Eily's 2009 World Tour (Part 1)

Okay, perhaps the title is a bit hyperbolic. Eily didn't exactly tour the "world," but I think the northern half of the eastern seaboard is pretty darn close when you're only three and a half months old! So here it is, the post you've all been waiting for (though I hope you weren't holding your breaths in the process).

We embarked upon our adventure on Friday, October 9. Eily, as usual, was a perfect traveler. Unfortunately, traffic held us up a bit. We made a quick stop in Stafford to introduce Eily to her Great-great-auntie Ellie before zipping up to Ashford to spend the night at Dad & Kathy's. This gave Eily a break from the carseat and Jesse a break from driving. (Side note - I LOVE the Honda Fit, but the rear-facing infant carseat takes up a ton of space in there. As a result, the passenger seat remains in what I like to call the "Look, I can lick the windshield!" position. Needless to say, I'm the lucky one who gets to sit there all of the time. On a positive note, I never have to drive when the three of us travel. Score!)

Saturday morning found us waking at an obscene hour, something I'm sure Kathy agrees to. But hey, we had an 11 a.m. wedding to get to in Maine (or should I say, northern New Hampshire?). Contrary to popular belief, some new parents can and do make it places on time, and we wanted to make sure that was known. We arrived in plenty of time and had a heel-clicking good time at the nuptials of Rich & Amy, where Eily made her rounds on the dance floor and flirted with her future husband, Liam. The day's highlight? I'll have to say it was the surprise of hearing Enter the Haggis piping through the speakers and the immediate storm of dancers hitting the floor, whether they knew the song or not. Rich & Amy, you guys rock!

Now, those of you who know my track record for weddings, you're probably asking, "Where's the picture of Jessa catching the bouquet and the picture of Jesse's face looking on in horror?" Well, I'll admit it. I didn't partake in the bouquet toss. Not that I wouldn't have enjoyed marching out on the floor and sticking with tradition. But the life of a mother is not always conducive to keeping some traditions alive. Sure enough, Eily decided just minutes before the bouquet toss that it was time to eat. Nicole even ran into the ladies' sitting room to tell me to get out there. Something about catching the bouquet with Eily latched on just didn't seem right to me, though, so I stayed put. (I wonder now, however, would anyone have fought me for it? Probably not!)

The crazy fun of the wedding was followed up by an after party at the home of Amy's parents. This would have been tons of fun, had Eily not decided it was suddenly tantrum time. I spent the majority of the time there trying to convince her to go to sleep. Apparently, I'm not very convincing. She decided crying was a better idea, so we left early and made it back to the hotel by 9p.m., along with our roommates for the night: Nicole, Andy, and Liam (who quickly became the source of Jesse and Andy's entertainment, as you can see here).




So here's a riddle for you: What do you get when you cross two sets of parents and two babies with a long day of partying?

Any guesses?

Okay, I'll tell you. You get six people in bed before 10p.m. On a Saturday night. At least we had the decency to recognize the fact at the time and admit to our complete and utter lameness. We made up for this the following day, however, with a trip into Ogunquit where we walked the Marginal Way.

(And here's the spot in the blog where a
picture should be, but for some reason,
I don't see one in the folder Jesse created
for our pictures from this trip. Grrr!!!)

After parting ways with the Shillidays, it was back in the car to make the trek north to Bangor. But not without a pit stop in Freeport for some shopping, of course!

And here is where I leave you for now. Coming up in the next blog: Do we make it through the wilderness of Maine to Bangor? Does Eily survive her first climbing trip? And what happens when a recently fed Eily is played with by Curtis? Tune in next time to find out!

You know you're a mom when...

...your entire week is spent thinking about baby poop. The frequency. The consistency. The color. The inspection of. (Ok, that last one is probably TMI for you non-mommies out there.)

I know, I know, I have an entire week long vacation I still need to post about. But honestly, how can I begin to focus on that when this past week+ has been consumed by the all-too-worrisome topic of baby poop? I didn't realize this until I found myself googling "yarn fuzz in baby poop" a few minutes ago. It's not the first time I've googled a term ending with the words "baby poop" either, and something tells me it won't be the last. (Why was I researching "yarn fuzz in baby poop" you might ask? I'm pretty sure it's self-explanatory, but just in case you haven't quite boarded the Obvious Bus, I'll tell you. Eily had a strand of what appeared to be hair in her poo this morning, but upon further inspection it was a thin strand of yarn I'm fairly certain she swallowed while chewing on a fuzzy yarn blanket of hers.)

The yarn isn't the main concern regarding her bowels, however. What has me constantly pondering the poo is the fact that she's formed the habit of only going once every 7-8 days. I know, it's completely normal, especially for a breastfed baby. But still, I'm a mom. I worry about everything, poop included.

So, now that she's gone again and I've discovered, via the magic of the Google search, that my child is not the first in the world to pass non-food items through her digestive tract, I can begin pulling together pictures from our vacation in Maine and preparing a post. I can't guarantee to have it up by the weekend, but it will be here soon.

(Sorry if this one was a little too "graphic" for you non-parents. I won't apologize to parents. They know exactly where I'm coming from. You should all just be thankful I refrained from including any pictures this time around!)

Northern Exposure

Howdy all! I realize I haven't posted anything in almost two weeks, but my bag o' excuses is plenty full. Just a random sampling:

• Jesse's folks visited last weekend, followed up by a visit from Kitty and Garrett (and Baby Wilkin, too!).
• Work work work work work all week long.
• All the world's a stage, and someone's got to assistant direct! Spent two nights at the theater to work on "Inspecting Carol".
• Work some more.
• Packing, laundry, random house responsibilities.
• Did I mention work? Oh, and trying to get the stupid time sheet program to work on my computer before leaving for vacation.

Okay, that's enough excuses. As you can see, we've been busy. And it's only getting crazier from there. We hit the road on Friday and headed north to CT where we had a "layover" before continuing on to Maine Saturday morning. After an awesome time hanging with Nic & Andy & Liam at Rich & Amy's uber fun wedding, we headed even further north yesterday. We are now in Bangor introducing Eily to Jesse's childhood home and friends. Be on the lookout for lots of pictures/videos/good stories when we get back next week. Until then:

Deuces! We're out!