Waiting for the smoke to clear, sleeping in the bathroom

Okay so you probably think we're horrible, but the only one sleeping in the bathroom is Josie. We're in Palm Springs trying to gulp down as much fresh air as possible before heading back to San Diego. Even Orange County, where my parents have graciously set up a refugee shelter, is starting to be unbearably smoky. What the eff??

Anyway, we are here for a one-night engagement until Cory heads home to try to see how things are and I go to LA for work on Monday. Speaking of one night engagements, it turns out that both Jewel and Diana Ross are playing at random indian casinos on Cory's birthday this year. What to do what to do?? We'll probably just hit the Red Robin and call it a night at 5:45. Whoot!

Anyway, back to my point. Josie is asleep in the bathroom. Where else to put a one-year old who goes to bed at 6:30?? We're in a hotel room mind you. Now, the closet is actually pretty big and her pack and play would have fit in there but we didn't do that, now did we, so we must be pretty good parents, right? I mean, we would never hear the end of it if we did that and it got out. "You guys used to make me sleep in a CLOSET!!! You never loved me!! Of course you won't let me go to an all night party at a hotel with no adults after homecoming!!!"

I continue to digress. I'm tired and homesick and can't wait to get back to actual life. And I hate that Palm Springs is full of golf courses. Someone today was saying that the actual climate here in Palm Springs has changed because of all of the water they use to keep the grass alive on the golf courses. So now it's like humid and gross instead of dry and...well...less gross.

Sorry no photos. But we did enter Josie in the Gap.com baby photo contest, so maybe you'll see her photo on there! Probably not. But it was fun anyway! :)

Good night and sleep tight.

Fire!

Perhaps you've turned on the news over the last few days and have seen that pretty much all of North San Diego is on fire. Sunday afternoon we returned to our house from a weekend at Nana and PopPop's house and found a very smoky smell in the air. Over the course of the day the air filled with smoke and was just awful. We closed up the house but everything still smelled like we'd been to a campfire. Sunday night things kept getting worse and more windy. Monday morning the whole sky was brown with smoke and it was very hard to breathe. The wind was hot and smelled of fire - not just smoke, but actual fire, which was really weird. I had to get a brief filed so I was at work with a few other dedicated colleagues. The wind was blowing like crazy. By about 9 am, the streets were full of people trying to get out. Its very strange to see one's neighborhood full of cars that are normally one driver and suddenly all the cars have lots of people, kids, pets and stuff.

Cory got a reverse 911 call at about 9:30 "advising" us to evacuate. He packed up Josie, the wedding photo negatives, the video of Josie's birth (not graphic, I promise, we're not that kind of family - and it was a c-section, may I remind you), and some insurance papers and they hit the road, back to Nana and PopPop's. I followed behind about an hour later. The traffic was pretty bad; it took me about 30 minutes to go the first hour. For the first few miles, you couldn't see anything off either side of the highway. On the drive north, once you got about 20 miles from our house, you could finally see blue sky. In the rear view mirror, the whole sky was brown and clouded with smoke. It was such a relief - we'd had trouble breathing, headaches, and felt nauseous since Sunday.

So we've just been watching the news, hoping for the winds to blow the fire away from our house. For awhile yesterday, things were looking bad, but at the moment it's looking much better. A very expensive and exclusive neighborhood lies to our east and north, so hopefully lots of resources are going into stopping it from coming our way. We're hoping that everything settles down and we can go home tomorrow. We'll see.

In the meantime, we've been trying to enjoy this mini "vacation" from work and other responsibilities. (I wonder if I'll get some sort of billable relief for this? My office has been in the mandatory evacuation zone for a couple of days...hmmmm.....). We went to the Children's museum this morning and Josie had a blast. She's a trooper. Even with a cold and lungs full of ash, she's out running around and playing and having a ball.

Hope everyone out there is safe. More to come.

Josie's Day at the Wild Animal Park

So today Mama, Daddy, and Josie got to spend the day together. It was raining here (the third time maybe since we moved here??) and so we decided to go inland to the Wild Animal Park. Josie loves identifying animals, although she's better with the farm variety than the African savannah variety. But whether it's a goose, an egret, a flamingo or a California condor, Josie gets very excited and yells BIRD!!! She moves too fast these days to take many photos (at least non-blurry photos), but here's what I was able to get.

