Big Plans This Weekend

This weekend is my first and only free weekend of the month of September. Last weekend, I took our little girl to Richmond, VA where she got to spend a whole day (it was a short trip) playing with her cousins. She had an incredible time, which was shortly followed by her having a really horrible time. She threw up at the airport. We had to drive about 4 hours to get to the airport and the whole way I was battling my own nausea, thinking it must just be the two glazed donuts sitting wrong in my pregnant oversized belly, but when I tried to give her some pizza in her stroller in one of the airport restaurant seating areas and she started puking in her lap, I knew I must be really sick too. That's a bummer, right? Worst possible time to have the realization that you and your three-year-old are getting a stomach flu=at the airport gate an hour before your 5 hour flight is scheduled to take off. So I did what any mom would do in that situation, I freaked out and threw away all her clothes and new shoes (they were so puke soaked, I don't think they'd ever be rid of that smell) and then called my husband to see if he knew any clever way to throw away a stroller at an airport. He calmly talked me out of throwing away the stroller (which just made me angrier/more stressed out) so I spent the next 45 minutes letting my poor daughter sleep in a changing table while I doused her stroller in bathroom soap and crappy non-absorbent bathroom towels (though, I gotta give it to you Philadelphia Airport, your family restroom changing tables are pretty darn nice...a nice recess built right into the sink countertop, perfect size for a sick and tired toddler). So by the time I finished cleaning the stroller to the point where it was practically dripping with water (it is one of those medium rate umbrella strollers from Baby's R Us, we love it because it's sturdy but still so compact...and this is our second one after some human error broke the first), our flight was boarding, so I picked up my poor kiddo and took her through the gate and practically dropped her into her seat on the plane (along with my luggage--gotta pay to check bags these days, so carrying the luggage and the kid AND a 5 month pregnant belly seemed like the smarter option).
I continued sucking it up and fighting the nausea...not eating any of the pizza and auntie anne's cinnamon sugar pretzel bites (second saddest moment of the day=throwing away an untouched bag of cinnamon sugar anything). Kiddo got sick again around halfway through the flight, but after the cleanup in the airport terminal, this was old hat. Shoved her puke covered clothes/blanket/dirty towels into a couple of plastic bags provided by the deer-in-headlights flight attendant, cleaned her up as best I could, apologized profusely to the guy sitting next to us, then literally prayed for the remainder of the flight that it wouldn't happen again. It did, but only a very small amount. So we survived...got back to Phoenix and infected daddy. I (surprisingly) got clear of the disease with just a fever and a lot of mental battling with the contents of my stomach...which surprisingly stayed put during the entire incident. Poor daddy got the worst version of it the next day.
Anyway, we're all healthy again now, thankfully, and next weekend we're taking our kiddo to Disneyland for here third birthday (we're all pretty excited). The weekend following, I fly again up to the northeast part of the country for a work conference and I'm going ALL BY MYSELF. A lot of moms out there would think "oh...I can't stand the thought of being away from my family for so long"....not this mom. I've got magazines lined up...books...I expect to spend most of my time doing things I can hardly ever find time to do (like reading for fun). Going to bed for four nights in a row (two of them in a hotel) without fighting over a tooth brush or saying 'no' incessantly while the most persistent person in the world begs for milk...sounds heavenly. Don't get me wrong, every mother out there with a sense of humor gets where I'm coming from...I'm madly in love with my family but I also really enjoy my own company, and when you rarely get it, you're going to want it and enjoy the rare moments that you get it.
So to get back to where I started this post, I'm gonna be busy this weekend. Gotta clean (I guess) and make a LOT of jewelry. Also, excitingly enough, it's slightly less warm outside right now. It's almost mid-september in the desert and the cooler weather is so close, I'm yearning for it. Fall is the time of year every year where I just feel positive and incredible about every aspect of my life. So good that almost anything bad happening can't bring me down. Woah, if I ever wanted to set myself up for failure, this would be the way. I'm going to stick with it though, I LOVE the cooler fall weather...I can't wait. I'm already planning to make cereal mix:




I'll stop rambling now...this keyboard is just too much fun.
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