Road Trip

OK, I have to be honest... as a New Yorker, I never imagined I'd be excited about, of all things, a family road trip to Omaha, NE. And yet, I was looking forward to this trip for weeks!.. Last week, it was finally time. I wasn't the only one looking forward to this trip either. Mom, even though she was in the hospital the entire week before, was still super excited to go. Barry & Dale also arranged to meet up with us in Omaha on Friday as well. We were so excited that everyone was going... Which is why despite some difficulties that arose with my pregnancy right before, we were still determined to go.

OK, so what difficulties?... Well, without going into to much detail. One of the lovely screens we had to take due to my "advanced maternal age" (bah!) came back that we were in the high risk group, meaning there 'could' be something wrong with the baby. Needless to say we were completely stressed and anxious to know for sure, so we took a diagnostic test to confirm. The diagnostic tests have some risk, which is why they do the blood test first. I mean, why do a risky test if it's not needed, right? right... made sense to us. Only now we found ourselves in the group that needed it. But after a week of agony, we finally had the results... the baby was fine (Yea!!!) and also confirmed 100% to be a boy (also yea!!!)...

The not so good news was the test had it's own set of complications... Now we know the baby is fine, but we were worried we were going to lose him as a result of the test... (not so yea). The result, rest, and lots of it!... I was in bed for several days after the test and unable to lift anything, including poor Zoe. I haven't picked up my baby in almost 2 weeks, and let me tell you, that sucks! The good news is the rest has paid off and mommy and baby seem to be doing fine. We also made it clear to our baby doctor... NO MORE TESTS. I should be able to ease back into a normal routine this week. I know Robb will be glad, poor thing has been awesome, but his back has definitely been paying the price.

OK, so back to Omaha... Since the plan was to go to the Omaha Zoo, which for months now we've been hearing amazing things about, Robb and I were obviously concerned about the amount of walking that would be involved. Especially since the day before we were to leave I was put back on bed rest... but Barry to the rescue! He had a brilliant plan to bring my grandmother's transport chair so they could haul my sorry butt all over Omaha (poor souls)...


...and so the trip was saved. Off we went on a three hour drive... a three hour drive.

The trip was so worth it!... Zoe slept the first half of the drive up there (brilliantly planned on our art of course) and mom had a blast playing with her the rest of the way. Once we arrived, we headed straight for the Children's Museum so Zoe could run around and burn up the pent up energy she had from being confined in the car for three hours. She LOVED it. That place was AWESOME. She was running, climbing, sliding, hiding, putting baby dolls on stoves, washing the play veggies, you name it, she did it. And what better way to end our time at the Children's museum that with a ride on the carousel with daddy?... She was in heaven!

After the Children's Museum, we met up with Dale at the hotel and checked in... (We met up with Barry later at dinner). We stayed at the Magnolia in downtown Omaha, just outside the historic old market district... It was a beautiful hotel and I LOVED the modern decor! While Zoe loved exploring every, and I mean EVERY new item in the room, I think her favorite part of our stay was the complimentary milk and cookie bar they offered from 8pm to 10pm. They offered a variety of freshly baked cookies as well as assorted 'mixes' for your milk, which was all quite fun and tasty. My one complaint was that it was held in the lounge and the felt the need to light votive candles EVERYWHERE. I mean, come on. I understand it's the lounge and mostly adults are gonna hang out and get liquored up, but if you're going to have a 'kid friendly' event, just a thought, you might want to make the environment, oh, I don't know... kid friendly??? Fortunately we were able to find a nice little corner for ourselves and we proceeded to blow out all the candles within Zoe's immediate range. We figured screw that, they can relight them when we're gone.

After making ourselves sick on milk and cookies (OK, I had tea and cookies), we went back to the room to get our sugared up baby ready for bed (hahahahaha)... Bath time was interesting. While personally I LOVED the bathroom, it too was not exactly baby friendly. Gorgeous shower (loved it) but no tub... So, Zoe got to experience her first shower. Let's just say that surprisingly, it wasn't her fave way to take a bath. She was all into it until the water actually pelted her in the face. Funny, she wasn't to keen on it after that. Overall though, she did WAY better than I ever expected her to. She slept really well for the most part and was just really happy the whole time we were there. I was so proud of her!

