Monday Five Countdown

It must be Spring because my eyes feel itchy and annoying. So, hey, welcome Spring! Happy to see you and wear shoes without socks.

Five Things I'm Grateful For

1. The weather. It's going to rain the next two days and it's not *really* warm today but it's warm enough that I'm wearing shoes without socks. Is it just me or are your spring/summer shoes WAY more interesting than your fall/winter shoes? I think I need to work on that for next fall/winter because I really got terribly sick and tired of wearing my low-heeled ankle boots and mary janes this winter.

2. Yesterday while the hubby took Nate to a birthday party, I stayed home to do schoolwork. As per usual when I stay home to do work instead of going to a cafe or something, I ended up doing more cleaning than schoolwork. BUT I did take down the dog gate to do so and allowed the dogs free reign of the house - and they were good! They mostly just slept, either in the kitchen (where they usually are anyway) or in a sunbeam in the dining room. Buster did try to abscond with some of Nate's toys later in the day, but he didn't destroy anything. It's progress. Eventually I would like to not have to have that gate up ever (because I hate it). I feel like we've come really, really far with Buster and I'm very happy about that.

3. We went out to dinner Saturday night and I had the most delicious steak that I have had in as long as I can remember. It was so soft and cushy and springy - I said it was like a mattress of beef. Seriously. I'm going to think about that steak for a long time.

4. The weather Saturday night was terrible (think monsoon-like) and a lot of our town lost power, but we didn't.

5. On my lunch break today I'm going to Trader Joe's to buy some fruit. I love working right next to a Trader Joe's.

Four Things I Can't Stop Thinking About

1. We're planning a long weekend trip to Baltimore for Memorial Day weekend. It'll be Nate's first trip out of state but, more importantly, his first trip to Maryland/Baltimore - one of his mommy's favorite places on the whole planet. I can't wait to bring him there, to see friends I miss so dearly, and to have a mini-vacation with the hubby.

2. Nate's birthday party. It's coming up soon! Less than four weeks!

3. Home organization. MUST hang pictures. Must clear out things we're committed to getting rid of or storing.

4. Nate's sleeping. We're definitely going to work on the plan from the books I'm reading, but we have to prep ourselves for it a bit.

Three Things I Want To Accomplish This Week

1. Get some pictures hung up.

2. Finish my work for my group project at school (I am woefully behind and do not want to let my group members down).

3. Make significant progress on my research project for my other class (even more woefully behind there).

Two Things I Am Working To Be Positive About

1. Hubby's job prospects. This job market is beyond depressing and annoying. It is just ridiculous terrible.

2. Nate's separation anxiety. When we came home from dinner Saturday night, I walked in the kitchen and he was in the arms of the babysitter, screaming hysterically. Literally in hysterics - like, full on gasping for breath, like he was hyperventilating. He had been asleep but woke up crying, like he always does, so our friend went in to get him and my best guess is that he forgot she was there and who she was and simply flipped out. Thankfully it was only five minutes before we got home, but it took me ten minutes to calm him down. Just holding him and shushing didn't work because I think he was so upset he barely realized it was me. It wasn't until I started talking, saying, "It's okay, Mommy's here.  Mommy and Daddy are home. It's okay, Peanut, it's okay" that he started to calm down.

I mean, yikes. Even more reason for us to work on him sleeping through the night and being able to soothe himself back to sleep if he stirs. And I know separation anxiety doesn't last forever, but eep. It was so upsetting to see him that upset.

One Random Thing

1. Am I the only one who thinks about what they're going to do when they get home as soon as they leave the house in the morning? It's like waking up and immediately thinking about going to bed that night.

Do you do the Monday Five Countdown?  Link up below!  I want to read them :-)

Baba's - Baltimore MD

96. Try five new restaurants. (5/5)

Baba's Mediterranean Kitchen
745 East Fort Avenue
Baltimore MD 21230

For lunch on Saturday, Mike suggested we walk over to Baba's Mediterranean Kitchen, an adorable Middle Eastern restaurant not far from his house.  This way 1 - we wouldn't lose any of our parking spots and 2 - well, he promised it would be yummy . . . and he wasn't kidding.

