Temporary Solo Parenting: How Am I Going to Be An Optimist About This? Six Ways.

I would not trade my husband for anything - he truly shares parenting with me and now that BabyM is no longer breastfeeding, he is 100% interchangeable with me where kid tasks are concerned.

The one time that's not awesome is when he needs to go out of town. Fortunately it's pretty rare (2 one-week trips in the past year), but during the time he's gone it feels like an *eternity*. 12-14 hours a day of All Mama, All the Time plus random night wakings gets old fast.  

A tropical drink always helps.

I should also say that I know a lot of people are doing this on their own *every day* with no help from a partner. My hat is off to you - that is hard work. I know I'm lucky.

Here are some things that helped me get through this past week. In less than 8 hours, I'll be back to 50% Parent, so yay!

1 - Stick to bedtime.  I cannot stress this one enough.  My girls usually go to bed around 7-ish, which usually means "somewhere between 7 and 7:30". Not this week. This week, both were tucked in, Mama out the door, by 6:30pm SHARP for BabyM (who sleeps remarkably better with this earlier bedtime) and 7:00 ON THE DOT for T. I needed a bit of time to decompress at night, had to stagger bedtimes to get each one's routine done, and REALLY didn't want to deal with more night wakings than necessary. This was also true for BabyM's nap - I made sure *every day* that we were home on time and we didn't have a single day where she refused.  Small victories, yo.

2 - Minimize commitments.  This is another one of those "survival mode" things. I didn't accept play dates, volunteer work, or extra errands that didn't need to be done this week. We managed to get T to preschool, Spanish class and Little Gym on time. I took M to her toddler group, because she loves it and I don't need to entertain her for that 2 hour stretch. We bailed on T's second Little Gym class of the week today in favor of Pajama Day at home. It's been lovely. On the stressful side, I (stupidly) decided to go through with my plan to bake blueberry muffins for T's class when it was her day to bring the snack, since I had promised her I'd do it.  Next time I'll pick something store-bought.

3 - Eat simply. We did a big grocery run on Sunday so we were well-stocked for the week. Meals usually consisted of a protein, some fat, a fruit or vegetable, and a small portion of something whole grain. Super easy options, like a whole wheat English muffin with peanut butter and a tangerine.  Oatmeal, apples and breakfast sausage. Things I can grab from the pantry and require simple heating - no major cooking.  (Blueberry muffins not included!)

4 - Get a babysitter.  T is in preschool for a few hours a day, but BabyM is my shadow ALL.DAY.LONG. And she's in that lovely phase where she's active and into *everything* and totally not interested in logic or reason. Fortunately, we have an awesome babysitter who comes every other week for 3 hours, and this was one of those weeks.  If it wasn't, I'd ask her anyway. It was lovely to get a break just for one afternoon. I got a pedicure, went to Starbucks, had a lovely drink and dinner at a local pub, and went home refreshed just in time to put the girls to bed.

5 - Sleep when they sleep. Some people hate this one, remembering it from the newborn days. BabyM is still an unpredictable sleeper so I try very hard not to stay up too late. One or two nights this week, I put the girls to bed, spent some non-quality time vegging out online, then went to bed myself before 8:30pm. The extra sleep was heavenly. Some afternoons I snoozed on the couch while the girls had nap/Quiet Time. It felt ridiculously slothlike and lazy, but since I didn't have backup on those days, I had to be well rested or I'd be a grouchy mess. 

6 - Plan something FUN. This goes against #2, Minimize Commitments, but I planned it before TJ left, put it on the calendar and talked it up as our "super-secret BIG FUN SURPRISE field trip". This gave T something to look forward to mid-week, helped keep her mind off missing Daddy, and filled up one afternoon of this long, long week. We visited the Seattle Uwajimaya, a huge local Asian grocery and gift store for cream puffs, some Hello Kitty shopping, and dinner. We went after BabyM woke from nap, and got back in time for bed. It wasn't super-elaborate but it was REALLY fun. 

Something unexpected always happens on these weeks.  Last time, when M was 4 months old, our power went out and I freaked out about all the frozen breastmilk in the fridge.  Fortunately, the power returned before any of it defrosted.  This time, our old dog Peanut, took a turn for the worse. He's been having more problems related to his advanced arthritis, but this week has been a LOT worse, possibly due to the fact that he misses TJ. There have been more calls to the vet, but thankfully I haven't had to take him in.

Here's hoping that the next 8 hours or so stay uneventful.  I'd love to hear your tips on coping with occasional solo parenting of little kids!

To (co)sleep, perchance to dream

Prior to having a child, I had these dreams of being a super crunchy (but vaccinating!) granola mama who coslept with her baby in this awesome "family bed". I imagined lazy mornings where we were all snuggly and stayed in our PJs till noon.

Um, yeah. Well, I guess the last part was true because I couldn't find the time or energy to get dressed in the morning with a newborn. But the family bed thing never happened.

I bought one of those Snuggle Nest things for our bed, but we quickly realized it took up too much space, and it made my new mama light-sleep even worse to have the baby RIGHT THERE. TJ also didn't sleep well with her in our bed, and I think we were both scared of rolling or jostling the cosleeper. Without it, we were even more worried about her getting squished or stuck under the blankets, etc.

Not to mention The Baby only liked to sleep in her vibrating bouncy seat for most of the first couple of months. So we finally just put that bouncy seat in her crib so she could sleep there at the foot of our bed. After she outgrew the bouncy seat, she slept just fine in her crib and waking up to happy baby noises was actually pretty awesome.

So we continued that way for 13 months, when we finally moved her crib down to her room. She's been a pretty great sleeper, for the most part, with some notable regressions, so we don't mess with The System.

After our Ireland trip, we moved her into her own Big Girl Bed, and she sleeps even better there (mostly). So I've given up the dream of cosleeping.

Until we went to Portland for the weekend. She is too big for a Pack N Play and our hotel room had just one king sized bed, with plenty of room for both of us.
She slept great snuggled under all those blankets. Me, not so much. I woke up to find her feet in my belly, her feet on my face (seriously?!), and tiny hands on my cheeks, with her face two inches above mine, asking "are you awake, mama?" In fact, I was not, until just then. But it was fun for the weekend.

Long term, I am just fine with our non-co-sleeping arrangement! We'll see what Baby X' has in store for us.

Tuesday Lovin': Portland, Oregon

T and I went on a girls' only road trip to Portland, Oregon this weekend.  On a good day it's an easy 3 hour drive along I-5.  On Friday afternoon, we hit rush hour in Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia, so it took us 5.5 hours.  Sigh.

I've found that since having a kid, vacations are hit or miss.  They usually end up being MORE work because the place we're staying isn't set up the way we've got things at home.  I don't get to sleep in or lounge around by the pool with a fruity beverage anymore.  My friend J calls it "same shit, different place".

So I had low expectations but was still excited.  And man, was it ever amazing.  It was a dream vacation (except for the traffic).  Seriously.  We did not have a SINGLE meltdown by either one of us, despite our schedule being all out of whack.  We had FUN.  T wants to go back already.

A lot of the awesomeness was provided by our fine host city.  I worked in Portland for a month or so back in my consulting days, and have been there maybe once or twice since, but we really haven't spent much time exploring the city.

It is a city after my own heart, a cleaner, yummier, friendlier version of Seattle.  T and I ate our way through Portland last weekend:  Slappy Cakes. Afternoon tea at The Heathman.  Old Spaghetti Factory. VooDoo Doughnut.

Every single place was friendly and gracious.  No evil eye for bringing a toddler to fancy afternoon tea.  Not even from our fellow patrons.  Amazing. 

