That La Kid

wishin' an' hopin'!

lately

It’s been a busy couple of weeks.  No progress on Little Happy’s room or anything.  At this point we’re just trying to get out of the old house.  We’ve got one week.

It’s been a rough few days.

We bought a house, closed on 7/27 and have to be moved out of our rental by 8/18.

I don’t have gestational diabetes per se… but my numbers are elevated.  So I’m diligently trying to figure that whole mess out.

Tom went to Dallas last Thursday and Friday, so in addition to be pregnant and having to work on the old house by myself, I was super-duper depressed at being alone.  There’s nothing in the new house to eat.  So, I had to go to the store.  Everyone I know who has a pet can just walk out the door and go to the store.  Not us.  We have to dog-proof the whole house.  Close all the doors to all the bedrooms…  Put boxes on the couch so she doesn’t jump up there and cover it in fur…  Move anything that’s edible higher than 5 feet off the floor…  It’s exhausting.  I just want to be able to go to the freaking store without having to turn my pantry into Fort Knox.  I just want things to be easy.  I just want my life to be simple!

So.  I put the dog in the garage.  I prayed she wouldn’t crap in the garage – because I’m still nauseous all the time and didn’t want her sh*t to make me throw up.  Still, I bought clothespins at Walmart so I could put one on my nose if she did poop and figured we could use them at the baby shower.

It started raining when I went into Walmart, when I was ready to leave it was a gosh-darned MONSOON.  I got soaked, despite the umbrella (“…big ol’ fat rain.  Rain that flew in sideways…”)  I looked like a drowned rat.  Aaaand I slipped in the parking lot.  Stubbed my toe.  I’ll live.  My super-long second toe kind of folded and saved the rest of me from going down, but it got cut pretty bad and hurts like a mug.  Added injury to the insult of being soaking wet, and lonely, and sad, and frantic about Jasmine.

At home, of course there was sh*t in the garage, which infuriated me.  Of course.  Just because I DID NOT NEED THAT IN MY LIFE AT THAT MOMENT.  So, okay… fine.  I can pick up poop.  I mean.  I’m having a baby.  Me an’ poop are about to get real friendly.

But geeeeeez… do I hate dog poop.

So, I open the clothespins and they don’t fit on my GIGANTIC, HUGE, ENORMOUS, TITANIC nose.

I stuffed a paper towel up my schnoz and picked up the crap, put it in a bag and cracked the garage door so I could throw it out on to the driveway and throw it away when it’s not raining cats and dogs.  Oh!  And speaking of rain/dogs… Jasmine decides she’s out.  She’s gon’ bounce.  She peacin’.  So, she runs out of the garage into the rain.  Nice little plus.  Like my evening wasn’t already awesome… now I get to go find a wet dog.

JASMINE!  WHY YOU SO DUMB!  WHY YOU RUN OUT INTO STORM!

I don’t get it.  I’ll be damned if I’m going out there.  I yelled and she came back.  I yelled at her to stay and went inside to get a cup of water the flush out the pee that she also made for me while I was gone.  Come back out – she’s gone again.

SUNNUVA!

I called her again and she came back.  WTF, Jasmine?!  It. Is. RAINING.  Stay in the garage… if for no other reason, because I JUST told you to.

WHY YOU SO DUMB?!

This happened every time I went in to get another cup of water.  By the time the pee was flushed out into the rain I was ready to just shut the door and leave Jasmine out there.  I didn’t.  I called her back into the garage from wherever the heck she was.  I stood by her bowl and watched her eat the food that had been there since I left.  (If you don’t know this dog, she loves to eat.  We pour the food at dinner time, she eats it.  Interesting, huh?  Leave her in the house and she will eat anything within those 5 feet of ground level.  Leave her in the garage with a full bowl of food and she doesn’t touch it.)  Poured her some water.  Stood there while she drank it.  Went in the house, told her to get the F away from me, and I finally got to eat something.  Finally.  Sat in the kitchen and cried and ate “dinner,” a Lean Cuisine.

I was beginning to think Tom had forgotten about his wife.  It was about midnight, Texas time.  So… clearly he’s having more fun than I was.  Whatever.  I’m going to bed… Jasmine was finally dry, but I didn’t want her near me and she knew it.  She got as close as she thought she could safely, which was the landing halfway up the stairs and eventually outside my bedroom door.

