Category Archives: Travel

Going to Vegas

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I don’t know how I completely forgot to mention this on the blog, but: I’m going to Las Vegas. Tomorrow. I know, you’d think that might’ve come up earlier, right? Oops.

My friend Kris is getting married, and for some bizarre reason that I cannot begin to fathom, they’re having the wedding in Las Vegas. (Different strokes, right? You couldn’t have paid me to have a destination wedding, but that’s just me.) I have very mixed feeling about going, mostly because I hate to fly, and I’m not a huge fan of Las Vegas. I don’t gamble, I don’t drink that much, I have no need for legalized prostitution, and that’s about the sum total of Las Vegas’s appeal right there. But you know, someone I love is getting married, so off I go.

Also: I’m going by myself. Dave and Catie were invited, of course, but Dave can’t really take time off from work right now, and flying six hours with a two year-old sounded only slightly less fun than a poke in the eye, so I decided, no. My mother-in-law is visiting right now (she got here on Wednesday, another thing I forgot to mention on the blog), so she and Dave are going to take care of Catie while I go.

The weird thing is, in Catie’s two-plus years on this planet, I have spent a grand total of one night away from her. ONE. In her WHOLE life. (This trip here, in case you were wondering.) So I’m very nervous about this trip, because I’ll be gone for two nights, and this will be Dave’s first time ever doing the solo-parenting gig overnight. And ok, he’s not technically a solo-parent, since his mom is here to help out, but still. You know what I mean. Since I’m usually Catie’s “translator” because I understand a lot of her gibberish that Dave doesn’t get, I’m a little worried about how they’re going to do on their own.

At the same time, though, I’m going to be flying by myself for the first time since Catie was born. That means no stroller to lug through security. No portable DVD player. No bag loaded down with toys, books, snacks, sippy cups, diapers, and a million other things. Just me. My purse, a book and my iPod. The end. It sounds so easy. I might actually enjoy this flight just because I’m going to have a few solid hours of alone time, which almost never happens.

Oh, and I’ll be staying in a hotel room. With a king-size bed. By myself. Where no one will wake me up at 4 a.m. by screaming, “Mommy! Daddy! Help help help!!!” into the baby monitor. I almost can’t imagine that.

So, yeah. Look out Las Vegas, here I come. I won’t be partaking in your casinos, your hookers, or (very much of) your booze. But I am very much looking forward to your hotel room, where I will be sleeping. A lot.

back in NC

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The 6 p.m. flight home yesterday was indeed a very bad idea on my part. Our flight from Jackson was a little delayed, but not too major. We had an hour and a half to make our connection in Atlanta, so I wasn’t worried. But then we sat on the tarmac for half an hour because the Atlanta airport was apparently shut down due to bad weather. And once we finally got going, we circled Atlanta for over an hour, since the weather had caused a huge traffic backup. I couldn’t decide if it was a good thing or not that Catie took the opportunity to fall asleep – on the one hand, it’s nice that she wasn’t awake and cranky on the plane, but I also knew that her dozing off at 8 p.m. was going to cause us some major problems later on.

We should’ve missed our connecting flight in Atlanta because of the delay; we landed a few minutes after our next plane was scheduled to take off. I had been making a backup plan in my head, trying to decide what I was going to do if we were stuck in Atlanta for the night – try to get a hotel, call my uncle and cousin (who live in Atlanta) to see if we could crash with them, or rent a car and drive the rest of the way to Raleigh, praying that Catie would sleep in the car. Fortunately (I guess?) our connection was also delayed, so we made it. We got home a little after midnight. Blargh.

Btw, I know that toddlers are often quite literal, but I really have to start being more careful about how I talk to Catie. At some point during the flight, I had told her that after our ride on the airplane, we were going to see Daddy. She got down, grabbed my hand, and led me to the back of the plane. I thought she was just exploring, and at the back of the plane was the restroom, of course. I figured, what the heck, might as well go while we’re here, so I brought her into the bathroom with me. She proceeded to pound on the back wall of the bathroom, screaming, “Daaaaaddy!!! Where aaaaare youuuu?!?!!!” So yeah, she thought that “after the airplane” meant that Daddy was literally behind the plane. Oops. Poor kid, I have to figure out a better way to explain the concept of time to her.

Oh also, our descent into Raleigh was really bumpy, and Catie got sick. I could tell she didn’t feel well because of the way she was burying her face in my chest, then she coughed, then sort of cough/gagged, and I knew I had about 0.2 seconds until she barfed. I quickly aimed her head over my arm into the middle of the aisle, and just in time. She only heaved once, but still, poor baby. The lady sitting behind me tore up her SkyMall magazine to basically wallpaper over the barf so all of the other passengers wouldn’t have to walk through it on their way out. I was grateful, I knew I needed to cover it up somehow, but the magazine idea never would’ve occurred to me.

Catie and I were both thrilled to see Dave at the airport; her face positively lit up the second she saw him. I drove home so he could ride in the backseat with her. They talked and giggled the whole way home.