No problem showing up at the Old Spaghetti Factory on a Saturday night at 6:45pm without a reservation - we were seated right away, and served promptly. 

Not a single issue with T's allergy - soy milk was available everywhere including in the hot chocolate at afternoon tea, VooDoo doughnuts had an incredible selection of vegan donuts, and Slappy Cakes had Earth Balance soy margarine instead of butter.  I think I'm in love.

Scratch that, I KNOW I'm in love.  People were super nice to us.  They gave up their seats on the  crowded street car so T and I could sit.  This rarely happens on the bus in Seattle. 

Some very nice ladies (who happened to be teachers) at the streetcar stop were talking to us and telling me how T is well on her way to reading because she noticed two of them were carrying Whole Foods bags.  (Yes, I know, we're raising a yuppie hipster.  She also recognizes Target and Starbucks logos...)

Even at the Crafty Wonderland store, the staff was friendly despite T's desire to touch everything and her need to be reminded to "look with your eyes, not with your hands" every 30 seconds.

The high point of our trip was the two round trips we took on the Portland Aerial Tram, which we nicknamed the Vamoosh since it looks just like Pocoyo's spaceship/undersea vehicle.  I accidentally paid for her, not knowing kids under 7 are free, so they just let us ride it twice, offered to take a photo of us together, and even gave us both stickers.

I've been a lot of places which *tolerated* kids, but nowhere as kid-friendly as Portland. We'll totally go back.

Project Life: Ireland Edition

I've been trying to get to the mythical land of "caught up" on Project Life since we returned from Ireland.  I knew I'd get behind on vacation, but didn't anticipate the total lack of interest in the month before we left.

So each week since we returned, I've been doing one "old" week and the current week, so that I can eventually close the gap and just work on one week at a time.  This was hard to do with the vacation photos, because there were SO MANY to go through and then I had to narrow down which ones to use for the album.  I'll probably make a separate photo book with all of our trip pictures (add another thing to the list...).

But finally, last week, I finished the Ireland trip.  Woot!  I made the executive decision to use more than one 2 page spread for each week because even though I was sick, we ended up doing quite a bit of stuff.  So really, it was more work than I anticipated.

I started getting a little more adventurously crafty with the 2x3" spots when I didn't have photos, and for the last week I downloaded some designs for my cool Silhouette die cutting machine to fill in some of the slots.  That was pretty fun and there are a ton of Project Life compatible designs out there.

Click each photo to see a larger version.

In our first week, we settled nicely into our rental house in Kenmare, and wandered around the town.  We took an afternoon trip to Killarney.  Later that week, TJ and T went on a couple of excursions while I stayed home to sleep (thanks, virus).  TJ had his first Guinness on tap in Kenmare, and continued his comparison study whenever we found ourselves at a pub for a meal.

Week 1: airport, Kenmare, Killarney

Week 1: Killarney, Staigue Fort, daddy-daughter excursions

Week 1: more daddy-daughter fun, soy milk at Eask Tower

In our second week, I returned to the doctor, which didn't help much either.  I was able to make it to the playground in Kenmare (which TJ and T visited a lot) and an ancient stone circle, which T liked as much as the playground.  TJ also found The Vestry, an old church converted into a house, which he was all set to purchase until he realized the yard had a cemetary (creepy!).  We took a road trip out to Ballinskellig, an old priory built right by the water and had the worst meal of our trip on the way back.  Nice restaurant, horrible (and expensive!) food.  I wanted to visit a city so we went to Cork and wandered about aimlessly.  Next time we'll have a plan.  That weekend, T got to feed a baby lamb with a bottle at the Kissane Sheep Farm close to Kenmare.

I wish someone would invent some kind of tiny (cheap!) flexible screen with a memory chip so you could embed a little video in your scrapbooking pages.  I'm sure this is something that'll come out in the next 10 years, and of course if I did these pages digitally, I could do it now.  But I'm a tactile, pen and paper sort of girl...  Akso, the cute little hexagon card on the last page is from Smitha Katti's free printables on her blog - woot!

Week 2: Ballinskellig, awful meal at Dooleys, Kenmare stone circle and playground

Week 2: Cork, Kissane Sheep Farm

Week 3 was all about us wanting to go home (ie our Vacation Limit had been reached).  I was tired of being sick and not being in my own comfy house and bed.  But the high point was our all-too-short trip to Dublin.  We were there for about a day and a half and resolved to come back when the kids are older because there was so much to see and do and we barely scratched the surface.  I think it was one of my favorite parts of the trip, because I'm a city girl at heart. 

T loved the crowded but super fun playground in St Stephen's Green, TJ and I liked the Guiness Storehouse tour even though it was super-touristy, and we all enjoyed wandering around St. Patrick's Cathedral.  The Hop-on, Hop-off bus tour was an inspired suggestion of TJ's so that we could get a quick tour of the city and not have to deal much with traffic.

Week 3: Dublin - Guinness Storehouse, St Stephen's Green, St Patrick's Cathedral

Week 3: Dublin, funky diner in Farranfore and Heathrow Airport

I did a decent job of keeping ticket stubs and business cards to use for the scrapbook.  One of my favorite slots in Week 3 was the star cutouts from the Silhouette machine, which I backed with crinkled up shiny silver tissue paper.   I'm getting more adventurous about using papers from my stash and making *some* attempt to coordinate colors, or at least color families.  I'm sure I'll get better at it over time.  I'm also becoming ruthless at photo editing and throwing out duplicate photos or those that just aren't that good or interesting.

I  ordered some automatic Instagram prints from my Android phone with Piccaprint, and their quality is great, but they are just too expensive when you figure in shipping from Sweden.  And now that I have a fancy new printer, I can just print them at home.  In fact, most of the week 3 photos were printed at home, and the quality is as good as the ones I got from Target.  Hooray for that.

Now that the vacation pages are done, I can go back to my usual (easier!) 2 pages per week and hopefully crank through the rest of April and the beginning of May in short order.  That's the plan for the next few weeks...

Courage to Dream Your Own Dreams

My friend Ginger left a comment on my Vacation Limit post a few days ago that was very insightful.  The part that resonated with me was this:

I don't like traveling.  It seems obligatory to put it on one's wish list, but I've finally accepted that this is someone else's dream, not mine.

I thought about when I looked at other people's Mondo Beyondo dream lists and noted how surprised I was about how different they all are.  Many (most?) of them included some form of travel, usually to far away destinations.  Some of them including things like *moving* to a developing nation to do charitable work.

And each time I read one of these, I realized I don't want any of those things.  And I felt a little twinge of guilt about that.  I mean, shouldn't I want to see the world?  And clearly I *should* want to help those far less fortunate than myself.  It made me feel selfish.

But seriously, isn't the best time to be selfish when you're coming up with your list of dreams *for yourself*?  I'm not being true to myself if I include things I don't really want to do, just because I think they make me look good when I tell people about them.  And how unsatisfying is that - to work towards something I don't really want?

As women, we're culturally programmed to think of other people all the time.  To forego our own needs (especially mothers). 

I think it takes courage to dream our own dreams, without worrying about what other people think, or feeling obligated to include certain things on our lists.  Go forth and be brave!

Jet Lag and Toddler Sleep

My eyes popped open at 3:22am today, and I spent the next hour in bed trying to go back to sleep with no success.  Hello,  jet lag.  After all, it's noon in Ireland. 

I was confused by this, because I only went to bed at 9:45pm last night.  And I'm a high sleep need person - 9 or 10 hours is that sweet spot for me.  So by all accounts, I should still be asleep.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is when I had my epiphany.  One that the rest of you experienced parents are probably well-acquainted with, and will read this and say "duh, of course!".