Tom called at about the same moment I gave up on him.

Maybe none of it is a big deal, but I FEEL depressed.  So, I FEEL like it’s a nightmare.

Tom got home and we decided that we’re never doing that again.  Ever.  That was stupid.  Lil’ Happy and I are going next year.

The screen on my laptop, my only means of communication with the outside world, went black on Tom’s first day away – JUST as I was opening photoshop to create Baby Shower invitations.  I also have someone WAITING for me on Etsy, and no way to create a listing.  Our shower leaks.  The washing machine stopped working.  The ceiling fan and light in our bedroom turn on and off at random.  And oh yeah, we have a house to move out of.  Oh yeah, and my nose is huge.

Friday night – Tom was finally home!  I met him at the door.  It was like in the movies where they guy has been over seas fighting Nazis for 9 months.  We just wanted to be together.  We drove to get food at 11:30 – not because we were hungry, but because we wanted to drive around and talk and just be together.  Took the Holy Terror with us.  Got home and Tom showed me cupcakes! And presents! We were in bed around 12:30.

At about 1:30 am, his phone starts going off and we both thought it was the alarm.  We were supposed to leave early to go to Virginia.  It wasn’t the alarm, it was the neighbor that lives by the old house.  She said some kid told her he thought our house was robbed.  We got dressed, loaded Jasmine up in the truck that was full of stuff from me moving earlier that day and went to the old house.  The cops were there.  They said the back door was open.  Great.  We went in the front door.  The cop was like, “alright – what’s missing?”  “Nothing.  It looks just as it did when I left this evening.”

Turns out, they had parked the getaway car in front of our house, broke in to a house about 5 houses down and ran behind all the houses in-between with the goods.  But it wasn’t us.  It’s like Tom’s back home and all is right with the world.  Nothing is a big deal.  Everything’s okay.

We were up late.

We went to Virginia for a glorious wedding – but traveling is always tough anyway.  I’ve got this gestational diabetes problem and it’s been tough to find good nutritious food on the road.  Anyway.  Being on the road is just an extra stressor on the existing list of crap that’s going on.  We were both tired from the night before.

It was a whoooole weekend that we weren’t moving.

It was a great weekend.  Great wedding.  Great day at Busch Gardens – although I could not ride a damn thing.

I take that back, I rode the carousel.  Everything else was either too dangerous or part of the Sesame Street Forest of Fun.

As if my list of whiny complaints wasn’t long enough, at the wedding a friend of mine pointed out that my voice is suddenly very deep.  Yes, it is.  Thank you.  I actually find it quite devastating.  Huge nose… growing a beard… voice of Gaston… wedding band doesn’t fit… yes… pregnancy is AWESOME.

Side note: this sounds like me, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1770619/, I’d love to know other peoples’ opinions on the subject.  People on various message boards claim the nose thing will go away after I have the baby, but the deep voice bit sounds like a legit issue (that will resolve itself eventually, but an issue nonetheless).  All the stuff about the ovaries sounds like me… just sayin’.  Look at it.

So… yeah.  That’s what’s happening down here.  I’m just kind of waiting for this pregnancy thing to get fun.  At first, I figured it was lame because I was waiting until after my cousin’s wedding to make a big deal about it.  But here it is a month later and I’m still miserable.  I don’t feel special!  I’m not glowing!  I’m just… kind of… blubbering.  I’m tired.  I’m fat.  I’m sad.  Projects are not getting done.  The house is a mess.  I was looking forward to the baby shower because that’ll be fun… show off my new house, you know?  But like, people have a problem with it because I want it to be at my house in Charlotte.  That’s really getting to me for some reason… like, making them unhappy is completely filling me with anxiety and irritability.  There really just aren’t words to express my feelings about that.  I can’t imagine any of the complainers being like, “oh – you know what, I’m going to have my baby 4 hours from home because that’ll be easier on Wendy,” but that’s what I’m doing for them.  (Not just for them, I like the doctor, too – but if you ask, “wow, why are you having the baby in Cville?”  First thing out of my mouth is, “Well, my whole family is there.”)  And they can’t come here, to my home for a shower, so I can nest for one f*cking minute before I have to move to Charlottesville for a month – away from Tom, and we’ve seen how well that worked out – and live as a guest, out of a suitcase while I have this baby?!