As I expected, Catie was all well-rested from her nap, so she ended up not going to bed until close to 3 a.m. She woke up at 8:30, and Dave (God bless that man) got up with her and gave her some milk, then brought her to bed with us. It didn’t take long for her to go back to sleep, and we all slept until noon. I couldn’t believe it, she has never done that in her life. Since she slept so late, I figure that we’ll just push through her nap today and hopefully get to bed at a decent time tonight. Fingers crossed.

packing up

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I almost can’t believe we’re flying home today. After being in Mississippi for the past 12 days, it almost feels like, “wait, you mean we don’t live here now?” Catie and I have sort of settled into a routine at my parents’ house over the past couple of weeks, and now we’re about to throw it out the window to get back to our real life.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be very happy to get home to Dave and our house, even though I’m pretty sure I won’t be getting any affection from Catie at all over the next few days, because I expect it’ll be a while before she releases her grip around his neck. Poor kiddo has been talking to her Daddy on the phone while we’ve been gone, which has helped a lot, but I know she really misses him.

(Oh, I’ll also be happy to get back to my two kitties who actually want me to pet them. My mom’s cat hisses at me every time I come within four feet of her. Her name is Blanche, but I call her Evil.)

The part that sucks is that the only flight I could get today that didn’t cost a ridiculous amount leaves at 5:50 p.m. and gets us home around 11 p.m. on the east coast. Which means we probably won’t be home until at least midnight. Faaabulous. I’m sure that’ll do wonders for Catie’s sleep schedule and overall mood.

Next post will be from our living room, composed on my lovely, lightweight laptop and not my parents’ enormous desktop computer with its freakishly ginormous text (you know, for the old people with bad eyesight). I can’t wait!

NaBloPoMo day 28

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It’s getting a little difficult to keep coming up with blog posts every day, especially while we’re out of town. So here are some random notes:

1. Catie turned 22 months old yesterday. I meant to write a milestone recap for her, but I was cooking for most of the day. I’ll owe a post on that later, especially since her verbal stuff is exploding all over the place.

2. Thanksgiving food. So good. Ate too much. Yum. Also, urgh.

3. Today my sister and I posed Catie at my parents’ house to try to get a picture of her for our Christmas card. We got a few that turned out really cute, I hope we can get a good card out of it.

4. Tonight we’re going over to our friends’ Mike and Nicole’s house for a little playdate. Should be a lot of fun, I can’t wait.

5. We fly back to North Carolina tomorrow. I know my parents will be sad for Catie to leave, and she’s going to be heartbroken without her constant audience, but I’m really looking forward to being home. Besides, we’ll see them all again in a month, when they come to NC for Christmas. So that’ll be good.

I am a ridiculously slow learner

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I did go with my sister to her little mini-reunion last night. It turned out that it was at a sports bar, so there was alcohol on the premises. Oh my lord, was there ever alcohol.

Tracy and me kissing Will, her prom date TWENTY YEARS AGO
That guy that my sister and I are both kissing? He was her prom date. Twenty years ago. It’s totally ok that I (as a married lady) am kissing him, though, because I am 99.9% sure that he is not into girls at all.

I think I had about four vodkas with cranberry juice, and I? Do not hold my booze so well anymore these days. You’d think I would’ve learned my lesson after that incident with the wine a couple of weeks ago, but apparently not. So I woke up today with an unbelievable hangover, cancelled my playdate with Danielle because I felt so wretched (I’m so sorry, Danielle!), and I’ve been trying to fake it that I’m fine all day because I don’t want to give my dad any fodder to lecture me about how I shouldn’t drink.

Besides, I woke up to this face, so I kind of had to try to get my act together:
laughing at Tracy

I’ve been nursing water, ibuprofen, multi-vitamins, and Pepto-Bismol all day trying to make myself recover. It worked pretty well. I met up with some of my friends from high school for dinner tonight at a pizza place that was sort of Chuck E. Cheese-ish, and I actually felt ok by the time I got there.

mommies and babies

See? Do I look hungover? I think I made a pretty decent comeback. I do still feel pretty lousy, though. Hopefully I’ll be totally over it tomorrow, because I’m planning to eat my body weight in ham, turkey, dressing, and sweet potato casserole. Oh, and we’re making cake. Mmm.

I really should've packed more carefully

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My parents are at the airport as I type this picking up my sister. Catie is napping, so I thought it was best that she and I stay here, rather than wake up a grumpy, under-napped toddler, just to strap her into a car seat for a little road trip out to the glorious Jackson International Airport. (The “international” in that title always makes me giggle. I think there’s maybe one flight a month to Mexico, but I guess that’s enough to qualify as international.)

I’ve warned my parents that they should expect that all of the toddler hugs and snuggles that they’ve been getting for the past week to come to an abrupt end the minute my sister sets foot through the door. Catie adores Tracy (she calls her “Dacy”), and I know she will be absolutely ecstatic to see her.

This evening, Tracy is supposed to go to a little mini-high school reunion of her own, and she’s invited me along since I’ll know a lot of the people there. Most of them graduated with her and are a few years older than me, but it could be fun. The problem is that a lot of them are super-conservative, born-again Southern Baptists. Which means there probably won’t be any alcohol there, and lord knows I’m going to need a drink if I’m going to spend an evening with them and have to keep my big bleeding-heart liberal mouth shut.

I’ll probably go anyway. There will be at least two people there who I don’t get to see often who I really like, plus getting to hang out with my sister is usually pretty fun. And this also means that I’ll get a second use out of The Hot Shirt, because I didn’t pack anything else cute. So I guess that’s good.

Btw, have I mentioned that I miss Dave? Because I really, really do. And so does Catie. Ever since we started letting her talk on the phone with him, she now brings me the phone constantly, asking for Daddy. And when I tell her that no, we can’t call him right now, she cries. Poor kiddo. Oh well, only four more days until Saturday.