Sleep isn't just about the sheer number of hours needed.  This is true for me, and also explains the crazy sleep of toddlers.  (Not to mention jet-lagged toddlers!)  I think there's a point where your body just decides it's time to wake up, and no amount of "trying" to get back to sleep will override that.

T woke up yesterday around 4am, and I listened to her sing and talk on the baby monitor for an hour, hoping she'd go back to sleep.  After all, she only went to bed at 10pm, thanks to a monster nap in the afternoon.  She had only gotten 6 hours of sleep, which is nowhere near the 11-12 hours she usually needs.

But, like my own jet-lagged self who had been up since 3:30am, something told her it was time to wake up.  It wasn't light out yet.  No loud noises woke her.  She hadn't had "enough" sleep.  It was just time.

I haven't looked at the research (too lazy and tired) but vaguely remember there are "internal clock" proteins that determine asleep/awake stuff.  If you have details, I'd love to hear them!

A wise friend told me, when T was very small, that there are a few common power struggles between kids and parents.  One of them is sleep, and as she told me, "you can't make your kid sleep".  I've tried to keep that in mind when we've been frustrated by T's occasional schedule blips. 

I guess I should feel lucky that it took me so long to figure this out.  T has been a surprisingly good sleeper since we brought her home 2.5 years ago, with a few notable regressions.  But it took her a good 2 weeks to get on a schedule when we went to Ireland, and I suspect it'll be the same, or longer to get back to it here.

For now, we're handling it by letting her sleep during the day when she needs to (she's actually TOLD US she needs to go take a nap!) but waking her after 3 hours if needed.  We've been putting her to bed about 5 hours after she gets up from her last nap.  Yesterday she went to sleep around 6:15pm and she's still sleeping now at 5am, so I have high hopes that today will be more "normal".

But man, I am glad that this bout of jet lag is going to save me (a little) from agonizing over her sleep -  "But she should be tired...She only got x hours of sleep last night...Why isn't she napping?!"

One more mama lesson learned.

Vacation Limit

We have most certainly reached our "vacation limit", that time when we JUST WANT TO GO HOME now, thankyouverymuch.

I'm starting to be annoyed by all those things that seemed charming about being in a different country:

• The ridiculous number of different Euro coins
• Lukewarm diet Coke that costs 2 Euros for 200ml
• Driving on the WRONG side of the road
• Toilets that sound like 747s taking off when you flush them
• Traffic roundabouts.  GAH.

I think our limit for a long vacation might be 2 weeks.  This time it was about 2.5 weeks before I really started feeling like I was ready to go home, probably because I was so sick for the first 10 days or so.

Even BabyT says she's ready to go home.  Fortunately our flight is early tomorrow, but we've got a 6 hour (!) layover in Heathrow.  Long enough to drive us crazy, but not enough to do anything interesting.

We hit this limit when we were in Las Vegas after our wedding in 2005.  We had gone for 5 days, and by day 4 we were so done.  We vowed any future trips would be 4 days or less. 

I think we need a new rule for other vacations.  2 weeks sounds good.  If we have more vacation to burn, a week at home would be lovely.  I think I'm just not an adventurous world traveler.  I miss my bed, my dogs, and diet Coke.

What about you?  Got a vacation limit?

Things I've Learned About Ireland

We're enjoying the Kenmare Druid Circle

I'm vaguely uneasy that we're not having the "ideal vacation", whatever that means. I've *still* got a cough and the second round of antibiotics is making me nauseous so I'm not feeling as enthusiastic as I should.

But part of what I wanted to do is just hang out and "absorb" the culture. So that could be as simple as having lunch at the pub (check!), walking around the city of Cork (check!) or wandering through the grocery store and marveling at the box of "man-sized" Kleenex (check!).

First, things are ridiculously expensive here. Everything is in Euros, which is about $1.30. So I see the price and think "oh, that's not too bad" but then realize I am thinking about it in dollars rather than actually converting it. We spent around $70 on *lunch* the other day, and it was just in a pub.

There is no fountain diet Coke here. All diet Coke appears to come out of a bottle or can (usually 200ml, which is not very much), is really expensive, and is served lukewarm, with a few ice cubes if I request them. And of course, there are no free refills. One could argue that I shouldn't be drinking it anyway, since I'm pregnant, but it still makes me sad.

People are kid-neutral, not friendly or actively unfriendly like many places in the US. But there are a lot of little kids everywhere, including at the tables in the pub.

The roads (and cars!) in the country are really, really small. In some places a two-lane, two-way traffic road is about as wide as a one-way street back home. In a few spots, we actually had to pull over to let the other traffic come our way before we could cross the bridge. You also have to watch for sheep that have wandered onto the road. I'm regularly carsick here and that's rarely been an issue at home.

I think I might be the only brown person in all of Kenmare. OK, that's probably not true since there is a combo Indian/Thai takeout place and a fair number of tourists, but I forgot what it's like to be somewhere with so little diversity. Cork had more people speaking different languages and visual diversity, and I suspect Dublin is very different (we'll find out next week).

The countryside is crazily picturesque. It's like driving through a series of postcards. Lots of mountains, forests, bright green fields, cows, horses, sheep, cute houses here and there. And the other day we drove part of the Ring of Kerry and saw amazing bright blue water on the coast. My photography skills are nowhere near good enough to do this justice.

"Hot" salsa is maybe mild, at best. I had a craving for Mexican-ish food so asked TJ to pick up some tortillas and salsa at the grocery store. Which they had, in Old El Paso brand of all things. He bought the HOT salsa and I was worried, but it turns out I shouldn't have been. It's not even remotely spicy. (And I'm a spice lightweight.)


The BBC thinks children should be in bed by 7pm.  They have a kids-only cable channel that T was settling in to watch yesterday, but they stopped programming at 7pm and told everyone it was time for bed (!).  T's Ireland bedtime is around 9pm, and she's still waking at least once at night.  Sigh.

We have a week left, and are planning a visit to a petting farm, and to Dublin as well as exploring the town of Limerick on our last evening.  And there will probably be more Guinness in pubs.

Vacation Hack: Rent a House

Laura Vanderkam had a good list of money-saving hacks on her blog earlier this week, and asked readers for their suggestions.  Since I'm right smack in the middle of executing one of those hacks right now, I figured it would be a good thing to write about.  Also, I'm still sick (gah!).

We haven't traveled much since we had BabyT because baby+airplane still fills me with fear.  But we have gone on a few trips, and the best advice I can give, is to stay in a place with a kitchen/fridge/microwave.

On the few short US trips we've done, we've stayed in a place similar to the Marriott Residence Inn - something that has a kitchenette where we can store T's soy milk and snacks.  Since she needs to eat more frequently and there are only so many times I can feed her fruit leather or graham crackers on the go, we like to have a spot where we can store fresh fruit, yogurt, lunchmeat, etc. 

If we're going to be staying more than one or two nights, we find a place set up more like a "suite" that has a separate bedroom with a door that can be closed.  This allows us to put her down for naps or bedtime and still have space for the grownups to hang out.  Because we don't really need to go to bed at 7:00pm when we're traveling :)

So it wasn't much different when I was looking for a place to stay in Ireland.   I knew we wanted to stay put in one place for the entire 3 weeks, since we were renting a car to do day trips.  (I underestimated how big Ireland is, and how long it takes to get places on the tiny twisty roads, but that's another post.)

