The Wild, Wild West

And so I return from the west coast almost more tired than when I left, but let me tell you it was all worth it.

First, my new nephew. So adorable and so like my grandfather (his namesake). It's so funny how you can recognize facial expressions and personalities of family members in such a little newborn. Will is very sweet and reminds me of my brother when he was little (from pictures) and my Gramps (my mom's dad). He also has some similar traits as his big sister did 3 1/2 years ago. I will post pictures as soon as I get them (the camera had no juice to download pics by the time I was leaving).

Maggie is huge! 36.3 pounds to be exact and SO tall. You would never think she was just 3 - more like 5! She had very few "meltdowns" and was very loving toward her baby brother. We spent most of the time together last week since she was out of school, and I think she benefitted from all the focus. I got to read to her every night and she enjoyed picking out which pajamas I would wear every night (usually so she and I would be wearing the same color and could be twins). She picked the vegetables for dinner nightly and even helped me cook (pizza dough and pancakes). She even booked me for October to come to her party and make her birthday cake (a chocolate Incredibles cake has been requested).

So the week was pretty insane, thus the lack of posts. Each day was filled to the brim with activities from Wildlife Parks to a daily movie in the living room with popcorn (3 times this was The Incredibles, one of those times being in Spanish for a change of pace - yes, I have an odd family). I had no time to see old friends from San Jose, even though I had planned to...very disappointing, but I wouldn't trade a minute...I just have some apologizing and begging of forgivness to do.

All-in-all the trip was quite successful - I did tons of cooking and kid management. Somehow I never changed 1 diaper (not sure how that happened) and only got to feed Will twice (he is still on the breast almost exclusively). However, he took many naps on me as I seem to help intice babies to sleep (happened with Maggie and all babies belonging to my friends - some just invitied me over to get a break and get their kids to sleep).

I did see a couple of friends from my brother's crowd which was nice (including meeting their new babies as almost all of them have also gone through round 2 in the last 12 months).

Tuesday was the best day as Christina and I did the movie and Scharffen-Berger deal and completely wore me out! The great thing about the movie is this deal that Loews does that many other theatres need to adpot (hopefully, it will spread with AMC's purchase of Loews instead of the possibility of it dying out). It is called Reel Mom's Tuesdays. Basically, they only let in parents and babies (up to 1 year) to a current movie. They do not dim the lights entirely, and the sound is turned down to a tolerable level for babies. The entire place is feeding, changing, handling the crying of, rocking to sleep or monitoring a nap of their baby.

Now, while a crying baby would drive me nuts in a prime-time showing of an R-Rated film on opening night, this was vry different. Not only are you well prepared knowing what you are walking into, you hardly even notice when you have a baby with you doing the same things. The theatre handles "coat-checking" your stroller and has changing pads set up in the bathrooms. This is brilliant. There were probably 30 babies and their parent(s) plus a few extra friends (and aunts) in tow. We truly enjoyed ourselves and I was able to leave California not 100% behind schedule.

Now this weekend I have to do some work playing catch-up. I have 5 or 6 to try and get seen before next's week's releases. Hopefully, this will be a busy weekend as I am dedicating time to the flicks. Hopefully, I will get some baby shopping done as well - as I would love to see my friends in McDonough as well...it's been too long.