Mean Grandma

I've been back from the family reunion at the beach for a week now and I'm just starting to recover. Well, not really. But doesn't it seem like you're more tired when you get back from a vacation than you were before you left? Maybe it's just me. It was actually a lot of fun. I'm glad I went. It was great to see my aunt and uncles and cousins. It's the first year I can remember where there wasn't a major family altercation, so that's always a plus. We normally stay for a full week, and this time we were only there for 5 days. My new theory is that 5 days is the limit on how long we can stand each other; any more than that and watch out! It was fun seeing my extended family interact with Sawyer. He's the first baby in the new generation, so he got plenty of attention.

The one amusing anecdote I can report happened on the way down to North Carolina (although amusing may not be the best word for it since I'm still pissed off about it). I was caravaning with my parents and sisters and like every year we stopped over in Williamsburg to visit my grandmother. We have a nickname for her but for the purposes of this blog I'll call her Mean Grandma. (Those of you who have been reading for a while might remember that last year she told me I had gotten fat within 10 minutes of our arrival.) This year was even worse because her, shall we say, unpleasantness was directed towards my baby. The evening we arrived we were sitting in her living room and my mom and sisters were taking turns holding Sawyer. Keep in mind that they live in Utah and rarely get to see him. Mean Grandma came into the room with a blanket and told my mom to put the baby on the floor because we were holding him too much and he was going to get spoiled! That is so wrong to me on so many levels. I mean, he's not even 3 months old, he can't sit up or crawl or even flip himself over, so what's he going to do on the floor?? And how on earth is he going to get spoiled by being held by his grandma, who he almost never sees?? My mom politely declined and said "Thanks, but I like holding him." Mean Grandma scowled and put the blanket away. The real shock came later, when she got her panties in a twist because I held Sawyer during dinner. She glared at me during the whole meal. The way she was acting you would have thought I'd brought my pet python to the table. I mean honestly, he's a baby! Note to self: next year skip the trip to Mean Grandma's! She doesn't like me, I don't like her, and I doubt that's going to change in this life. Yeah, it's sad, but I feel like it's not worth the effort to try to get her to like me. Is that wrong? When she starts being mean to my child, that's pretty much the end of the line for me. I don't want him exposed to that crap. Needless to say, I was extremely proud of him when he let out a huge fart during dessert. Way to go, son!

Off to Carolina

I want to give a shout out to Kristine of BCC, who gave me some of the wisest advice I've received yet.

Be patient with yourself and exult in what your body can *do*--creating and sustaining an entire new being is nothing to sneeze at!--and try hard to worry less about how your body looks.

Thanks Kristine for giving me a better perspective on this! I'm going to make an effort to focus on that from now on - especially as I'm sitting on the beach in a bathing suit next week (gasp!)

As of tomorrow I'm going to disappear for a while because once again it's time for the annual family reunion at the Outer Banks. My family is flying here from Utah and I'm really excited to see them. My parents are both a lot happier since my dad's judgeship was confirmed! Last year was kind of a nightmare because he was so stressed. I'll be back with hilarious anecdotes about my dysfunctional extended family, as always.

Visits

I've been MIA lately, once again. It seems that once I get out of the habit of blogging every couple of days I forget to post for weeks on end. This time it was started by a trip out of town. Eric had to go to Las Vegas for Cisco's Networkers conference, so I booked a flight and took Sawyer to Utah to visit my family. My younger sisters who live there had never met him before so it was a great opportunity to spend some time together. It was a wonderful trip. Sawyer was terrific on the plane - I just kept him in his sling and he was content almost the entire time. The whole time we were in Utah my family fought over who got to hold Sawyer - I had to practically pry him away from my sisters in order to feed him. And my mom was equally enamored with him. I'd get up with him at 6:00 a.m. only for my mom to get up, take him away from me and tell me to go back to sleep. Talk about a nice break! My parents also invited a bunch of old friends over for a barbeque, which was a blast. Leave it to my mom to volunteer to make hamburgers, potato salad, and homemade ice cream for 25+ people! I also had lunch with my online buddy group from Fertility Friend. Several of them had had their babies recently and it was so much fun to see them all.

The day after I got back, ADQ and Sara came into town so they could scope out apartments. We hung out for an afternoon and it made me so excited for them to move here.

Other than that I've just been mothering 24/7. I love it so much. I can't believe I haven't always been a mom. It has been a challenge to try to get anything done around the house though. One night Eric sat me down and asked me if we could work out a new system of dividing the housework, because the current system (i.e. me doing everything) obviously was not working. I just laughed, because only a few hours before I had been thinking to myself "wow, I'm really staying on top of things!" My feelings were hurt for a while, but it turned into a good thing, because I got organized and made a chore list that actually included Eric. He'll rue the day he complained!