The hubby and I split a caprese salad (mmm, always a fave) and I had falafel in a pita platter and the hubby had the chicken kabob platter.  Their hummus has a lovely level of garlic and was honestly quite possibly the tastiest hummus I have ever had (and, let me tell you, I am no stranger to garlic hummus).

On the decor side, the restaurant is best described as completely charming.  It's on a city corner and has a great collection of tables and chairs, probably able to seat maybe a total of 12-15 people in the restaurant (maybe a few more?).  The owner has hung up black and white photos of his family around the restaurant and also has a great collection of hanging and wall lamps lighting the room.  The service was wonderful (and I would say so not just because the owner knows Mike and Tracy because they go there so often - I have a feeling the owner is always that nice).

So, on a scale of 1 to 10:

Food: 10

Service: 10

Decor: 10

In short, LOVED it.  Love, love, yum, yum.

7 Quick *Monday* Takes - holiday weekend edition

The weekend in Baltimore was absolutely wonderful and totally needed.

1. We dropped Buster off with my in-laws late Friday night (like 10:30pm) before hitting the road for Baltimore.  Sometime on Saturday around noon, I believe, the hubby got a text from his mother, "Where's Buster's off switch?"  Haha.  We warned her!  But he was really, really good for them - just his normal, high energy self.  But it worked out wonderfully because they have their own fairly high energy Cairn Terrier (which Buster is half) so they played together a lot and slept wonderfully at night.  Knowing he was in such good, capable hands really helped me sleep.

2.  Err, well sort of.  First I needed to avoid sleeping - namely, as I drove 3 hours at midnight, getting to Mike and Tracy's house around 2:30am.  It was hard not to nod off . . . well, except for that spot in Delaware where I got pulled over for speeding.  Oops.  But no ticket.  Phew.

3.  Then there's the matter of the aerobed we slept on.  Throughout my friendship with Mike, I have slept in a range of places: sharing twin size dorm beds with people, by myself on sofas or squished on a loveseat, wrapped in a blanket on the floor under the dining room table, sharing a sleeping bag with someone else, slumped over in an arm chair... you get my point.

But this aerobed + pregnancy? Kicked my butt.  I've started having small sleeping issues at home - getting numb or crampy on whatever side I spend hours sleeping on so then I turn over, get numb on that side after a few hours, and turn again.  I'm a sleeping rotisserie, basically.  But our bed prevents that from being too troublesome for me or the hubby. But the aerobed? Not so much.   Every time I turned, he stirred... and I had to turn often.

Realization: I am officially old and pregnant.  I can no longer sleep in a blanket under a table.  This feels like the serious closing of one chapter of my life.

4. Tracy gave me her body pillow to help with the situation.

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Sleeping with this thing is 1 - like sleeping with an overgrown comma and 2 - having a third person in bed with us.  The hubby would scoot over to snuggle... and get an armful of stuffed cotton.  I think the pillow helps me sleep but I haven't yet figured out the most advantageous way to use it.  Tracy hated it so she said I could keep it as long as I want... so I've got time to figure out how to finagle this thing.

5.  We had SO much good food this weekend.  Saturday's lunch was Mediterranean - falafel, hummus, pitas, etc.  YUuummmm.  Saturday's dinner was Indian, also super yum.  Then on Sunday Mike smoked a brisket for 6-7 hours and made a bunch of sides and we all watched the Daytona 500 and the USA Women's Hockey game.  Nothing like smoked meat and sports, right?

6.  It was particularly nice to spend time with Madison, Mike and Tracy's  7 month old.  She is so sweet - such a little bundle of joy, always smiling and laughing - except when she screams for fun.  Seriously.  She might be a rock star one day.  It wasn't, "Oh, the baby's screaming, uh oh" - it was, "Haha, check out her screaming, you go!"  She is so lovely and precious - and with two such cheery parents, it's no surprise she's such a cheery baby.

7.  But the moment of the weekend had nothing to do with where we were or who we were with ... and that was Friday night, as the hubby and I settled in to sleep on the aerobed... and he felt The Force kick for the first time!  Finally!  There have been a few nights where I was sure he would be able to feel him, but it hadn't happened yet... but then, Friday night, The Force was kicking hard and low, where there's less padding, and he gave his dad a huge *THUMP*.  I loved it.  I love that it happened in Baltimore.  I love that it finally happened.  I love the look on the hubby's face after the kick - pure wonderment and joy and . . . I don't even know.  Pure joy and love.  Best Valentine's gift ever.