For 3 weeks, I wanted more space for us.  Since T sleeps a lot, I figured we'd be spending a lot of time in the house.  I hadn't even thought about what actually happened with me being REALLY sick.  We've spent the majority of our vacation at home so far and are not ready to poke each other in the eye, which is pretty awesome. 

I poked around on VRBO.com, which is a site where owners of vacation properties list their rentals.  I pretty quickly realized that we didn't want to rent an apartment or condo where we'd have to worry about T being quiet most of the time, so I focused on houses and cottages.

I entered some search criteria to narrow down our list - I wanted Wi-Fi, a washer/dryer in the unit, and kid-friendly (whatever that means, but you can search on it).  The search function's not great, so I had to keep notes offline to track the places I was interested in.

When I narrowed it down to a few, I contacted the owners to find out rates.  Most had posted rates for a few nights or a week, but I figured we might be able to get a better deal for 3 weeks in a row, and we're also traveling before the heavy tourist season starts. 

I was right - most of them offered a pretty significant discount for such a long stay.  Some I eliminated because they were on the high end of what we wanted to pay.  Others I eliminated because they were *too* remote - T's gotta have her soymilk, right?

I was worried about dealing directly with the owner, and having no recourse if we showed up and the place was crappy or non-existent.   VRBO doesn't take any responsibility for this.  So here are the steps I took:

1.  Found a place that was advertised on a few different sites.  TripAdvisor.com also has a sister site that does vacation rentals, and I looked at the reviews/description there as well.

2.  Looked at the reviews.  Discarded any options that had no reviews at all.  I know it doesn't mean much, but it gave me a tiny bit of peace of mind.

3.  Did a little creative Googling.  The owner listed his name on the place I was considering, and I found out that he also owns the pub in town (which is excellent by the way!) and several other vacation rentals.  I figured he was less likely to be sketchy than someone who didn't list their name at all, or had only one listing online.  I also found pictures of the property online on several different sites, so it looked like it was real...

4.  Emailed the owner a few times.  I wanted to make sure he'd respond, he'd answer specific questions about the town and property, and that he didn't have a shady vibe.  Again, not fool-proof but made me feel better.

5.  Confirmed payment via credit card. I knew our card would protect us from outright fraud.

I held my breath and booked the place.  I emailed him the week before our trip and was relieved to get a response, and he was ready for us. 

We got here, and it's been FANTASTIC.  The house is 3 bedrooms, with a kitchen larger than our own at home, a great (but tiny) washer/dryer, 2.5 baths, decent Wi-Fi, and cable TV with lots of interesting (European) options. 

Even better, we're paying FAR less per night than we would even for the not-fancy B&Bs in the area, and we're very close to the grocery store, so we stocked up.  We eat most meals at home, which has saved us a ton of cash.  EVERYTHING is expensive here, especially meals out. 

We've done our own laundry (and can leave it in the washer/dryer rather than shlepping to a laundromat) which enabled us to bring less clothing overall.  We've spent a ton of time in the house but don't feel like we're on top of each other, which we would at a B&B or regular hotel room.  T doesn't need to be particularly quiet, which is nice, because it's her vacation too.

We're not *trying* to be super-frugal, but this was one huge area where we could save some money, and it wouldn't cost us in enjoyment of our trip. 

So if you can take the leap of faith to do a vacation rental, it may be worth it.  There are probably agencies you can work with to reduce the risk factor a bit, too.  I've heard there are lots of people selling timeshare weeks at vacation condos online as well, so if you're going to a popular destination, that may be a good way to get a deal.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to make myself a nice cup of tea.  Cheers!

Mama Weekend Away in 10 Steps or Less

view from my hotel

Yesterday at 4:30pm Mama Weekend Away came to an end.  It was earlier than I had planned - I was originally intending to stay until 7pm, and was considering extending it to Monday morning since the snow last week made a mess of my Friday plans.


But as it turned out, 2 days was just enough.  My hotel offered me late checkout for free until 2pm but if I wanted to stay later, it was going to cost half the night's rate.  At that point, I was fully relaxed, and ready to go back to my sweet peeps at home.   So at 4:30, TJ and BabyT came to pick me up, and I was radiantly happy to see them.

So what did I do with 2 whole days to myself?  I soaked in the giant tub. I blogged. I set up a personal OneNote notebook to organize stuff I had randomly written down in various notebooks, stuffed in my wallet, or in the Drafts folder of my email accounts. I set up my phone the way I liked it (more on that in a later post too).  I ate and slept on my schedule, which meant staying up until 2am one night, and sleeping till 11 the next day.  I walked a couple of miles in downtown Seattle just for the heck of it.  I read the newspaper for the first time in ages. I organized the photos for this week's Project Life pages.  I got a haircut and color (badly needed!) and a completely unnecessary 90 minute massage and swanky pedicure at the hotel's spa. I did some introspection on how I could fit exercise into my busy schedule, what my "perfect day" looked like, and thought about some habits I need to change.

As I've mentioned before, I'm an introvert so this weekend was all about me getting quiet time to myself.  I didn't make plans to meet friends.  I wanted to play it by ear, and see what *I* felt like doing as the days unfolded.  I didn't really talk to anyone, except during the basic transactions for eating, spa-ing, and hoteling.

It was FANTASTIC.  Last week's Snowmageddon, stuck in the house with cabin crazy toddler and dogs, made me seriously grumpy.  This weekend away was refreshing, soothing, and inspiring.  Totally selfish, but totally worth it.

Here's how I made it happen, and how you can too.

1.  Asked kickass husband if he was ok with the idea.  Yes, I did ask for permission, because after all, he was an integral part of the plan.  Someone had to feed, clothe and entertain BabyT and the dogs all weekend!

2. Looked for local hotel deals on Hotwire and Expedia, just a few weeks in advance.  I wanted to stay somewhere pretty swanky, but it's not a requirement.  I just like swanky hotels.  I decided that it needed to be downtown Seattle, because downtown Bellevue or Kirkland just weren't "away" enough.  If I were feeling even more adventurous, I would have considered a 3ish hour drive to Portland or Vancouver, but I just didn't want to spend that many precious hours in the car.

3. Chose a hotel carefully.  Some hotels have free wifi, and some don't (charging as much as $15/day!).  Some of the older hotels don't have any wifi at all, so if it's important to you, make sure you check ahead of time.  Parking is a similar story - some include it in the rate, and others will charge you as much as $50/day (no joke!!!).  I wanted somewhere that had decent restaurants and a spa within walking distance.  Other people might be interested in good shopping - I just wasn't in the mood for it.  Check reviews and make sure there isn't anything bad that jumps out at you.  I wasn't searching solely on price, but I couldn't stomach the rate at the (lovely) Four Seasons - $259/night.  Maybe next time :)

4. Secured child care.  Not only did I need my husband to agree to be "All Daddy, All the Time" this weekend, we had to figure something out for Friday (a day when BabyT would normally be home with me).  Fortunately, her daycare had an open spot so she went there for an extra day this week.  If they didn't, I would have checked with our awesome college-student babysitter or my parents, if they were in town.  Since I didn't have a particular date in mind, childcare availability drove my choice of weekend.

5.  Planned a high level agenda.  That sounds horrifying for a relaxing weekend away, I know.  But I didn't want to sit around in the hotel wondering what I should do.  So I made a high level list of what I might like to do (no commitment), and loaded up my electronics/packed accordingly.  I'm a high tech kind of girl, so I brought my Kindle, my phone and my laptop, and chargers for everything.  I copied files from our home server to my laptop for things I thought I might work on.  The key here was not to commit to doing anything, just to have a variety of things available, so if I felt like doing a bit of something, I'd have what I needed.  Note that this DID NOT include work from my job :).  Most of it was personal organization stuff I never get to at home.  I ended up not bringing anything crafty, which worked out just fine.