Saturday morning started off with her letting us sleep in until 7:30!! [insert hallelujah here]... followed by, of course, a thunderstorm. We still planned to go to the zoo and headed downstairs after getting ready to partake in the extremely bountiful continental breakfast that was included. I have to say I was impressed. They offered quite the spread!... Assorted cereals, bagels, muffins, yogurts, scrambled eggs with peppers & cheese, sausages, assorted juices, coffees, teas, fruit, cream cheeses, WOW... I'm hungry again just thinking about it. By the time we were done gorging ourselves, the rain had pretty much stopped (hooray!)... and off to the Zoo we went.

We were kind of surprised by how many people were there. The lines just to get in were pretty long. If anything, we thought the rain would have helped keep people away, but it also cooled things off, so no such luck. We took WAY too many pics at the zoo to post a lot here, so if you want to see more, you can see them here.

Zoe had a BLAST!... We all did. We spent a good five hours there and still didn't see everything. My favorite part by far was the aquarium with the shark tunnel. That thing was AWESOME!... Zoe loved running around, but she also really enjoyed the penguins, the butterflies and the gorillas. If you've never been there, I HIGHLY recommend going. It was really well laid out, tons to see and do, in fact, we can't wait to go back again! She was having so much fun she wore herself out and fell asleep about half way through. Slept for a good 2 hours!.. Which meant she missed lunch and some of the animals (the giraffes, sea lions, antelopes & spider monkeys) but she woke up just in time to see the elephants, which she really enjoyed. Mom was smart enough to get her a corn dog too, so she'd have some food when she woke up. Zoe's first corn dog, let me tell you, that kid LOVES corn dogs apparently cause she ate almost the whole thing!!... And of course, what better way to end than with another carousel ride? Can I just say my child is a carousel junkie?? She was soooo excited to ride on one again, that she didn't want to leave it! Poor Barry had to be the meanie and pull her away kicking and screaming. Poor Zoe. We'll have to take her on another carousel ride soon.


After an exhausting but fun day, it was time to head home. So much time anticipating the trip and now, not only was it finally here, it was over just like that. I wish we could have stayed longer, but Robb had to work the next day and we were all pretty worn out, so we hit the road. I have to say I was a little nervous about Zoe being awake for the entire three hour car ride. After all, she had quite the nap while at the Zoo. But she did amazing!... Zoe and mom had a blast reading, talking, playing. Mom was a godsend back there with her... and for the last hour when poor mom was worn out, we just popped a DVD in our handy little portable DVD and Little Bear entertained her quite nicely for the last hour. I couldn't have asked for more from her... She was so awesome, I still can't believe it. We truly are blessed with her.

Now, since we knew we'd be tired and getting in kind of late to cook dinner, it made sense to pick something up on the way home and for some odd reason, I found myself craving, of all things, KFC... so yes folks, we actually broke down and decided to try a failure pile in a sadness bowl. For those of you that don't get the reference, I highly suggest clicking that link. You won't regret it... (warning, Patten Oswalt is not for the faint of heart). While it wasn't completely inedible, I do have to say the salt content was off the charts! I mean dear God, I have never had anything that salty in my life... I swear all that salt must have been to help absorb the self loathing you clearly have ordering that (hence the failure pile in a sadness bowl). I'm happy to say that I no longer have any desire to try that again. What were we thinking?... It was a very salty end to a truly amazing family road trip.