Buuuuut…. trying to be optimistic.  I don’t know.  Trying.  Sorry if you wanted a fluffy entry about magic baby fairy dust.  Tom makes me feel better.  We tried for so long.  This is our little miracle.  I’m hoping it’ll be a whole different story when he emerges from… my… gosh… I do not want to think about that right now.

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not to keep bringing it up

One thing I am noticing about being pregnant, moms LOOOOOOVE to talk about their birth stories.  (Don’t traumatize me.)  Well, I’ve got one for you.  (Let me traumatize you.)

I’ve said that 2 weeks after surgery I was at Disney World.  I was thinking of my anniversary, December 16th being 14 days after I checked out from the hospital.  You know what?  I can make it sound better than that.  December 2nd, I was at Martha Jefferson.  December 11th I was at Walt Disney World.  That’s 9 days!  Crazy!  I’m awesome!

I suddenly have a new burst of energy thinking about our trip this coming December.  For some reason, I had assumed that I’d basically be on bed-rest for 3 months after giving birth… so how the heck will I finagle an anniversary trip 2 months after the baby’s due date?  So.  Okay.  What?  Like, this is the one year we don’t have dinner at California Grill on our anniversary?  Poor baby.  Can you cope?  It’s the end of the woooorld…

No wait.

I was cut wide open and had a 15 lb. pot roast removed and 9 days after I checked out of the hospital, I checked in to Disney’s Wilderness Lodge!

It was no little cut either!  No little golf-ball sized cyst that was removed with 3 tiny incisions.  No.  Every doctor that I have seen since (and it’s a lot with this pregnancy thing) who sees the (like 10? 12 inch?) scar from Mr. Nasty is taken aback with a gasp and a distinct “WTF” face.  They all ask who did that to me, like I went to a butcher (and it was a pot roast – ha).  None of them can believe it.  I should start carrying around the picture of that bad boy in my wallet.

Boom.

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and 9 days later… BOOM.

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Look how happy I am!  I could see my feet!  This isn’t a girl who’s on bed-rest or in unbearable pain.  This is a girl on the mend!  This is a happy girl – glad to have that disgusting thing out of her!!!

Tom says Dr. Stadler said that I am one tough cookie.  I like that.  I am.  I can do this.  It might be a slower trip.  The trip last year was slow.  That’s good.  I can relish every moment.  Last December I was feeling like it was a new beginning, and like I had the best husband in the whole wide world.  So optimistic.  So happy.  We were both just over-the-moon excited.  You know, like, maybe this year we’ll be able to get pregnant… finally.

Not much has changed.  Tom is still the absolute best guy in the wide, wide world.  And just think of the “new beginning” that we’ll be celebrating this year.  A brand new life!

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fffffffffffffppptttttttt

Last night I dreamed that my water broke, but I wasn’t positive if it was really happening.  It was just kind of trickling out.  Mom, Trudy, Lindsay and Sunny would not take me to the hospital until after they showed Haley the great pizza restaurant with the amazing salad dressing.  We did a lot of walking through tall grass to try and find the place.

Yeah.  That’s all I’ve got.  I’m as lost as you are.  What pizza restaurant?  No idea.

I don’t like close calls.  “To be early is to be on time.”  I feel like they were thinking labor takes a while – we’ve got time.  But for me, it wasn’t about having time… it was about amniotic fluid dripping down my leg.  Can my baby live without that?  Since when is salad dressing more important than– actually, you know what?  Haley doesn’t even LIKE dressing on her salad!

All of these things that once seemed far off are rapidly approaching.  Tomorrow, we are doing a final walk-through of the house and then on Friday we’re closing!  Tom already had the power and water changed to our names as of Friday.  So, on Friday night we’re ordering pizza and watching the Olympics on the floor in our new living room.

Time to buy the kid a dresser!  Time to do the baby’s room!  Time to pack up and get out of here!  Time to move again… and not move again for 10+ years!