6.  Made appointments for pampering (optional).  This depends on how attached you are to the idea of a spa day, mani/pedi or haircut.  If it's a must-do, then get an appointment beforehand.  You may not be able to waltz in and get services on the spot, and you don't want to be disappointed that you didn't get to something you REALLY wanted to do.  I was kind of "meh" before I left about pampering, so I left it up to chance and called the spa and hair salon when I got to the hotel.  I was lucky and they had appointments open, likely due to our wretched weather.  Also, it's not wedding season yet - on summer weekends in Seattle it's nearly impossible to get services without appointments booked a few weeks ahead of time.

7.  Figured out transportation.  My original plan was to drive myself, hence my search for a rate that included secure parking.  The best laid plans were disrupted with our Snowpocalypse, so TJ had to drive me instead.  He was willing (awesomest husband ever!) and it worked out just fine.  I could have taken a bus home if I was coming back after T's bedtime but decided against that.  Again, depending on how adventurous your weekend is, you may need to book plane or train tickets, or figure out bus schedules.

8. Held the dates sacred on my calendar.  I had a few potential requests on my time at work and some social engagements.  I declined them.  T was getting a cold, but I knew TJ could handle it.  This was MY time.  It's tempting to reschedule because "it's just me" and I could do it anytime, but I knew I wouldn't.  I had to do a lot of legwork to make this happen so I wasn't willing to compromise or move it.  Be strong!

9. Was kind to myself.  Obviously, just having this weekend away was a sort of kindness to my self, but I also didn't want it to be jam-packed full of expectations and tasks.  I didn't want to run through a list and have it complete at the end.  Manicure, check! 10 minutes of reviewing goals, check! Relaxing bath, check!  Um, no.  I let myself "float" through the weekend.  For once, I really thought about what I wanted to do that moment.  Sometimes it was just veg out with my Kindle, even though that OneNote project was beckoning.  I completely ignored the task of getting the last 3 months of 2011 photos sorted and edited. I just wasn't feeling it, and that was OK.

10.  Went home when I was ready.  Before I left that I wanted this weekend to be as LONG as possible. I was stressed out and needed time to decompress and focus on my larger goals.  But on Sunday, I was ready to rejoin my "real life" again.  I missed TJ, BabyT and the pups.  (Though not Spike's barking.)  So I slept in (till 11!!), packed up slowly, grabbed some lunch, then went home.   As a bonus, this gave TJ a break to go watch some important football, and T & I went to get Thai food, on her request.  It was a LOVELY evening.


So that's it.  Not rocket science of course.  I think it's something I'd like to do twice a year.  And of course, TJ can take a weekend off as well.  We both like the idea of getting a weekend off at home alone, so we might try to take BabyT on a short road trip somewhere, now that she's a bit older.


So, thoughts?  Would you take a Mama Weekend Away?  Or a Daddy Weekend Away?  What would you do?  Where would you go?

I've always wanted a penguin

BabyT's new thing is penguins.  She likes to tell me she's a penguin.  She likes to draw "penguins" on her chalkboard easel.  I love the randomness that is 2 years old.

So far 2012 has been ridiculously awesome for me.  Back on the Paleo wagon with no insane carb cravings or  resentment.  The aforementioned Bead Trends thing.  Sick days reset so I don't have to take vacation when I'm sick.   A handful of orders from friends to work on One Little Word pendants.  Discovered that I can send photos from Smugmug to be printed at Target, which makes Project Life easier.   People are reading my blog (thank you!!).

Today was one bright shining Star of Awesomeness.  It was the perfect Mama Day.  T woke up later than usual, which means I got to sleep till 7:45.  She got a bath and we ate breakfast and got ready.  We dropped off some unwanted stuff at Goodwill.  (Reduce, remember??) 

We went to The Little Gym, where T was more active than I've ever seen her.  She walked across the balance beam herself, unprompted.  She climbed on EVERYTHING.  She hung from the big bars BY HERSELF for several seconds.  We usually have to cajole her into doing stuff there, but today, she was ALL OVER IT.

And while she napped, one of my lifelong dreams came true.  OK, that's a bit overly dramatic.  But I am so freakin' excited to say I booked us tickets to Ireland!!!  Actual, honest to God plane tickets, with our names and real dates. If that weren't amazing enough, I got all three tickets for $425 total, by using our Chase credit card points which we've been hoarding for years.  To the airport we want, on a good airline with a decent schedule. I can't believe it.  It's actually going to happen.

Why the dream about Ireland?  I think it's because I started reading Maeve Binchy books when I was 10, and plowed through nearly everything she's written.  I still love them.  Somehow Ireland became this "thing" for me.  I have to see it. 

And not only will I see it, but we'll do it the way WE want to.  We're renting a house in one spot the whole time.  We'll take day trips to the Big City and wherever else we want to go.  Maybe a couple of overnights if we go far.  But no pressure to SEE EVERYTHING.  No crazy agenda to see all of the UK/British Isles/whatever that area is correctly called.  Just hanging out with my peeps, experiencing local culture, and having some true downtime. 

Just that would have been enough to make today AWESOME.  Then I got a call from the optician saying T's glasses were ready.  So when she got up from her nap, we went to pick them up.  I talked them up a lot, said we had to take lots of pictures, and she insisted on bringing Man, the guy who came with her Duplos.  Yes, that's his name.  Man. 

T was wiggly with excitement over the idea of getting her glasses.  The optician remembered us from Saturday's visit to pick them out.  T grabbed them, put them on, and said "I look pretty!"  Why yes, baby doll, you do.

I love that the optician talked directly to T about caring for her glasses.  T listened to her very seriously and repeated back the part about "if your glasses aren't on your face, they should be in the case".   We took lots of pictures to celebrate, and then went over to Agave for a girls-only dinner, where she proceeded to eat an entire bowl of salsa, all the while chattering about her new glasses, penguins, cacti, and pinatas.

She happily kept those glasses on until she went to bed.  This could not have been a better day.

Do you know what I know? (2011 Creath Family Holiday "Letter")

Hi everyone, and welcome to this year's Creath Family Holiday Letter Thing.  I was going to write a summary of what we did by month, but I'm just not feeling it, so I'm aiming for short and sweet.

2011 has been a great year for us.  Trillian started walking in May, and is quite the chatterbox!  She reliably sleeps through the night and speaks in full, amusing sentences.  For example:

Mama: Trillian, would you like some broccoli?
Trillian:  No, I would NOT.

We had her second birthday party at home in September with my parents and a few of her/our friends.  Spike is now 11 and Peanut is 9, but they're both doing well, though they sleep a lot more than they used to. 

TJ and I are still working at Competing Large Software Companies nearby, and are happy to have short commutes that are unaffected by the WA-520 bridge tolling fiasco.  Trillian likes the daycare she attends twice a week and brings home random stories about her classmates, like who drinks cow's milk vs. rice milk, or who fell on the climber.

In March, we celebrated TJ's *mumble*th birthday at Canlis with a small group of friends.  Hint, it's 0x28 in hex.  :)

We didn't travel much, but did go to Iowa this summer for the burial service of TJ's grandparents.  Though a sad occasion, it was nice for Trillian to see her grandparents, great-Granny, and her Aunt Robin. 

We also drove down to the Bay Area to visit friends and for TJ to do some work at the Mothership.  It was super hot but we had a great time visiting with our little friends Nicolas, Arturo, Zephyr, Anisha and Jaya. 

