Thanks to much advice here and offline, I have decided I am definitely going to go to Virginia sans baby next weekend. I think the absolute deciding factor was that in a few short months I’m going to have a newborn again and it will probably be at least another year before the chance to escape sleep in presents itself again and without a break I’m afraid the burnout will be fast and painful.

I’m slightly giddy already thinking about how much fun spending time with my two very best girlfriends from high school will be. I might not be quite as much fun as I was at my own bachelorette party (drinking lighter fluid is probably not a wise choice when one is pregnant)(or any other time)(I thought it was just really strong alcohol)(shut up I was 22) but I love these girls dearly and don’t see them nearly enough. And with no baby to put to bed/run home to check on I can stay out until I collapse from pregnancy exhaustion at 10 pm as late as I want. My minivan is going to be quite useful as the DD vehicle too. We shall call it the Swagger Wagon. Maybe I’ll even write it on the side.

Plus, I am really looking forward to what I am sure will be a renewed appreciation from my husband for all I do around here when I get home. Two and a half days isn’t exactly a long time but I’m hoping it’s long enough for him to learn…

– Just how quickly laundry piles up when you don’t do a load for three days.

– What it’s like to be solely responsible for lunch and dinner (although who am I kidding, he’s getting fast food all weekend).

– The terror that is 11:30 am. Too early for a nap, too screamy and miserable for playing.

– The mystery of where all this DAMN PET HAIR comes from.

– Where we keep the paper towels/Tylenol/Swiffer/plastic plates/mini-bagels/eight million other things I feel like he’s always asking for instead of just looking. zOr remembering, since I TOLD HIM YESTERDAY.

– What it’s like to never ever get to use a bathroom alone/with the door closed.

– How difficult it is to just “run out to the store” when you have a child who may or may not be in the mood for “running out” to anywhere.

– How lucky you feel when nap time lasts 3 hours.

– The amazing moment when you actually hope the baby wakes up because you miss him.

– The first two hours of the day when Baby Evan is always happy and fun and the most darling child on the planet.

– Strangers in every kind of public place instantly falling in love with your kid and how proud you feel when he smiles at them or waves bye-bye.

I am also looking forward to missing my kid, in the sense that it will be a nice long break during which maybe I can forget some of the particularly awful moments as of late and just focus on how much I really do love being a mom. To paraphrase, it’s hard to miss it when it WON’T GO AWAY, you know?

(P.S. I feel sort of like I’m talking about this wedding/bridal shower an ENORMOUS AMOUNT considering I’m not the one getting married. But it’s going to be the first real grown-up type event I/we’ve gone to since Baby Evan was born so in my book it’s pretty much the equivalent of being invited to The Oscars.)

I don’t have enough to say about anything to make these individual posts (and really, you should thank me for not even TRYING to make any of the following blurbs into 500 word essays) so you get bullet points.

– Is it possible for a kid to drink too much orange juice? Baby Evan is OBSESSED with it, to the point I’m afraid his skin might turn orange. He ate a slice of the actual fruit yesterday so I might steer him in that direction, especially if there is a reason he shouldn’t drink 30 oz of (watered down, calcium added) juice in a day (besides the ridiculous amount of sugar). (EDITED TO ADD: OMG OMG OMG OMG OMGOOOOOOOD. I’m not going to tell you any more than that except I finally discovered something cloth diapers can’t contain and a VERY good reason to cut back OJ consumption.)

– The bridesmaid dress I am supposed to wear on September 5th is not going to fit on September 5th. It fit yesterday, with much pulling and sucking in, but I have officially reached the “popped” part of my pregnancy so my rib cage is getting bigger by the second. I have some material to alter it take it somewhere to be altered but with the way it’s constructed I don’t even know how they’re going to manage that. (p.s. It’s this dress, if you want to make suggestions)(p.p.s. Which is now ON SALE for for $65 less than I paid. I wonder if I can return the one I bought and buy a new one in a bigger size?)(Although it’s only available in one size larger than the size I currently have so I’ll probably still need to have it altered.)

– I’m still knitting and really enjoying it, or at least I was until I attempted to make something-adult sized and lost my everloving MIND. I’m still hoping to have my own version of this done in time to wear it to the bridal shower next weekend:
But I might stab out an eye with a knitting needle before I’m done. (Free pattern & picture from Classic Elite Yarns.) I think from now on I’ll stick to baby-sized items.

– Speaking of things to wear to the shower, I’m looking for a pretty, comfortable, CHEAP sleeveless dress (maternity or just roomy) that would match the above vest knitted in a nice shade of blue-green. And it does NOT have to be boob-accessible.  My next stop is Forever 21 but frankly that place gives me hives, despite their huge selection of trendy, reasonably priced dresses.

– Today is the last day to enter my Planet Wise Wet/Dry Bag giveaway! In case you missed my edit the last time, I opened the contest up for Canadians – if you win I will mail you a bag personally. I have one more super-cute, eco-friendly giveaway coming up on Monday and then I’ll take a break on the review stuff for a while.

– Gender Important developmental and birth defect stuff ultrasound for Baby Sandy is on August 4th (LESS THAN 1 WEEK). First round priority text message goes to immediate family & people who might kill me if I didn’t tell them the boy/girl news first but mere seconds later I’ll be peer to peer texting it to the Bebehblog Facebook page/Twitter so some time around 2 pm you can check in if you’re curious. Giant post to follow, of course.

– I FINALLY switched hosts from a company I was less than happy with (see here and here) to the AMAZING AND WONDERFUL Twenty70 Hosting. Kelly has been infinitely patient in transferring everything for me and even managed to find my lost posts last week. Plus she’s charging me less than the old people (shhhh, don’t tell her or she might charge more). Please let me know if you have any delays or problems loading Bebehblog so I can pass them on to Twenty70 and they can fix them with their internet magic.