One thing I am preoccupied with is hooks.  I want to get little hooks to hang on the wall near his dresser or changing table.  Do not ask me why.  But this morning, after I recovered from the WTF dream, I was like, “Today’s Wednesday!  We close on Friday!  I need to buy hooks!”

My favorite place in Charlotte is closing… so I am going to bring this to an abrupt end to go paint some pottery at Our Pottery Paintin’ Place.  They are citing the economy.  I hate to hear that.  I really wish the owner was retiring to the Bahamas or something.

Here’s my work in progress:

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I feel like this whole post was a brain fart.

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even more design!

We’re making progress on Lil’ Happy’s post-uterine habitat.  We could just buy a normal dresser for about $200… but since when have we been normal?  We went to Ikea tonight and each had a quarter of a roasted chicken for $3, then perused the children’s department so I could show Tom what I’ve been thinking about.

Together, we created this:

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I think this might be overkill for a nursery, a baby doesn’t need all that, but there’s no sense in redoing it for a little kid in 2-3 years.  We might as well set it up now, right?

The piece in the center is that toy chest/bench/desk that I’ve been talking about since, well, forever.

I also love, love, LOVE this idea that I saw on Pinterest.  I LOVE children’s books!  We have a whole bookshelf full, and this way I can display the covers of my favorites.  And wouldn’t you know it… these shelves are Ikea!

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Designing for our little guy is already a challenge… just because it’s not what I’ve had in mind all this time.  I need to take the quilt into the store and make sure I love it with the lime green – jury’s still out on that.  If I hate it, green can easily be replaced with blue:

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or birch!

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The green is obviously my favorite, and it works with the under-crib storage that I love so much, and I like it with red.

I can’t wait to see it all come together.  Part of me thinks I should just keep it a secret until it’s all put together and awesome… but I’m assuming that you, like Tom, can’t grasp my final vision.  So, you’ll still be happily surprised to see it all come together AND I can do something with this excess nesting energy, since I can’t actually nest yet.

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it’s my beach house…

I got upset in the Outer Banks.  I was cryin’.

Tom was amazing.

Earlier in the week, we had been to the Cape Hatteras lighthouse.  They are a National Park, so they sell these National Park Passports.  You can get your passport stamped at every National Park.  The only ones I’ve been to are Cape Hatteras and Jamestown.  So, in the car driving around Buxton, Tom was saying wouldn’t it be neat if that was something we did with our son.  Every year we take a trip to get his National Parks Passport stamped.  Sometimes we’ll go on big trips, like to Yosemite in California or the Grand Canyon in Arizona.  Other times, the trips will be closer to home, like Hatteras or Jamestown.  At Christmas, we’ll present options, and Little Mr. Happy gets to make the final choice.

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Anyway, so I’m crying… and Tom starts talking to me about taking our son to Hatteras.  He described how our little boy will stamp his passport all by himself, then turn around and show his mom and dad.  Smiling.  So excited.  So proud – we’ll all be proud.  We’ll walk around and explore the old lighthouse site, and the Keeper’s Quarters, and I’ll say, “the last time we were here, you were in Mommy’s tummy.”

It was so good.  It made me so happy – turned my frown upside-down!  Someone said that having a kid intensifies whatever kind of relationship you have.  So, if you and your husband’s relationship isn’t great, a kid will make it super-challenging, but if your relationship is awesome, well, then you’ll be a super-awesome family.  I think that’s us.  I think we’re going to be super-awesome.

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really! i wanna know!

Can someone please tell me why the cribs at Land of Nod are worth ten times as much as the cribs at Ikea?

Here’s the thing: when I was getting married, and debating about where to register, Target seemed to fit the bill.  We picked out a china pattern at Bed, Bath & Beyond.  I also found some really luxurious towels at Kohl’s that I fell in love with.  Basically, if you asked me where we were registered, I’d have answered “Target.”  We never got the china. I’m not sure whether I registered for it or not.  I picked some functional, replaceable, everyday stuff from Ikea that I really loved.  (Side note, it’s the same stuff as Barb’s house on “Big Love,” but we picked ours first.)

Anyway, anyway, anyway… when it was all said and done, I was like, “why am I so dumb?”  I thought about Lindsay and Trudy taking lunch breaks from Compass instead of what I really like.  I really like Crate and Barrel!  I REALLY like it!  Crate and Barrel, and Ikea.  I should have registered at Crate and Barrel!  Why was I stupid?!