Milestones

This has been a weekend for milestones. We've officially begun the second trimester, yeah!.. and while I'm of course excited about it, I'm a little disappointed that I'm not starting to feel better. I realize there isn't a magic switch that gets flipped the day your second trimester begins which makes you feel instantly better (wouldn't that be nice?!), but some improvement would be appreciated... Some sign that there IS a light at the end of the nausea tunnel. But alas, no such luck. Perhaps it's because we've found out we are having a boy? (OK, still just a 90% chance that it's a boy, but those are pretty good odds to me). People have been telling me they always felt sicker when carrying boys. One of those odd pregnancy myths?... Who knows, but it looks pretty good that I'm carrying a boy and I definitely feel sicker, so you tell me.

All the complaining aside though, it was beyond amazing to see the little guy the other day. He was quite active, which kind of surprised me... Active and very cooperative during the ultrasound, which is the exact opposite of Zoe. She liked to sleep during the ultrasounds and NEVER cooperated. This was one of the level 2 ultrasounds to make sure he's developing normally, which they do, apparently, because of my "advanced maternal age"... way to make me feel old guys!. Anyway, so far, so good, little guy was rockin' it!... The detail in these is astounding, you really can see everything!... The beating heart, the spine, even the two hemisphere's of the brain. Then they send you home with pics of your little alien baby to treasure and later torment them with. They really do look like an alien in these!... SEE:





OK, so if that wasn't monumental enough, Zoe had her own milestone this weekend. Due to the fact that she is getting dangerously close to climbing out of the crib on her own, and the increasing difficulty I've been having putting her IN the crib, we picked up and installed the toddler rail on her crib this weekend!... She's such a big girl now. It's hard to believe she's no sleeping in a crib anymore!... SEE:



Last night was her first night in "the big girl bed" and she did awesome!... She was reluctant to go to sleep, but I think that's more because she was having so much fun with us yesterday, so I had to cuddle with her a bit before she'd go to sleep (yeah, torture, right?! ;) She was still awake when I left, but instead of running after me, which she could clearly do now, she went to sleep!...

When I got her this morning, I fully expected to find toys everywhere from a mid-night or early morning play session, but nope, she was still in bed and was super excited when I came in cause she was able to get out and run to me all on her own... It was beyond sweet to see her so excited about her new found independence. Kerouac, our cat, is also a fan since now he can sleep in there too. We can't believe we didn't think about that!... At least he can't get in at night, but he's been in there just about every chance he can get. Silly cat.

The changing of the crib to a daybed also prompted some additional baby proofing in her room, which led to some general furniture moving and overall rearranging of a couple of rooms, which felt good to actually get done. I've been so incredibly useless lately that it felt really good to be productive for a change. Now if only I can keep up the momentum?

Anyway, Zoe's beyond excited with her new big girl room and it's nice that we can do stuff to fix up her room so she doesn't just feel like we're doing stuff for her brother and not her. In fact, yesterday was ALL about her, complete with a new haircut!... She was so great at the salon, not a single tear (although we fear she may have discovered Dora the Explorer since she was pretty much glued to it the entire time)... She looked super cute getting it cut though, SEE:



As usual, we could not be more proud of her, or more excited about the new baby... Things are really coming together and it feels great.

What a difference a day school makes

Many of you, I believe, have heard about the ordeal that was KinderCareless, Zoe's last child care provider (if you can actually call them that). You hear the horror stories that happen at some schools but you never think they will happen to you or your baby. I recognize that in the grand scheme of horror stories, we were relatively lucky, but we also got her out of there as soon as we possibly could and I'm so glad!

Zoe has been at her new day school for almost three months now and OH MY GOD, what a difference! She's started talking, she more interactive with people, she's more communicative in general about her wants and needs, she's happy! I know some of it is probably just the developmental timing, but when I go to pick her up, she's playing with the other kids, she laughing, she's really happy... and I didn't see that when I would pick her up from KinderCareless.

She's also not sick constantly, like she was at the other facility. She missed her entire second week at KinderCareless because she got so sick and it seemed like she stayed sick every other week for the entire time she was there (4 months). She's only been sick once while at Union Hill and it cleared right up with antibiotics. Before, she'd go through 2, 3 even 4 rounds of antibiotics and still be sick! I have one word for you KinderCareless... DISINFECTANT!