Phew. I think that’s all. What’s new with you?

–

We went to Pennsylvania on Thursday for my real-life-best-friend Erin’s son’s first birthday party, which was lovely and very fun and such a special event to be included in. The boys got along well (or as well as a couple of one-year-olds can be expected to get along) and we got to check out the new (very old) house Erin and her husband Mitch just bought. We don’t get to see these friends nearly enough so a couple days visiting was awesome.

Unfortunately, about thirty seconds after we left to drive down there, Baby Evan’s nose started running like a faucet. He went from being miserable and snotty to happy and snotty and back several times an hour the whole trip, peaking with what may have been a fever late Thursday and sleeping 12 hours straight Friday night. But he’s 100% better today.

I’m really hoping it’s just teething. It probably is. Definitely. Maybe. But there’s also the teeniest tiniest chance it’s fifth disease. I know a friend whose kids had fifth last week so we MIGHT have been exposed, although I haven’t seen any of the kids in more than a month and the friend in at least a week. I’m not worried about Baby Evan – it’s not life threatening or even particularly unpleasant, but it can be very serious to the fetus if a pregnant woman catches it. It can cause anemia in the unborn baby, sometimes severe enough to cause death although the internet assures me that is very unlikely. Pretty unlikely. Probably. Maybe.

I really shouldn’t have Googled it.

So right now we’re just playing a waiting game to see if Baby Evan gets a rash some time in the next couple days. If he’s fine Monday and Tuesday I’ll breathe a big sigh of relief and forget all about it. If he has even the teeny tiniest of red spots, I’m calling my OB and asking for the blood test to see if I’m either already immune or already infected. Of course, every time I sniffle or get tired or think “ugh my head hurts” my brain goes OMG EMERGENCY!!!! and I consider calling the 24-hour on call line. Not that it would do any good – I really doubt routine blood work is something they would send me to the ER to do and there’s no way the office is open on a Sunday and probably closed Monday as well.

For now, I’m going to try to relax and enjoy the rest of our holiday and have fun going through the 300+ pictures from the party. Like this one:

For the record, that's Reid's brand new birthday toy my kid is using. Incorrectly.

What, you didn't see that one coming?

While my husband and father did demolition in the basement, rewired the family room, fixed our plumbing problems, added gutters to the house, and hauled literal tons of crap to the dump (both cat and human ACTUAL CRAP as well as a zillion pounds of junk, trash and a treadmill I swore I would use every single day if only I could have one please pretty pretty please please), my mother and I took the baby down to Mystic. I know, my life is so hard. Let me tell you though, with the way the baby’s been acting recently I would rather be knee deep in poop than get smacked in the face one more time.

Luckily, my mom was with me and she has the patience of a saint. Or of a grandma. Same thing, really.

Also luckily, Baby Evan likes ducks so a 99 cent bag of duck feed and a few friendly quack quacks earned me 30 minutes of scream-free time.

Yes, this is my child running shoeless through Ye Olde Mysticke Villageeeeeee

World's most patient ducks. I feel like I owe them all writen appologies.

He really liked calling them "duhs! duhs!" and he tried to say "qwah!!" a couple times. Of course maybe he was saying "Dog" and "What is wrong with you woman, don't you see how dirty this ground is?"

My child looks even more hobo-like next to his MorMor (Swedish for grandma) since she always looks so classy. For the record it was 90 degrees that day so I thought his outfit was appropriate.

It’s times like these I am really really sad we live so far away from our family.

Literally. My parents, E and I took Baby Evan to the National Zoo in Washington on Saturday. It was…exhausting. And hot. And I was sort of unimpressed by what I remembered as a really cool zoo from my childhood – the walking to animal ratio was much too large and the one animal I though Baby Evan would really like (giraffes) were no where to be found.

I know pictures of zoo animals are really boring so I’ll try to keep this short. Of course, I will fail.

Baby Evan's first ride on public transportation. I think he liked it.

OMG A PANDA IT'S A PANDA IT'S BLACK AND WHITE AND A BEAR AND FROM CHINA. TRY NOT TO PEE YOUR PANTS.

Seriously, the amount of freaking out of a panda eating bamboo was epic.

Baby Evan getting in on the exciting panda fun. Although he thought it was a dog.

Number of Ergos spotted: 4. Number worn by men: 4. Number of people who looked at my carrier and told their husband "Oh I think that's the Becco": 1.

For the record, the zoom on my camera is not that good. This cheetah was REALLY close.

Stupid llama. Plus ten point for getting the reference. Minus 10 points for admitting it. Minus another 10 points for me since this is actually an emu.

Aw it's a gorilla family. The baby was the cutest thing ever.

This is the point where Baby Evan lost interest in the animals and started wondering when nap time starts.

I suspected this was a fake alligator because of the moss, but I saw him blink so I'm pretty sure he was alive.

I had to physically restrain myself from shouting "Aslan! Aslan! Take me to Naria!" I'm kind of a crazy person when it comes to lions.

HAHAHAHA! You thought I couldn't get breastfeeding into a zoo picture post didn't you? I can get breastfeeding into ANYTHING. But really, I loved this sign.

After the zoo Mom and Dad took us out to lunch while Baby Evan slept in his stroller. When he woke up our waitress bribed him to be good with Oreos. I think he enjoyed them.

Baby Evan made a lot of friends on the metro. He clearly doesn't understand the "listen to your iPod and don't make eye contact" rule.

Although by the end of the day I'd say he was ready for his own metro card.

Next time we’ll do real Washington, with lots of monuments and museums and freeze dried ice cream. Which is the Washington I remember from my childhood.