Fast forward to Little Happy here.  Not gonna make the same mistake twice… that’s for sure.  I love Crate and Barrel, so by golly that’s where we’ll register.  They kiddie branch of Crate and Barrel is called Land of Nod.  All the stuff is really mod and designy and just awesome.

What’s that?  Huh?  They don’t sell car seats at Land of Nod?  Oh.  Come again?  (That’s what she said…)  They also don’t sell strollers?  Shoot.  Excuse me?  Their cribs are TEN TIMES the price of a crib from Ikea?!  W… T… F… So, the bedding and designs and stuff are neat, but I already have a crib quilt.  So, what are we looking at?  High chair?  Crib?  Dresser?  Storage?

Explain this to me:

Look, I’ll pay more money for a better item.  Is it solid wood?  I bet it’s solid wood – is that it?  Actually, cribs have to be solid nowadays, don’t they?

Okay, fine, alright, swell… I’ll give you that they’re better.  Are they TEN TIMES better?  Because, they cost like they’re TEN TIMES better.  They’re better looking.  Two or three times better looking than Ikea cribs, but are they ten times better looking?  I’m not so sure about that.

Notice in my opening sentence I said, “why are they worth more?”  I’m not saying they’re not… I’m just saying that I don’t see it.

So.  Anyway.  We registered at Target.  Everything that I loved at Land of Nod (the Puj tub, the Skip Hop Tubby bath toy organizer, the grass drying rack, the Skip Hop Hare comb and brush set… you name it) was all also available at Target, often for way less.  (The Skip Hop Moby Bath Spout Cover is actually $ .09 more at Target.)  Plus, Target happens to have a plethora of strollers, car seats, and Pack n’ Plays.

Since I can get a crib from Ikea for 1/2 to 1/10 of the price of a crib from Target or Land of Nod, I don’t know how not to go with Ikea.  The little booger’s going to destroy it anyway… gnawing on the railings and stuff.  I might as well not invest a crap-ton of dough in the thing.

EXPLAIN YOURSELF, LAND OF NOD.

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sneak peek

These are all things that will look ridiculous on my SON.

SURPRISE!!!

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comparison shopping

Just a quick note:

From http://www.diaperdecisions.com/pages/cost_of_cloth_diapers.php

Plus, we’re going with AIO OS, so we don’t need to buy 36 infant, 30 medium, and 24 large.  I will probably buy some infant diapers for the first couple of weeks, but after that (based on the sizes of my mom’s babies at birth) I assume the OS diapers will do the trick.

See also: Diapers.

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winey

I want a beer all of a sudden.  And wine.  And a margarita.

It’s actually not that sudden.  I wonder if it’s like when it snows, and all the roads are closed, so you and your cousins walk to the movie theater because you don’t want to be trapped in the house…

You know?

Do I just want it because it’s off limits?  I wonder if I could substitute something.  Of all the things to have cravings for!  I’ve got it for the ice cream truck and alcohol?

I had a sip of strawberry wine at the strawberry festival.  I actually had 3 sips.  It was such a relief.  I wonder if I could treat it like a tasting and spit it out – I wonder if that would satisfy me.  I held the strawberry wine in my mouth for a minute, and felt instant gratification.

We went wine tasting with Matt and I fell in love with Viognier, but I forget where we were.  I just remember making that mental note, “okay Wendy, VIOGNIER… vee own yay.  Remember that.  You love it.”  I think it was Barboursville, although it may have been Horton.  A cool, crisp Viognier.  That’s what I want.  Light, bubbly, sparkling wine.  Maybe I am thinking of the Barboursville Brut…

NO!  It was Horton… I just Googled it.  Horton had the Sparkling Viognier.  I remember the guy at Barboursville teaching us how to pronounce Viognier, though.  I mean, they both have ’em.  I hope Matt reads this and helps me out.

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busy weekend!

