behold the fabulosity that is matt and jill's save the date card:

You might be a parent if, when dripping with chunky vomit that is not your own, it isn’t even your primary concern.

Or, I suppose, you might just be really drunk.

Yep, we got a visit from the Vomit Fairy again. I really hate that guy. Rebekah’s been going all Linda Blair everywhere. I must say that I’m really impressed with the spread she manages to get out of what must logically—if not by appearance—be only a couple of ounces. Poor little thing just looks so stunned when it happens.

Cough. Urp. BLEAAARRRRRGGHHH!!!SplOOOOshh…

That’s been my last 24 hours or so. But it does remind me of a funny travel story. And by funny, I mean horrible and nerve-wracking, but, hey, it happened a couple months ago so I can laugh about it now.

Or at least ride it for a journal entry.

So, back in November, we’re headed to Virginia for a week. Getting the kids into the car takes longer than expected (doesn’t it always? See, we even EXPECT that and STILL it takes longer) and we leave the house at 4:08 instead of 4. Relax, my wife tells me. We could have left at 4:30 and still been on time. My wife, knowing me, has lovingly lied to me about what time we needed to leave. I might have to admit that it is effective, even if duplicitous. Anyway, we’re making our way to the airport as rush hour is getting underway. Rebekah, having just woken up from a nap and it being close to dinner AND having not eaten much for lunch, is hungry. I’d grabbed the bananas on the way out the door because, face it, those suckers weren’t going to last the week. So, she eats one happily in the car seat and Reed has one. A little later, Amy starts in on one and Rebekah starts raising cane from the backseat. She saw Mommy having something and—hey—she didn’t have one! So, presuming she’s still hungry, we give her another banana. And she downs it. Like, we had to make sure she didn’t eat the peel.

We’re on the interstate exchange about ten minutes from the airport when I realize: Oh Shit. Yeah. That’s right. I capitalized it. It was that kind of Shit. We’d forgotten the car seat for the airplane.

Now, for those of you uninitiated in child air travel, ‘car’ seats are actually designed for land yachts. SUVs, minivans and such. Frankly, they’re motherfuckin’ big-ass things. I had to search to find one that would fit behind the driver’s seat rear-facing in our car, a family-sized sedan. Needless to say, these things simply will not fit in an airline seat. So, we’ve got this spare travel seat that is really minimal and fits in the airplane seats. We’d done 30+ flights with this thing without a problem.

Only, now, our problem was that it was still at home.

Shit. (See, still capitalized.)

So, I take the interstate exchange in the other direction back to our house. I am hauling. We do some mental calculations and can just make it back in time to get checked-in at the airport. I take the back, curvy way to our house, skid into the driveway, snag the seat, repack the trunk (shoving a bag on my wife’s lap so everything would fit), hop back in and peel out for the airport.

We’re slinging through the turns (here, my wife refers to me as ‘Mario Andretti’) when a curious sound comes from the seat behind me. I glance up into the baby mirror to catch the first discharge of digesting bananas roll out of her mouth, down her front and into the seat cracks like so much fruit-n-bile lava. Seriously, she only ate two bananas, but it was more like ten that came out. In hindsight, that exchange rate is really good and I might consider feeding her hundred dollar bills next time.

At this point, I pined for the knowledge and skill to pull one of those high-speed, 180 degree turns. We went straight back to the house and dived out of the car. I handed Rebekah to Amy, who sprinted inside, stripped her, hosed her down and re-dressed her. Meanwhile, I began feebly trying to FIND the car seat under that mountain of puked produce while simultaneously trying not to vomit myself. I gave it up as a bad job, yanked the entire car seat out, set it in the garage ("That'll be nice after a week!" I thought aloud), fished out the travel car seat and snapped it in just as Amy was coming out with the clean-if-still-a-bit-damp daughter.

All the while, I’m pretty sure we’re boned regarding our flight. Which is, pretty much, the only flight that will get us to Virginia in time for my Dad’s wedding. Didn’t I mention that part? Yeah. He kind of postponed it from it’s original date especially so we could be there.

As I navigate the traffic, Amy prepares me that we, in fact, might not make our flight. Fortunately, I’m outdriving the feeling of screwed-ness for the moment at least. We, being the engineering types, strategize our attack for arriving at the airport. There’s no way we can all go to long term parking, get out shit on the bus, then get to the terminal, check our bags and make the flight. We decided to go directly to the terminal, drop off everything and I’ll take all the bags and the two kids in, drop off the bags and make my way to the gate/plane while Amy parks the car and hopefully gets to the gate in time, unencumbered by any bags at all and aided by all kinds of uber-traveler first class status.

Though, in retrospect I’m thinking she was secretly hoping to get to fly solo.

Anyhoo, even though it’s about 40 minutes before departure, I’m able to check my bags curbside, whisk the kids through security (and, seriously, my 18-month-old is not a terrorist; why must I take off her shoes? All the dangerous stuff is in the diaper, anyway.), meet Amy and make it to the gate just as they begin boarding.