Leaving Negativity Behind

I'm not what anyone would call a Susie Sunshine.  That's my sister; the nurses' nickname for her at the maternity department at the hospital is "The Cheerleader."  (And, yes, she was one - and she coaches peewee cheerleading sometimes, so it's completely appropriate.)  Me?  I was the one in the bleachers listening to Morrissey on my Walkman during the pep rally.

Even here, my sister (on the right) clearly has spirit fingers going on and I seem to be more like, "Yay, something!"  (And yeah, I know, I know - the bowl cut.  But my mom kept my hair short because I hated brushing it.)

It's not that I'm a "glass half empty" type.  I'm certainly not a "glass half full" type either, though.  I'd be more likely to be like, "There's a glass and it has water in it.  Why do you even care how much?"  I don't see the point in swaying too far into the positive or the negative.  I like to keep it real, yo - you know?  (Okay, yeah, not really, but hopefully you get what I mean.)

This week has been full of little moments where I've had to swallow my initial snarky response to something and give a pointedly sweeter answer.  I had to rewrite an email to an HR person five times to stop myself from being snarky and sarcastic.  I had to edit a reply to a blogger's post that I found a bit ridiculous to make it seem as if my response was more helpful than annoyed.  I had to explain to a student - with a straight face - that, no, sanctions against Iran and climate change are not the same thing.  (No, seriously.  She had no idea what either was until I said climate change "is like global warming, but climate change is a better term for it." Then I could see the light bulb go off - but sanctions against Iran meant nothing to her.)  And I had to kindly word an email to a coworker who had no idea that something was her responsibility even though this wasn't the first time it's come up and her email was a rather snippy kind of, "Well, what would you like me to do about it?"

I'm much better at "biting my tongue" through my fingers, meaning I fair better when I don't have to deal with these things face-to-face.  The problem happens when swarms of negativity are coming at me from various directions: people I know in real life, people in the media, and commentors on blogs. Long ago I gave up reading the comments on most blogs and news posts because they make me lose my faith in humanity all too often.

So I'm beyond happy to escape to Baltimore this weekend.  Back pre-marriage, when Mike was single, too, he was always my refuge.  I used to visit him every four-to-six weeks for years in my early-to-late twenties and as I entered his apartment, I would always feel like I truly exhaled for the first time since my last visit.  I didn't check my email while I was there and, post cell phone, no one would call me.  I was free to sleep in, eat good food, and spend all day at the pub if that's what we felt like doing.

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Those days are gone.  We both have spouses who either don't drink much or at all, Mike has a seven month old daughter, and we're due to have The Force in May.  Life has clearly changed and, in those old days of regular trips, I would always wonder about this time - if it would come, when it would come, how it would be when it did . . .

And what it is... is hard.  It's hard to make time to go out of town for the weekend when you have two jobs and grad school plus two dogs who need minding while you're gone.  It'll be harder yet when we have all that plus we want to travel down there with a child, who will need all the gear you have to bring for two days away with a baby.  There was a time when I had a weekend bag half-packed at all times, forever ready to hop in the car and head to Maryland.

There are few times one can look around and say, "I truly have a very different life now than I did not that long ago."  Sure, life is always changing, but some of those changes are more monumental than others - they take up more space.  Having your friends get married and start families is probably the biggest one I can think of; it forever changes the dynamic of your friendship and what you do together and even what you talk about.

But what hasn't changed is that those friendships are still a place of refuge.  Naturally, when difficult times happen, the hubby is my first go-to - or even, more likely, he comes to me before I'm even ready to admit something is wrong.  But it's still great to have those friends that have known you for a long time (I can't believe Mike and I have been friends for fifteen years now - it completely blows my mind).  The ones that sit with you in a bar from the time it opens to the time it closes.  The ones that listen to you talk about the same problem for the tenth time and aren't exasperated. The ones who throw you birthday parties so awesome that the police show up and your friends have to keep you out on the patio because you keep trying to tell the police that there aren't any doughnuts in the house.

Nevermind.  You had to be there.

And this weekend, I will be there.  But I promise to keep The Force out of trouble.