Right after that trip, I started a new job on a new team.  It's still part-time, and the team has been great.  They also taught me about the Honey Badger.  (Note: he is not kid- or work-safe.)

In September, we had a visit from Trillian's friend Maya and her family.  For a couple of almost-2-year olds, they did some pretty good sharing.

My parents were here for the summer in their new place nearby, and TJ's family came to visit for Thanksgiving.  We cooked a somewhat non-traditional Thanksgiving meal.



Amidst all of that, we went to the zoo a couple of times, made lots of trips to the dog park and Trillian's favorite "rumble slide", and had swimming lessons and Little Gym classes.  We've been having fun!

We wish you joy, prosperity and health in 2012, and hope to see you in Seattle!

Love,
Anandi, TJ, Trillian, Peanut & Spike

Evening plane rises up from the runway

I was really excited about in flight wireless Internet access, but the reality is that it's pretty slow.  Slow is better than nothing, I guess.  I am super excited to be on my way to Las Vegas to meet my fabulous husband for our first trip without Miss Baby.  She is hanging out with my parents this weekend, and pretty much pushed me out the door as soon as they showed up.  So life is good.

Photo by digitonin on Flickr

I hate pretty much everything about air travel. It irks me that the airlines don't realize that squishing so many people into such a tiny space is fundamentally opposed to the American culture's concept of personal space.  I hate it when the person sitting next to me is *touching* me, just by sheer virtue of sitting there, unless that person is related to me.  And even then I don't love it, but can deal.  This is one of those times - packed flight, large middle seat person keeps shifting around and reminding me that I have nowhere else to go without her touching me.  Yuck yuck yuck.

But it's nice to be alone with my thoughts (and the blog, of course) and not have that constant stress of trying to keep an almost-2-year old from pitching a fit or kicking the seat in front of her. 
It takes me back to the 3.5 years I spent working for Deloitte Consulting, traveling *every week*.  Most of that time was before 9/11 and all the TSA craziness, and I got out just about when it became unbearable.  I got really good at traveling - packing light, organizing my laptop bag to optimize for the security check, not checking bags, and doing everything online.
Since then, I can probably count on 2 hands the number of plane trips I've taken.  TJ's even less of a fan of air travel than I am, so our vacations are usually road trips.  Both of us are serious homebodies, so we tend to burn vacation just staying home for a day or two throughout the year.  And I'm cool with that.
In preparation for the Mondo Beyondo class I'm taking, I've been reading other people's posted "life dreams" lists online.  Most of them involve extensive traveling adventures.   I'm pretty sure mine won't.  There are only two trips I MUST do sometime - spend at least 2 weeks in Ireland, and go to the Christmas Market in Munich, Germany. 

I'm just not an adventurous soul.  I'm definitely not a "backpack across xxx continent and see 10 countries" kind of girl.  I'm more of a "find the nearest Four Seasons and park there for a week" traveler.  I'm sure readers of the Lonely Planet guides are appalled by this.  It's not that I don't have curiosity about the world around me.  I do, but just not enough to get out of my comfy home to go see it. 

So I mostly end up traveling because an opportunity is presented to me, not because I seek it out.  My parents nearly had to force me to go on a trip to France with my high school French class.   I just wasn't all that excited about leaving my house, and the known quantity of summer vacation.  I'm glad I went, if only because I found out that I might want to go back and see more of the Louvre, and maybe Switzerland some day. 

I did learn that I HATE group tours with a flaming passion.  I don't want someone else to set my itinerary for me, or tell me how long I can spend at a particular place.  I also hate having a packed agenda of sightseeing.  That's not relaxing at all.  I don't want to check off all the boxes to say I saw all the major attractions.  It's not my thing.  I'd rather wander around the city on my own pace, see one or two of the main things, and eat the yummy food.

So this is precisely what I did when I was given the opportunity to go to Munich Germany for work in 2003.  I spent a week there, but only had work events for 3 days.  I spent time napping in my really nice hotel, walked around the small town near the hotel, took the train into the big city a couple of times, did a crapload of shopping at H&M (which wasn't on the West Coast at that time), and ate a LOT of sausages in different shapes and sizes.  I practiced my (crappy) German, and got answered in perfect English by the nice and patient people that I met.  I saw the Olympic park, the BMW museum, a toy museum, and a really old church in the center of the city.  If there were other things I was *supposed* to see, I didn't.  It was relaxed, and I really felt like I got a feel for the place.  I also realized I dig traveling by myself.  Except for when I got on the wrong Express train and just narrowly avoided ending up hundreds of miles from my hotel. (My destination was the last stop before a long ride to some other part of Germany.  Yikes.)
 
In that same job at Microsoft, I also got to travel to Singapore, which I like to call the Las Vegas version of Asia.  It's clean and sanitized for your protection.  Not being a "get your hands dirty" kind of traveler, I loved it.  I'd totally go back there.

So yeah, I'm no world traveler, and I'm cool with that.  We may expand our horizons a bit more when BabyT is old enough to remember our trips, but I'm guessing we won't be the "pull kid out of school and travel the world for a year" family. 

But right now, I'm ready for Las Vegas, where we'll get to see fake New York, fake Paris, and fake Venice.  Hooray!

the hills of Iowa make me wish that I could

(Photo taken by TumblingRun on Flickr)

We just returned from a family trip to Iowa.   I'll admit that Iowa is a state I hadn't given much thought to.  I've never driven through it on any of my cross country trips, nor have I ever had even an airport layover there.  I figured it would be hot, flat, and full of corn.  Friends of mine moved there several years ago from Seattle, and I didn't really understand it.

But now I get it.  It's a really pretty state.  We drove from Des Moines to Cedar Rapids and saw a lot of corn, of course, but the land was so pretty and green and...open.  It's not like Seattle where buildings and streets and new subdivisions are crammed into tiny spaces.  There are lots of trees and hills, so not nearly as flat as I expected.

I will admit that our restaurant experiences were not so great - a lot of pan-fried, deep-fried and more fried stuff made me CRAVE fresh vegetables by the end of our trip.  Though I did learn that a 'tenderloin' there is a battered, deep-fried piece of pork on a bun.

But the rundown looking Hy-Vee grocery store near our hotel had a HUGE organic/natural foods section rivaling any respectable Seattle grocery and had several different brands of soy milk including T's favorite Soy Dream.  In fact, they had the soy yogurt and soy cheese I have to go to Whole Foods to get here in Redmond.  And even more shocking were the prices.  A 1 pound box of Barilla pasta was $1.50.  I'm pretty sure we pay close to $3 for it in Seattle.   A pound of *organic* grapes was $2 (!).  Zoiks.

And I figured that I'd get a lot of leery looks of the "you ain't from around here" type that were pretty frequent when I was working in Butte, MT.   But no!  There were brown people everywhere and more than a few mixed-race couples with kids.  There were other Asians, too.  Not *quite* as diverse as Seattle, but not nearly as far off as I expected.

So, if I were performance reviewing our trip, I'd say it "exceeded expectations".  We had fun with family, T got some grandparent and auntie-time, and my misconceptions about the state of Iowa melted away quicker than soy cheese in a quesadilla.  We could have done without T's vomiting incident on the plane, likely brought on by the Denver airport Mesa Verde Grill totally disregarding our allergy questions/instructions.  (Another time I was glad T's reaction to dairy is likely not anaphylactic.)

It also turns out I have a bunch of people in my Facebook friends list that have some connection to Iowa - family is from there, they were born there, used to live there, etc.  Who knew?

Our friends in Des Moines live close to a brand new huge shopping area that reminds me a lot of the ones you see in Phoenix.  It has a Trader Joe's and I'm pretty sure I saw a Starbucks.  And it turns out Microsoft is building a datacenter nearby.  Us living in Iowa?  Never say never...