Union Hill on the other hand has been awesome!... The rooms are clean, heck, they even have washing machines and CLEAN her clothes if there's an accident or problem. Unlike when she had an accident before and they sealed the pants in a plastic bag all day without even rinsing them!... Can you say way to breed bacteria?!? That was nasty.

This past week was her first week in the toddler class at Union Hill (she's a big girl now) and she's doing great!... She eats lunch at the table in the lunch room with all the other kids (the school even emailed us a picture of her eating there her first day!... Clearly my wild child needs a haircut).





She's not allowed a sippy cup at school anymore because they're teaching her to use a regular cup and utensils... No more pacifier at school either and she's been handling it really well, we're so proud of her! They're even starting to work on potty training and boundries (which she of course loves to test). She's astounding us more and more every day, she really is.

She still doesn't seem to understand that she'll be a big sister yet, but I imagine as my tummy grows, she'll start to figure out something is up.

As for where things are with KinderCareless, we've filed paperwork with the hospital to go after their insurance for the medical bills since we don't really feel we should pay for the stitches she needed as a result of their carelessness, but that's still pending. I'm just so glad that for her, this is behind us and she can continue to blossom the way she has been!... It really is amazing the difference a good school can make.

Kamikaze Bus

OK, so I've decided to go off topic a bit today and not talk about my daughter for once. The reason for this deviation? My crazy new temp bus driver. My regular morning bus driver is apparently on vacation for 2 weeks, which is a shame, cause he's awesome!... Always smiling, very friendly but not all in your business, and doesn't drive like a crazy person. I'm particularly fond of that last quality.

So I've been riding with this new guy all week and have become increasingly surprised by his behavior, and not in a good way. I guess his first day or two, he was getting a feel for the route, the people, etc... cause I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary about him, other than he wasn't particularly friendly, but he wasn't exactly mean either.

Wednesday was the first day he really stood out to me. I decided to wear a skirt that day, which I rarely do for work because of the rather large and somewhat work-inappropriate tattoo on my leg... But whatever, I said screw it that day. It was hot and I wanted to wear one. I got on the bus and out of no where he gave me this weird look and said "hey, nice tat!" while looking me up and down. I was like, ok, creeepy... and sat a little further in that day. He then proceeded to harass every poor old person that got on the bus with a half fare card by making them show ID to prove how old they were. This was just plain mean on two levels. First, some of them were so old they could barely stand, and they had to fumble around looking for their ID. Second, the bus was MOVING and they're trying to hold on for dear life. It was just a sad sight to see. This guys is OBSESSED with staying on schedule to the point where the moment you step on the bus (before you even put you money in, swipe your card, what have you, he's off and running while you bounce around and pray you don't fall on your ass trying to get to a seat...

Yesterday, I think he was a little extra jacked up on the caffeine... he was taking one of his turns so tight, I think the woman in the car he almost sideswiped had a heart attack!.. The look on her face, OK while kind of funny, was an understandable mix of terror and pissed-off. He also continued to "check out" one of the other girls getting off the bus just a few stops before me...

Yet what he did today I thought was REALLY inappropriate. One of the passengers had left her keys at the front of the bus and gone to the back. A passenger called out to her that she forgot her keys, very nice of her. The bus driver then started talking to the woman who had been nice enough to alert the other passenger, saying how she should have given "him" the keys so it would have been harder for the first woman to get them back, yada yada.. I was like "did he really just say that???"... He then continued to make comments about the woman WHO WAS STILL ON THE BUS!!.. Then, when the nice lady was ready to get off the bus, rang the bell and the bus pulled into her stop, he WOULDN'T OPEN THE DOOR UNTIL HE FINISHED TALKING WITH HER! I would have been like oh hell no, you open that door now. What an ass. And yeah, one more week with him, I can hardly wait.

Bus, Bags & Beyond!