Rough weekend.  Someone reading this would assume it was because of my full house over the weekend, but I promise that has nothing to do with it.  On Thursday, we narrowed our house-hunt down to 4.  On Friday, 3 of those 4 went under contract.  Two of them literally went overnight.  So depressing.  We had no idea that it could happen so suddenly, and I’m not sure whether that is a faux-pas on behalf of the realtor, or naivety on our part.  Probably both.  She knew how we felt, surely if she thought we should throw down asap she would have said that.  So, it seems like we were all caught off guard.  Three out of four times.

Mom, Dad, Haley, Starsky, Van, Trudy, Tyler, Bree, Sunny, Nick and Toby were here over the weekend.  Now it’s just me and Jasmine, and I’m so lonely.  Tom and Dad went to the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races on Saturday and Sunday.  The Herolds were here for a wedding.  So, let’s see… on Friday Dad, Haley and Starsky got in around lunch time.  We went to Speed Street in Uptown and won lots of fun swag.  I was a rockstar.  I won game after game.  I tell you what, ever since Mr. Nasty was removed, my hand-eye coordination and ball-handling skills have gone through the roof.

On the way home on Friday night, it occurred to me that I had left a Chickfila sandwich on the table behind the couch.  CCCRRRAAAPPP.  I knew that Jasmine and Starsky would have been all over that thing after we left and was positive they’d get up on the couch, spill half-empty soda glasses (also on that table) down the side of the couch, and litter my floor with the sandwich wrapper.  Craaaaaap.  The covers come off of the couch cushions easily enough, and are machine washable, but it was already midnight.  And I have no idea how we’re going to wash the cushion part of the couch…. I felt so sick on the drive home.  So sick.

We pulled up to the house, Tom apologized to Haley in advance because it hurts her feelings when we yell at Jasmine.   As we made our way to the door, Haley ran to the window and looked in at the living room.

“IT’S STILL THERE!”

I opened the door to two happy, friendly pups and a perfectly intact Chickfila chicken sandwich exactly where I left it on the table behind the couch.  I don’t know if I’ve ever been so happy in my entire life.  I felt so warm, almost drunk.  Drunk with happiness.  It was kind of like marrying Tom, or sitting there with Tom watching the two lines on the pee test form.  So good.  So wonderfully awesome.

We had dinner at Mac’s Speed Shop (I think), because it’s rated the number one restaurant in Charlotte.  It was perfect.  A unique Charlotte experience, lots of food for the money – oh yeah – and also it was delicious.

Saturday, I had big plans.  Haley and I were going to hit up Old Navy and then paint pottery.  We went to Chickfila to get lunch for the Herolds, and Target to get her some pizza.  When we got back to the house, everyone was there.  It was good timing.  That’s what we were shooting for, we wanted their food to be hot.  We pretty much got there at the same time, I think.

Turned out we had to dog-sit Tobster.  Makes sense.  It was really hot out, so he couldn’t wait for everyone in the van like he usually does.  Plus, the van was loaded with their stuff for the beach.  Everyone was in formal wear.  It really wasn’t practical for them to take a slobbery, hairy hot mess with them to that wedding.  It just didn’t occur to me until about 30 minutes before they left that Haley, Starsky, Jasmine and I were all in for the night with Toby.  Womp wah.  (Not that I mind, Toby is always willing to babysit Jasmine!)  Haley and I watched the Nationwide race, which I thought was really fun.  🙂  We watched about 6 hours of Jersey Shore in Florence.  Haley ordered us a free pizza and breadsticks.  She’s a good egg.  We had a good time.  It’s kind of like when it snows and you decide you have to walk to the grocery store.  We felt a little bit of cabin fever because we couldn’t go anywhere, but we made a really good night out of it.  My favorite part was our last two hours or so.  Haley got a cup of Sammy Snacks and had all 3 doggies sit, lay down, and speak for a treat.  She’s really amazing.  She is a dog person… she’s an animal person in general.  It was like watching Andreas Deja draw in my sketchbook, watching a pro do what they do.  Very, very cool.

At 2 in the morning, Dad, Haley and I went to the train station to pick up Mom.  And all was right with the world.

Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY.  Tom got donuts for the gang.  I want to say the Herolds left at 11 for a 7 hour drive, but didn’t hit the OBX until close to 9.  (Just a guess based on facebook.)  So, I’m real interested to find out how that trip went since I have to do it in a little over a month.  I’ve been told 9 hours, so if they did make it there in 7, I want to go the way that they went!  You know, of course, what I am thinking.  “Nine hours?!  I could be at Disney World in 9 hours!”  Not just at WDW, but in 9 hours, I could be all the way inside the Magic Kingdom enjoying a Dole Whip.

Dad and Tom left around noon for the Sprint Cup race, the Coca-Cola 600.  Mom, Haley and I left Starsky to babysit Jasmine and again I had big plans.  Lunch, Old Navy, and Painting Pottery!  Woo!  We went to Wendy’s and Old Navy.  By the time we left Old Navy, Mommy had a “hegg-aig.”  We went back to my house and watched… something… what did we watch?  I forget.  We watched some of the race.  Haley and I went to Target and bough the stuff to make PKP and chicken spaghetti.  It was a fun little meal.  About the time we were done cooking, Tom and Dad came home.  Everyone was so exhausted.  We ate and passed out.

On Monday morning, I had booked us a breakfast date in Rock Hill.  We met Will, Joyce and Sara Beth at 9:30 at Cracker Barrel and sat there running our mouths for about 2 hours.  It was so good to see them.  I had so much fun.  When my food came, I was sad, because it meant we’d be leaving soon.  (We actually didn’t, we sat at the table for a loooong time after we were all done.)

We left Cracker Barrel and I whispered into Tom’s ear, “Disney Store?”  He smiled at me and nodded.

We headed up I-77 from Rock Hill, into North Carolina and got on I-485 heading east.  Dad was fussing at Tom for being in the wrong lane, going the wrong way… he sad something about being a bad driver in front of Mom and that opened Haley up to her Anjelah Johnson, “honeeey, I try to he’p yoo,” impression.  We were all dying laughing, wishing Lindsay was with us, and just saying it over and over.  So, although Dad thought Tom was going the wrong way, Tom’d just say, “Hon’ay, I try to he’p yoo!”  We parked at Macy’s, walked through and looked at luggage.  It was kind of nice to just do nothing.  Mom hit the nail on the head later, she said that whenever we get together it’s because we have something going on.  It was nice to just do nothing.  Just shop.  Just be together and be funny.

We left Macy’s, walked around that corner and Haley said, “Gah! I know why we came here!”  She RAN to the Disney Store.  I was nervous, you know.  We have a sister that get’s a discount and all of the merchandise is available online. I was afraid they’d think it was pointless to go there.  They didn’t.  They were excited.  We shopped and shopped and shopped and shopped.  Dad talked to a Cast Member who said that the stores are making a comeback.  Dad said, “Yeah, because you can’t take your kid into an online store.”  Dad bought tiny sunglasses for Lil’ Happy.  So cute.  He also asked me when we find out, because he’s excited about being able to get gender-specific stuff.  I am so tickled that he’s playing that Grandpa card.

I bought a Disney Store vinylmation and got the chaser!  I wasn’t as lucky with the Snow White minis.  I got Sneezy.  Not bad, but you know I wanted Dopey.

They were so not-annoyed with going to the Disney Store without our walkin’ talkin’ discount machine, that we went from South Charlotte to Concord Mills to visit the Disney Outlet.  The pool in my neighborhood opened this weekend, I was chompin’ at the bit to paint pottery… but the Johnson Family went to the Disney Store.  That’s how we roll.  That’s what we do.  It was pretty fun, as fun as a pool day I’d say.

They left around 4, and I have been ridiculously lonely ever since.

In other news…

I had a BombPop this morning that Tom bought me yesterday from an ice cream truck.  It was SO GOOD.  The problem?  What does a pregnant gal do when her craving is something that rolls by the house at random on weekends?  (Or not at all.)  What?  Go to the grocery store and buy popsicles?  Not the same.  They’re more watery, more icy.  This was so soft.  It was a popsicle, but when I broke through the frozen barrier, it turned to some kind of delicious miracle of cushy goodness.  The ones at the grocery store don’t slush as much as they just plain drip.  Anyway, now all I want is another BombPop.  I don’t know what cravings feel like, but this is as close as I’ve gotten to it so far.

It just occurred to me that I have a fridge full of wedding cake from the Herolds!  Woot!

Kirk out.

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