A new mother cries

We've just returned from the Worst Vacation Ever.  Two stressful days in an unfamiliar house with three creatures who needed to be looked after constantly.  We're using this as a learning experience.

I had imagined another mellow, blissful weekend like we had a few years ago on the Olympic Peninsula.  Of course it would be different with a baby, but with both TJ and me around, we'd each get some time to ourselves to just relax.  And BabyT is pretty mellow, so she's usually happy to play by herself near us for relatively long stretches of time.

We rented a house at Seabrook, a totally manufactured "beach town" on the Washington coast.  The drive over there with puppies and baby was pretty uneventful. Thanks to the massive amounts of baby stuff we need to carry around with us (stroller, diapers, her own clothes and toys), we had to put both dogs in the back of the Nitro together, and stuff all of our luggage in the seat next to the baby's car seat (which itself takes up a huge amount of room). We stopped once to feed Miss Baby and get me a diet Coke, but otherwise she napped or entertained herself in the back seat.

The house was lovely, and the neighborhood very nice to walk around in (despite the massive amounts of construction). We bought a few groceries at the Extortion Market located onsite, and TJ made a larger grocery run the next day, to Ocean Shores, which was about 15 miles away.

The bed was king-sized which meant we didn't need to bring a place for BabyT to sleep, and they even had a high chair and Pack N Play, which was a welcome surprise. That all sounds good, right?

But it was surprisingly stressful. The yard wasn't beagle-proof so we had to take the dogs out on a leash every time. We worried about the dogs getting into something or having an accident in the house since it was new and they didn't know where "out" was. If BabyT was on the floor, we had to keep a hawk's eye on the dogs. (We've solved this problem at home by installing baby gates so we can separate dogs and baby when needed.) We had to change BabyT on the floor. Basically, one of us was always watching the baby, and the other one was watching the dogs.  The first night was wretched.  Either BabyT or Peanut was up EVERY hour, as if to say "hey guys, did you notice we're not at home?".

Add to that the fact that I also forgot some of the parts to my breast pump, which meant we'd have no "easy milk" in the bottle for T. Which also meant that *I* was tethered to the baby for feeding. On a side note, hooray for 8.5 months of breastfeeding!

So yeah, not relaxing. A friend told me that vacation with a baby just seemed like the "same stuff, different location". I totally agree. But we had the house for 4 days so I thought we should make the best of it.

Until the Spectacular Vomiting Incident.  BabyT has been doing GREAT with eating solids.  We introduced bread (at Tropea, our favorite Italian restaurant) and a few strands of spaghetti, as well as the usual fruits and vegetables and she was literally eating it all up. But not with a spoon.  BabyT likes to feed herself, yo.

So I figured we were in the clear to just start feeding her whatever we were eating (except for the still-forbidden things like nuts, honey, egg whites and dairy).  I had some tomato soup for lunch on Friday, and for thought it was just tomatoes and spices. (Bad Mama Mistake #1)  So I offered some to BabyT.  She LOVED it.  Even let me feed it to her from a spoon.  She ate less than a tablespoon total, and all was well.  We went out for a walk, and went to the beach to let the dogs run around.  All was still well.  She took a nap.  All continued to be well.

I fed her again in the evening just after her last nap of the day.  As I was getting ready to take her downstairs for a few hours of fun before bed, it happened.  It actually wasn't that *gross*, just alarming.  Whoever said that babies' stomachs are the volume of a closed fist is a dirty rotten liar.  She was drenched, I was soaked, and so were the lovely bed linens (thank god for mattress pads!).   I had never seen BabyT do this so I was freaked out.

And of course, it was after our pediatricians' office closed for the day so we had to leave a message and wait for the nurse on call to return it.  In the meantime there was more (small) vomitiness.  The nurse just said to stop giving her solids, keep an eye on her for fever and more vomiting and give her milk as usual.

At that point I was ready to take my ball and go home.  We were an hour round-trip from the nearest grocery store and at least that from the nearest medical facility, which may or may not have had a pediatrician.  We had a limited number of outfits and laundry detergent.  I wanted to be in MY house where everything is set up the way we need it. 

Fortunately, BabyT was fine for the rest of the night and slept and ate pretty well. I discovered there was cream in the soup, so either she had a bad reaction to the dairy or is allergic to/doesn't tolerate tomatoes.  We're going to hold off for another month or so before introducing yogurt and cheese, and will go back to our "whole foods" plan for solids.

We're all fine but SO happy to be home.  We'd like to try another trip later, without the dogs, will remember to bring all parts to the pump, and will not introduce new foods while traveling :)

You change your mind like a girl changes clothes

Life is good. Somewhere around the 5.5 month mark, the Chublet started eating less frequently, and napping on a more predictable schedule, so I don't feel like I'm always worrying about the next time she'll eat or sleep. Though now more than ever, I *need* to be home when it is time to sleep, or we PAY THE PRICE later.

I joked when I got pregnant that I'd start keeping a list of everything I had to give up for the baby: sushi, wine, trip to Ireland, and hot-tubbing while pregnant, wine,floofy drinks, sleep while nursing, etc. And then I'd post the list on my blog to somehow make myself feel better about all these sacrifices.

I didn't get around to it, of course. Now that she's here, and is actually interactive, it's all good. I do miss having long stretches of time to get projects done (even after she goes to bed, lately she's been waking to eat a few times), and I miss being able to do crafty stuff whenever I feel like it.

But in a way, life is more relaxed now. It's about her schedule, and not overscheduling our days. I try to remind myself to be aware and mindful about the time I spend with her because it's going by so fast - she's already an "older baby". How did that happen?!

I still waffle about my decision to stop doing custom tags and jewelry in my Etsy and 1000Markets shops, and I haven't made any GeekMagnets in ages so the shops are a little bare. But in the end, I don't want to have custom orders hanging over my head when I am trying to enjoy time with BabyT, or even better, with BabyT, the pups *and* TJ (our weekend is precious now!).

And honestly, it's not as painful a sacrifice as I thought. I am so much less stressed out than I was in December when the orders were pouring in. I get to spend tons of time with BabyT, but I also get to spend 2 whole days at work, and can work on projects that require concentration and focus. The 12-hour day I spent last week at work was awesome: I was motivated, excited and READY to GET STUFF DONE. On the downside, I only got home after T went to bed, but of course she obliged me by waking up for an extra feeding at night, but considerately, before my own bedtime.

So goes the balancing act that'll continue for the next 18 years, I guess. So far, so good :) Next, we'll need to tackle that trip to Ireland, though the loooong plane trip is daunting. I don't want to be THAT person on the plane but it's only going to get worse before it gets better. I just need to convince TJ...

She's got her own thing

For some unexplained reason I am completely in love with Ne-Yo's song "Miss Independent", despite mostly hating R&B in general. But I'm a sucker for kickass woman songs.

Today at work we did the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator Personality Inventory, as a team. Microsoft seems to be a fan of these kinds of teambuilding events - I did another one with a color scale on my previous team. I guess it must be a corporate thing in general, because I took the MBTI when I was working at Deloitte.

Interestingly enough, even though I took it 10 years ago, when I was just out of grad school and brand new to the workforce, my "type" was essentially the same. Which gave me more faith in this analysis because they say it's personal preferences and doesn't typically change over time.

So this time I came up as an ISTJ (introverted-sensing-thinking-judging), but only a moderate introvert. Meaning I had some extrovert tendencies. Last time I was an ESTJ, but only a moderate extrovert. So I guess in the intervening years my true nature has come out :) I suspect being married to TJ, who I'd guess is a very strong I, has encouraged me to become more that way, and prefer it.

