Bath antics

I just heard Edie get really angry with Jeff while she was taking a bath and he shaved. He came in to show me what had outraged her so:

Girls Weekend

We spent a girls weekend at Birch Bay a week ago. Antics were had.

We waded out for ages to get to the low tide. Kristin waded further and went SWIMMING.

Heidi made us greek food for dinner on Friday.

And then spent some time stressing out about grad school:

While the rest of us walked the beach:

Saturday included homemade cocktails, bocci, dancing, wine, reliving karaoke routines from our 20's, Center Stage, and more wine.

I am required to include the caption "Bocci Champion" under this one.

Bocci losers.

Former Pagliacci employee Pepper Johnson is put to work:

Sadly, my homemade dough was deemed too sloppy to toss.

Slicin' strawberries:

Group Selfie!

Birch bay

We took Edie up to the cottage at Birch Bay 2 weekends ago. We spent one night there as a family and then Edie had a sleepover at Jeff's parents while Jeff and I stayed at the cabin the second night.

Here is my chubby foot stuck in terrible, terrible traffic leading up to the I-5 Bridge Detour.

Ta-daaaa!  So happy to be there after over 3 hours in the car!

Side note: Edie pretty much always wears "princess dresses" now. Sometimes also to bed. We are choosing our battles and have decided this is not one of them. My kid is a walking costume closet.

We set up her little cot-bed and she made this bed all to her own specifications. She explained that she needed a pillow at her head, another one at her feet, and the one on the floor is in case she falls out.

Taken at 10pm after tucking her in for the 3rd (unsuccessful) time. It was too funny to be legitimately irritating. Thankfully, we don't have this problem at home, but the layout at the cottage sort of begs for it (there is no door to the bedroom so she can hear and see us in the living room).

We also spent a bit of time in Bellingham on Saturday, taking Edie to Fairhaven Park to explore:

My Dad

1. Will always offer to make you food if you come over. Even if it's a random time of day when people don't usually eat, he will still  be happy to make you a fried egg sandwich.

2. Once told me when I was a know-it-all teenager and I was telling him "how it was", that it was "scientifically impossible to be right EVERY SINGLE TIME." He said it in such a way that it showed how very tired I was making him with my annoying teenagery ways and it actually made a serious impression on me.

3. Once told me that if I was going to experiment with smoking things, he would really prefer I tried pot to smoking cigarettes.

4. Frequently offers to take my car and fill it up with gas while I'm visiting my parents in Bellingham.

5. Does my taxes (and the taxes of everyone in our family) for free pretty much every year.

6. When discussing financial planning for my long-term future, suggests that the best course of action is just to buy a lot of lotto tickets.  (He's joking)

7. Snores so loud sometimes it wakes me up in Seattle. When he's sleeping in Bellingham.

8. Every night, since the beginning of time, my Dad wakes up around midnight and shuffles into the kitchen, looks in the fridge while scratching the back of his head and then eats a weird midnight snack. If you interrupt him during this process he will jump and startle like a cartoon character. Then he will go back to his snack without saying anything.

9. Would always remind me that "LIFE isn't fair" when I whined (which was often) that something wasn't fair.

10. Despite being teased about being cheap, is actually one of the most generous men I know. He ensured that I graduated college debt-free, helped me buy my first car, and always pays for dinner even though we are grown ups with jobs now. But he also taught me the value of earning my keep and working for things. AND that saving for retirement is (aside from maybe loving your own children) pretty much the most important thing you can do.

Unicorn

A few weeks ago Edie and I hit up the Ballard Sunday Market. It's become somewhat of a routine for us on Sundays after I get my weekly sleep-in. There was a face painter there that week and Edie sweetly looked up at me and busted out, "Can I get my face painted Mom? Pretty please with a cherry on top?" And I died. And said yes.

She asked the lady for a unicorn on one cheek and "some magic" on the other cheek. The "magic" ended up being some sparkly stars.