Oh. And Reed? He slept through the entire ordeal.
 

it has been a very weird week. last tuesday i took the red eye to nyc and met up with my family. we explored manhattan for a couple days. before we went i kept visualizing me, rushing on ahead, my mom right behind me, and my dad and sister, arm in arm, walking slowly and blocking the sidewalk, oblivious of the pace of new york. it wasn't quite as cringe worthy as i'd feared, but the dynamic was definitely exactly what i'd anticipated. still, so nice to see family. nurturing despite the tensions that arise when a family of four, used to independence, ends up sharing a single hotel room. after manhattan we went up to white plains for my cousin's wedding. it was ridiculously lavish, but truly lovely all the same and i had a wonderful time. there were a lot of emotional ups and downs over the week. my uncle j had a heart attack and had bypass surgery- of course, this was while the wedding craziness was going on and it was really strange to be pulled between the two. there was a good phone call during the wedding reception and my mom was finally able to relax for a couple hours. the aftermath has been her breaking the news to my gram and trying to figure out what the plan will be during my uncle's recovery. i'm so grateful that he's ok.

last night we went to our friend cully's wedding. cully was a guy jason (and his brother josh) were close to at w and m. thus a guy i knew second hand, but who was around a lot. he played basketball, he's super tall, and we knew some of the same people in college. and many of them were at the wedding. i talked to a few…and recognized very few. it was a nice event. his wife is really great, and they live a few blocks from us now. i am guessing we will be seeing more of them. the highlights of the evening included time with kim crawford (now paisley), who at some point people decided was my mortal enemy. we laughed about this turn of events…the drama of college and the fact that neither of us felt anything but good about one another now. that was nice. highlight two…josh was there. jason and i had not seen him since our wedding. we hadn't really talked either. to be more exact, he never called to congratulate jason on any of the major accomplishments in his life this past year…or to even acknowledge that we are expecting. needless to say, the relationship is and has been strained. there was a lot of intense conversation going on last night between jason and josh. and sadly i doubt much was resolved. but i got my two cents in where i could, and i left feeling good that i at least told josh that we were always here for him. it isn't a good situation…this loss of a brother/son/friend. it hurts, and i wish i could change it. but sometimes life just needs to move on and you with it. final highlight. as we were leaving i went to say goodbye to kim's husband and the guy next to him leaps up to say hello. "hey andrea. i had to say hello. it's ben." according to ben we were on the same freshman hall and friends. based on his hug and kiss on the cheek we must have hung out a decent amount. something is his face did look familiar…but really i cannot for the life of me recall who he is. this is bad. the worst part is that it isn't too uncommon for my college years. there is too much on the whole that i do not recall. it has to make a girl wonder what the hell all that experimentation did to my brain. i know tripp's experienced me having no recall from college. now there is this unplaceable ben guy. a few years ago it was a guy i went to high school with who i ran into and was talking to me about hanging out at w and m. i had zero recall that he even went to w and m. bad! maybe i should start writing more…here and in a journal…so that these years too don't slip away into the dark places in my brain.

in other news…no baby yet. but soon i imagine. i'll try to get a post up in early labor, to help pass the time and share the news.

a post is long overdue. i've travelled a decent distance from my sad haze of the week, and it's important for me to put that out there. i don't want to present an entirely skewed vision of me or my life by posting primarily when things are not going peachy-keen.

i'm in VA for yet another weekend, ostensibly for justin and dre's wedding but also, of course, to see todd. i am constantly obsessing over this relationship and realizing how hard it is for me to simply just go with it. he makes me feel so secure and happy and i have more fun with him than anyone else, so i know it's not completely illogical that i want to spend as much time with him as i can, but i am constantly scared at the same time to allowing myself to get comfortable, lest it all just disappear. it's a shitty mindframe to have and i want so badly to work on it. sometimes emotionally i really feel like complete damaged goods.

the wedding was really quite lovely and of course worth none of my pre-event fretting. the weird high school reunion anxiety disappeared after a couple of the best mojitos i have ever tasted, and it was a really nice time. with time though and a few more mojitos, being surrounded by all this coupleStuff i got moony and eventually found myself in mingo flying back down I-95 to richmond to spend another night with todd. completely not my plan, completely not necessary as i had just spent 16 hours with him that day and the night before, but completely something i could not not do once i got the idea in my head.

are relationships always so scary, or is this just me and my post-losing-mom issues?

i don't want to only post about my relationship stuff, either. i know i do too much of that and i fear i'm just not as interesting to read as i once was. tripp recently said i am more boring now tht i don't talk about hooking up and sex and whatnot any longer, but i am certainly not going to post about that with todd (other than to say i am very satisfied and it is quite lovely). i guess i could write more about physical things when they didn't … matter. or when they weren't part of something important. does that make sense?

in theory, my self-aborption should decrease proportionally to the number of hours i will be at work now that i have accepted a job part-time at the independent bookstore in my neighborhood. also thinking number of interesting stories should conversely rise proportionately. but of course, math is not really my thing, is it?

just back from a weekend with beth and michelle in duck, NC for the wedding of two of our college friends, yurii and krissy.
they are the first of the kids we graduated with to get hitched, yet i was not as weirded out as i had expected. the wedding was supposed
to take place outside, but a thunderstorm was raging so it was shifted into the entry of this beautiful inn. we were 3 of the very few w&m kids there,
and i was touched to suddenly realize how much it meant to be invited. yurii and krissy are two of the most positive not-in-an-annoying-way
people i have ever met, and this union seemed so natural. yurii's family is quaker, and i know very little about the religion. during the ceremony there
was time for silent worship, which i came to realize figures prominently in their faith. i really took to it. the pastor said a few words to sort of start things,
and a very long period of silence ensued. normally i feel i'd find that prolonged quiet almost awkward, but it was so comfortable. the really cool thing was
that we were instructed that in this silence, if anyone was motivated to speak aloud, that they may, and should. a few people shared their thoughts and
then all of a sudden i, too, was addressing a group of 150 strangers. the practice encourages you to speak openly, and i found myself confiding that i sometimes
felt hopeless -about religion? love? life?-, but that looking at yurii and krissy made me feel a great deal of faith again. these thoughts are the truth, but i didn't
know i felt that way until the words had already left my mouth. i was impressed.