Today I picked up Zoe from day care, like I do most everyday. I do have to start by saying the bus route to get her at the new day care is SO MUCH better than it was getting her from the last day care. This school in general has been so much better in so many ways, but that is a topic for another post.

We arrived at the bus stop as usual and sat in the shelter. It was 90 degrees, I was hot, I was tired and I was ready to be home with my baby girl. We waited, we waited and we waited some more. A woman came along and decided to smoke right next to us. I'm a former smoker and I still have to admit I gave her the evil eye for smoking next to my baby, though it clearly did no good as she didn't move an inch.

Finally, the bus arrived almost 10 minutes late, which let me tell you, in the heat with a struggling baby is not a fun wait. Thank gawd the bus was air conditioned, but it was also packed. We sat down next to a very nice lady who didn't seem to mind that Zoe was kicking her repeatedly. Not intentionally mind you, but she was doing it all the same. I was very apologetic.

I have to say, ever since I read my friend's blog about unruly children and the annoyance they can be to other people, I've been acutely aware of Zoe's behavior in public and have come to realize that on occasion, I AM one of those parents with one of those children. Sorry to all you folks out there that find it incredibly irritating when my child insists on staring at you, or banging on the bus seat... But she's a baby, babies do shit like that, deal with it. I do apologize when she crosses over into other people's personal space, like when she would accidentally kicked the woman next to us, or when she opens her sippy cup and it sprays the other passengers, or yes, especially when she threw my travel mug and hit the woman in front of us... for those things I do truly feel bad and as a parent, try my best to keep them from happening, and then I move on...

Speaking of moving on, where was I?... Oh yes, the bus finally arrived, was packed, yada yada... Part of the reason for the tardy arrival and cramped conditions became clear when I boarded, a woman in a wheelchair was on the bus and two rows of seats had to be closed to accommodate the chair... Cool, no problem with that. I, however, did have a problem with the 300+ lb guy that decided he HAD to get one of those seats and parked himself in the aisle right next to us!... We were now sandwiched between the sweet old lady making faces at Zoe and the enormous ASS that was right up against us. The worst part (and ok somewhat funny but mostly gross) was that every time the bus bounced, Zoe's head would bounce off the guys butt. Did that make him move? Of course not! So I just tried to think of it as a giant airbag protecting her and prayed to god he didn't fart.

Within a few stops, the woman in a wheelchair exited the bus, the seats were free and airbag man sat down. We also moved a) to give the sweet old lady more space and b) to give Zoe more freedom. So the rest of the ride was fine, right?... Oh soooo wrong.

Enter the bag lady... And by bag lady, I really do mean bag lady. If you look up the definition, she was it. In fact, I had no idea one tiny lady could carry all those bags!! She really had it down to an art form. However, before her stop, she decided to share with us some fond memories from her childhood. She ripped a page from one of her many magazines and handed it to us exclaiming "I don't need this page and it will be fun for you to do with her"...



I looked at the article she handed me, it described how to make stilts for your kids out of tin cans. She then went on about how fun it was when she was a child, described the various ways in which to decorate the cans and of course, my personal favorite, which tin cans would work the best, (for a toddler, apparently the smaller baked beans cans work the best). While it was sweet that she wanted to share this knowledge with me in hopes of brightening Zoe's childhood, I can't pretend I didn't find it weird. And yet, I think that was the highlight of the ride... Because it only got worse from there....

Next to the bag lady was an older man with a cane. He stood up as we approached his stop and I remember thinking, man this is a big guy!... Easily 6' 5" and a little on the heavy side. He started to slowly shuffle past us and as he turned, I realized his pants were completely off his butt!!!... I'm not talking plumbers crack here, I'm talking full on buttocks right in our faces! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I never imagined that would be the first ass my daughter would see, although thankfully I think I was more traumatized than she was. I'm just incredibly thankful he didn't drop anything! *shudder*

I of course told my husband about this weirder than usual ride when I got home, who by the way is planning on joining me for the bus excursion to get Zoe on Thursday. Bet he can't wait now! *wink*