This is her 'I'm a badass unicorn eating this badass plum' face:

Thankfully it all came off easily with baby wipes. So says my trusty babysitter that night (Hi Amy!).

Picnic

Edie and Penny in the backyard.

My job as an analogy for birth

Earlier today I was overwhelmed with emails from a client. I'm in that familiar place of planning an event where everything is hard, but also, almost finished. During this phase, I'm proofing schedules and making sure the 700 different documents with event details (the version that goes to the hotel, the version that goes to the attendees, the version that the client uses to staff, the version *I* use to staff, the list goes on) are all being updated with the million changes the client wants to make at the last minute. And make no mistake - ALL clients want to make changes at the last possible hour. All of them. It's like human instinct or something.

I hate this phase of event planning so much. I fight against it and it makes me anxious. I lose sleep wondering if I told the audio vendor about the video that got added to that one session, and do I need to tell the hotel too in case they want to charge me a million dollars to add a power cord for the audio mixer? Dreams of the client yelling at me on-site when their audio doesn't work follow.

Palpitations.

I have a tendency to hold my stress in my jaw. I don't grind my teeth, but I clench my jaw as tight as it can go with my teeth millimeters from touching and hang out like that ALL DAY as my default. After a day or two of this, my jaw aches like nobodies business and I'm cranky times 100.  I was driving to my (new!) office this morning and reminding myself to relax my jaw for the 3rd time of the day and it dawned on me that this was the same reminder I made Jeff give me while in labor. Turns out birthing an event isn't very different from birthing a baby. Okay, it totally is, but humor me and let me make the comparison.

The only way to get to the good part is to accept that I must live through the hard part. Like labor, an event date isn't negotiable. The baby has to come out, you have to do the hard work to get it out. The event is happening, invites have been sent, RSVPs received. There are no extensions in event planning. At least not without paying some exorbitant cancel fees. Or getting fired. The best you can do is relax into the uncomfortable place, own it, and get through it. My every instinct is to fight against this part of the process - it's that part in labor where you're all, "Just kidding! I can't do this! I'll just keep the baby inside." and everyone looks at you like you're crazy. And then you push the baby out.

If I really wanted to draw out the analogy, I could go on to draw a comparison to writing the debrief/lessons learned report the week after an event to delivering the placenta, wherein you're all, "WHAT? You mean I'm not really done? I pushed the fucking baby out, what more do you want from me?!"

I console myself that soon, after months of wondering what my "baby" will look like, I'll get to see the event through. And that at least when an event is over, I won't have wear those weird hospital issue mesh underpants home. So I guess there's that.

Cousins

Edie and Luna at a picnic today.

First Day in the New Office!

We have desks! And .... well, that's about it. But we are IN!

Party Dress

We have a lovely neighbor who is probably about 60 years old and never had children. She has an entire bedroom in her house devoted to her doll collection. They are large dolls. Like, toddler-size. And there are so many of them.

Sometimes if she orders an item of clothing for the doll and it doesn't fit, she gives it to us. Because dolls aren't likely to "grow into" an item of clothing. This is how Edie inherited this party dress that she likes to wear to rough house and play in the backyard:

I am the queen and Edie is the princess and we are scared because the evil "yard shark" (ie: Jeff) is
about to bomb our "castle" with a giant pink ball.

Most People Would Be Surprised to Know...

That Jeff has a passion for funny animal videos.

Tonight it was a dog pushing another dog in a tiny race car. He made me watch it twice because he didn't think I had the appropriate reaction the first time.

Rainy Day

It rained all day on Memorial Day. Edie wanted to go to the park and slide down wet slides and swing on wet swings. I let her carry her own umbrella for the walk to the park and she was so proud.

Wet Walk

Taken ages ago - When we left the house for a family stroll it was sunny. About a half mile from home it began dumping epic amounts of rain and didn't let up.

I particularly like Jeff's wet glasses.

While You Were Out

Taken by Jeff while I was in Charleston for work. I think I should add them to Edie's modeling portfolio: