'm kinda tired of this, I'm just going to go crouch down over here." The hand of God was provident, and a friend was just behind us on that very highway headed back to Boston. So she picked up the babe and me. Loverpants had to stay in NY for 3 more days until our vehicle was all ship-shaped, and thanks go out especially to Saint Albert, Saint Heather, and Saint Carl for taking such good care of him during his unexpected furlough in Rochester.

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Appreciate your kind words about my Nana. If she cannot take food on her own by end of week, I think the final days are imminent. I understand she is more lucid now that she is in the comforts of home, thouh, which is a small but not insignificant comfort to me.

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I keep looking at these pictures of Baby Girl that Saint Albert took over the weekend.  They're like cotton candy even when you're stuck with the stadium seat with no overhang in the rain.