One of the African elephants had a baby about a month ago - the baby and mama were in the more private eating/sleeping area. At the Wild Animal Park, the animals have a ton of space to roam around - like acres. So don't feel bad for them, they don't live right here.

So then Josie loves going to the "petting zoo" portion, where there are a bunch of gazelles that act very much like our own Ruby. I wonder if people in Zaire or wherever these animals are from (yes, I know how ignorant that sounds, sorry) keep these guys as pets?

Well, one liked Josie and was licking her hand and face. And of course she petted them like crazy and before I could get her hands washed off.....



Yup, thumb in the mouth. I just checked on her sleeping and she's not covered in green pox. Hopefully it will say that way.

Back In My Baby's Arms Again

So after nearly two weeks, Josie, Cory and I are all home again. Both Cory and Josie called it an early night, and I am just so thrilled they're back. Two weeks is a long time without those guys!!!!

Not much to say but wanted to post some photos of the homecoming. She started out in a very cute outfit that was Minnesota-weather-appropriate but not San Diego-weather-appropriate.


She was just delightful all day. I really missed that bug of mine.









Okay the photo with the hat is totally cliche but it's still cute...right? I hope so.




Even Ruby was happy to see Josie!

Josie and the Llamas

Some might think that "pussycat" is the logical animal in that sentence, but they would be so wrong! Josie is with nanna and boppa in Minnesota, while Mama continues to dedicate herself to whatever it is that she does and Daddy is in the UK helping foreigners to legally invade I mean immigrate to our great nation. So, naturally, while in Minnesota Josie visited a llama farm. Of Course!! So I am the proud mama with photos entitled "Josie Llama 1" through "Josie Lllama 3" on my computer. Sweet!

Here is the report from Nanna: She warmed up to the llamas, LOVED the chickens, and HATED the horse - she cried every time we turned towards the horses. Really afraid, so we avoided them, even the cute little pony. :( At 1:20, she is currently laying in the crib talking about something and clapping. Hope she sleeps...

Givin it up for the single mamas

Duuuuuuudddeeeee....so I had a teensy weensy taste of what it is like to be a single mom and I gotta tell ya, it is some seriously tough work. Cory went out of town for like 2 days. By the time he came back I was a) exhausted and b) so thrilled that I'm lucky enough to have a dependable partner to help me raise my kid(s).

So here's the routine: get up at 6, shower, get dressed, feed myself, feed the dog, pack josies lunch (little portions of carrots/cheese/pasta/whatever into tiny tupperwares, thermos of milk, snacks), diaper bag full of diapers/wipes/spare clothes (she came home naked a couple of weeks ago), go upstairs, change josie, get her dressed, find shoes, get her fed (time permitting, if not pour some milk for the car ride), get her, lunch, blanket, favorite bear plus me and my stuff (purse, work from the night before, my lunch, etc) into the car, drive to daycare by 7:30, drop her with people, give instructions, report on poops/other diapers from the morning, sneak out so she doesn't fall apart (not for her, for me! i can't stand to leave her when she's crying, there is just something about my cells that won't physically let me do it), drive to work, work like a madwoman all day, try to remember to eat lunch, pack up work to do that night, make all the calls and do all the in office stuff that has to get done by then, get in the car, back to daycare, get a report from the people there who have spent all day with your child and make a beautiful effort to make you feel like you had a part in it, give you the food/poop/nap report (critical!), take her home, try to get her to interact with you when clearly she spent all her juice at daycare and just needs some downtime and has no energy at all and doesn't find you altogether very interesting, put her to bed, downstairs, clean up the kitchen from her dinner, wash all the tupperware thingys, have a bit to eat for dinner, upstairs, log on to the computer, work till 11, go to bed.

Wake up, repeat.

It's just insane. I don't know how people do it. So give it up for the single mamas.

Baby it's Hot Outside

This is the week every year that we just melt. We don't have air conditioning. And it's like in the 90s and humid. Miserable weather. So every day after Josie gets up from her siesta we go to the pool and cool off. First, of course, we have to have a little snack:

Here are some photos of our trip today. As you can tell, she thinks that her Daddy is just hilarious.

She did really good today - did great bubbles, kicked a little, splashed her arms around. Not swimming just yet, but making progress. All in due time...