Of course, this wasn't really news to me. I know I'm an introvert, but can be gregarious around people I know well. And the S-T-J part is totally strong - I love facts, I plan ahead (to a fault), and am way organized and definitely not spontaneous. That's why I'm a project manager, and love it.

It's also why I bought two major baby items this week on Amazon.com, because we have Amazon Prime membership, and thus free shipping, for a little while longer (needed it for Amazon Fresh grocery delivery). I saw screamin' deals on the infant car seat I wanted, plus the extra car base, plus the Pack N Play thingy (looks like a baby corral, also has a bassinet). And for all that heavy stuff, free shipping directly to my house? How awesome is that?! I dread going to Babies R Us, so the more I can order online, the better.

So this first shipment of baby STUFF will arrive next week. Oh, and Jasmine loaded me up with books and a bunch of her stuff as well, and we're going to pick up a *gorgeous* crib from my friend Carey, so we're already nicely stocked, about 5.5 months in advance. That's just the way I roll, y'all.

And true to my 'J' nature (plan ahead, organized, blah blah blah), I tried to get us a hotel for the 2010 Olympics in Whistler next February. We have tickets to Biathlong (skiing and shooting, what could be better?) on one day. I figured that was a good one to start early on. And dang, I didn't start early enough. *Everything* in Vancouver is booked. Anything left in Whistler is literally over $1000 per night. And the Olympic folks claim they aren't letting anyone drive into Whistler.

So now I'm kind of stressed about that. Ordinarily I wouldn't be - we could just drive to Vancouver that day, take the shuttle to Whistler and go home the same night, right? But I'm thinking that kind of long day isn't really going to cut it with a 4-month-old BabyX in tow. So I'm researching alternate places to stay. Without a lot of luck. Sigh. I'm hoping some rooms will open up as the event gets close. But it seems a little ridiculous to sell so many tickets and not have accomodations available. Grrr.

On the bright side, we ate at Fatburger for dinner. YUM.

You know it ain't easy runnin' out of thrills

Hmm, so I had intended to put in a nice travelog of our trip, but I found it much more relaxing just to ignore the Internet completely. Except for once-a-day email checking to see if I got any sales on Etsy (just 1, thanks for asking.)

We're spending the night in a somewhat sketchy motel in Barriere, British Columbia, which is about 5-6 hours from home. We made some amazing progress today - left my friend Alice's house in Bonnyville, Alberta this morning around 6:45 our time, and TJ drove 12 hours straight, with minimal stops for gas and food and puppy-walking.

We did have a lovely stop in Mt. Robson, at a rest area. It was about 70 degrees out, gorgeous and sunny, and an amazing view of the mountains. The Canadian Rockies, and really, most of BC, are *so* pretty. We'll definitely be back.

The pups have been really great travelers, Spike especially. We set up his dog bed in the back seat, and he just curls up there and sleeps nearly the whole time. He hasn't once tried to come up to the front seats while we're moving, though he does get up there if we leave the dogs in the car to get some food. I guess he wants to watch us through the window to make sure we haven't abandoned him.

Neither dog has fussed about needing to get out of the car, though around the 11th hour today, Peanut got up and paced around the back of the Nitro, alternately staring at us and barking at the giant tractor-trailer truck behind us. I think he was just done with the car today, and so were we, so here we are, in bed at the motel, in a huge dogpile.

Oh! And today we saw wildebeests. Ok, not really, but we did see wild mountain goats - a whole flock (herd? gaggle?) of them crossing the highway in Jasper Natl Park. I got some pictures before I had to shut the window to prevent Spike from jumping out to get them. Peanut DID NOT like them and told them in no uncertain terms, to stay the heck away from him. Very loud. Fortunately the wildebeests didn't notice the Peanut at all.

We had a lovely time with Alice and Randy, eating, playing with dogs (they have 2 awesome pups), and crafting. I think TJ snuck in some football and napping while Alice and I went to some garage sales and did our crafty stuff. I made some good progress on my cross-stitch kit that I bought several weeks ago. I also figured out that cross-stitching in the car *is* possible, but a bit unwieldy and also has the danger of someone getting their eye poked out with the needle in case of an accident.

This past week has been a lot of fun, but I'm looking forward to getting home too. Wish us luck that the border crossing line is short!

I was made for chasin' dreams

Helloooo from Lillooet, British Columbia. Don't know where that is? Don't worry, neither did I until this evening when we decided we were done driving after 150+ km of winding, bumpy mountain roads.

Our intended stop for the night was Kamloops, which we didn't quite make. But that's ok, because we are SPONTANEOUS travelers. Flying by the seat of our pants with no plan except to get to Edmonton by Thursday night.

This morning I slept in because my sweet husband got up early and fed the pups and took them to the small dog park near our hotel. Peanut met an Akita puppy named Andy and apparently took quite a liking to him. They spent a long time chasing each other and wrestling while I slept blissfully in our hotel room.

Breakfast today was another crepe. Yes, I'm obsessed. There was a tiny crepe cafe across from our hotel which had been closed since we arrived but reopened this morning, finally. and OMG it was AMAZING. The most perfect, slightly sweet, paper-thin crepe surrounding fresh sliced banana and strawberries. It was HEAVEN. I would have eaten every meal there if we had stayed any longer.

We took the pups to Granville Island and wandered around for a bit. It's a great place for artsy-crafty things, so I had a good time. I actually *didn't* buy anything, believe it or not!

Then we drove to Whistler, and saw the ski jump and biathlon stadium they are building for the 2010 Olympics. Very cool, except for the TONS of road construction along the way.

After a nice dinner at a brewpub in Whistler Village, with the pups begging pointedly at our feet, we got back on the road, and after what seemed like an interminable sequence of twists and turns and potholes and bumps, ended up here in Lillooet. I have never been so happy to see a town I hadn't heard of before, especially when we saw there were places to stay :) And now it is time to sleep. We hope to make it somewhere in the area of Banff Natl Park tomorrow, but that's a long way from here, so we'll see. Yay Canada!

If it was a box or a bag

When I go on a trip, I like to buy a souvenir to commemorate it. But not a tacky shot glass or collection of postcards that I'll lose in some drawer. I like to buy a piece of jewelry, clothing, Christmas ornament or something I'll actually use in my day-to-day life.

So when I walked into the giant Roots store in downtown Vancouver this morning, and saw their handmade in Canada purple leather handbags, I fell in love. And decided the "Village" flat handbag would be my trip souvenir.

In fact, the bag I bought was the only one in its shade of purple - it's more of a magenta, reddish-purple. The others in the shop were more of an eggplant shade. The style I bought is actually hiding in the pic above, it's in the middle on the left, right behind the small two-zipper pouch.

But not only is the color totally fantastic and the hardware bright shiny silver instead of the usual hideous brass, it's the softest nicest leather *ever*. Or should I say "leathah evah" in honor of Project Runway contestant Stella, who got booted a couple of weeks ago.

Yay. I love my new bag. It's so pretty.

We also took the pups to Ambleside Park, which is *amazing*. It's a big off leash park with a paved walking trail, access to the bay, lots of cool driftwood to run on and around (which also means nice big sticks to throw for Peanut), and big grassy fields for running and ball-chasing. Until you lose your ball, that is.

Don't worry, I got lots of good pictures of the pups having fun. They're still getting used to traveling, though of course Spike travels like a pro, my little roadtrip buddy. More later. I gotta go get us some crepes now for dinner. YUM.