Moving On

I thought David's vacation would be a semi-vacation for me too, boy was I wrong! D's brother Steve and his family were up visiting as was his grandma from Iran, so we spent a good portion of the beginning of the week with them. Monday morning (D was post-call on his first day of vacation!) turned into a summer-clothes shopping spree for Little Man with my sister-in-law Eden and D's mom. I didn't know D's mom was going to be there, but she entertained Micah while I was perusing the 9-12 month racks. At some point she informed me that she would be buying all the clothes I was picking out. Way generous...thank you, Gramma and Grampa!

Monday afternoon found us at a local kid's museum with Micah's cousins Ari and Lyvi and a few of Ari's friends. They had a room just for 1, 2, and 3-year olds which Micah enjoyed. The other rooms were really neat and creative, but too old for him. I'm sure we'll be headed there again in another year. It was a fun family outing. We have pictures to prove it:





We had very yummy Persian dinners both Monday and Tuesday night courtesy of D's grandma. I've almost finished reading What Would Jesus Eat? and a lot of what Jesus ate is still found in Middle Eastern cooking today. Needless to say, Jesus would consume very little of what most Americans eat today. Anyway, D's mom brought us all to an Afghanistan restaurant one day for lunch where we had more yummy and healthy food.

(Aside: We managed to put in a few hours working on the basement one night, too.)

Towards the end of David's vacation week, we packed up the Volvo and headed south...to PA. We've been planning on visiting our friends there since Micah was born, but the time was never right until now. We left an hour before Micah's bedtime, so I sat in the back with him for the first half an hour holding up the portable DVD player that was playing a Baby Einstein video. He appreicated the effort however, staying back there after the DVD was distracting Micah from falling asleep, so I crawled up front with David. It was just like old times (after Micah fell asleep). We arrived in PA around 11:15pm (we made really good time) and M promptly woke up when the interior lights shone in his eyes. It took a while for him to get back to sleep since he was in a new place that he wanted to explore and because he already had a good amount of sleep behind him. After he was down, D and I visited with our hosts past midnight, the first time I've voluntarily seen 12am since giving birth.

And then Micah was up promptly at 5:30 the next morning. I told D that this little phenomenon would happen and I don't think he believed me (mind you, we slept in the same room with our little man). This was a big reason for me not wanting to go on vacation, but D really wanted to and this is the reason that he was the one who got up with Micah each (early) morning. Friday started off at my old work. He wowed all the ladies there with whatever he does to wow anyone. He even got into red paint that was supposed to be drying nicely on a kindergarten project. D kept him occupied while I quickly caught up with everyone. It was great seeing everyone again and fulfilling my promise that I'd be back to show them our baby. From there, we went to the local mall which conveniently had a Chick-fil-a in it. We LOVE Chick-fil-a and there aren't any where we live now, so of course we had to have lunch there. We walked around the mall after that and showed Micah what it looked like from outside the belly (he mall-walked a lot when he was in utero).

We had time to kill before we had to go back to my old work to see my old kindergarten kids (they were in school in the morning), so D and Micah took a very long nap while I read. It was raining, too, which made it all the more cozy. Upon our return to my work, I was mobbed. D told me he had never seen anything like that before. And I was holding Micah. Of course it didn't bother him because he loved seeing all the kids and everything else that was going on, being a busybody and all. I was handed a mountain of refrigerator-worthy pictures and had a few songs sung to me and visited with a few parents before we had to head out. It was cute, I missed them.

Dinner that night was really fun because our hosts invited some of our mutual friends over so we could visit with everyone at once. A few of them have kids, so Micah enjoyed playing with them...



...and that poor cat. The friends we stayed with have a cat and of course Micah, being the fearless brute he is, attacked her at every given chance. Sorry, Dori!

The next morning, Saturday, Micah had a playdate with one of my old co-workers little guy. She gave birth ten days after me, so it's been neat staying in touch and swapping baby stories. Micah slept the first part of our visit (he took all but one nap in the carseat while we were in PA!), but that just gave him more energy to play with his new friend. They did really well together. Micah loved all the new toys and wanted to play with all of them. At the same time. Every toy I gave to his friend (because Micah took the previous one), he wanted it, too. So we had a little lesson on sharing. He's never really had to share before, being the only child and the only grandchild and nephew on my side. Everyone gives him things he shouldn't have but never takes anything (gasp!) away. Anyway, he moved on and they played nicely together until our visit ended. (Yes, that is my child you see UNDER the rocking chair...)




From our visit, we went into the city to have lunch at a Persian restaurant. We went there for Valentine's Day last year and really enjoyed ourselves. Micah was napping again and slept through most of our lunch, which was just fine with us. The city was crowded that day, so we didn't drive around to see our old favorite places, but that's ok because we got back to the house just in time for Micah to eat and play some before he and I headed out again. This friend and I usually met for dinners once a month and she had her baby exactly three months after I had Micah. We met at the local mall and walked our little men around in their strollers while we caught up. I missed her, it was great seeing her again and meeting her baby. We left the mall with enough time to pick up David and head across the river to Jersey.

My dad's mom's sister, Auntie Jo, lives there and we always like catching up with her. She's lots of fun. D stayed at her place while he was interviewing at Temple Med those many years ago. The funny part: she wasn't there when he stayed over. She never met him before, but she told him where she hid the key and he had the place all to himself! We love our Auntie Jo. She met Micah for the first time and couldn't believe how active he was...and that was near his bedtime so he wasn't in full gear (thankfully!). We had tea and fruit and nuts and a great time socializing before we had to leave for M's bedtime. He fell asleep on the way back to PA. D and I followed his lead shortly after arriving back at the house. We were, quite simply, exhausted.

Sunday morning we packed up our stuff before church so we didn't have to waste time backtracking. I didn't realize how much I missed our PA church until we were there again. We got to introduce Micah to some more people and caught up with them before heading out to lunch. We were going to eat and run (to see one last friend before heading north), so we didn't ask anyone to Qdoba with us, but some friends ended up meeting us there anyway. One of the little girls is 3 1/2 years old and she was such a big help with Micah! She actually fed him his lunch while D and I ate!! Micah was fascinated with her and ate very well. Of all the "little kid" interactions Micah has had, she was by far the best to him. She had played with him on Friday night, too, and was just so sweet and caring to him, it was very cute to see!

After saying another goodbye, we headed to our old-old apartment complex on the outskirts of Philly. D's friend from Ruby Tuesday lives there and we stopped by to say hi and bye to him. Micah was squirmy from being stuck in a carseat (he slept through most of church in his carseat) or a highchair for most of the day, so I took him outside and let him crawl around on the grass. When D was done visiting, we went across the way to the Wildlife Preserve to let Micah release more of his energy. We were going to walk on a trail there, but stumbled across a visitor's building that had a room for kids. So he played there for a while, was nursed, and then strolled back to the car for the ride home. I thought it was going to be a tough ride since he would be awake for most of the time, and it certainly wasn't as easy as when he was asleep on the ride down, but I kept him entertained. He took two naps and we stopped two times to change his diaper and let him crawl around. We made it home around 7pm when Uncle Ryan and Auntie Yana stopped by on their way home from church. I think Micah was glad to finally see familiar faces again!!

So that was our vacation that wasn't really a vacation. I should be more specific: it was a vacation that wasn't really a restful vacation. We got a lot accomplished and we had lots of fun doing it, but didn't get a lot of rest. Micah, I am happy to report, is back to his old sleeping self since it's just boring ol' Mom and Dad in our boring ol' house. Yay! Now D's on a Derm[atology] rotation and it just might able to be classified as a vacation (comparatively speaking). He doesn't get up until 7am (good for him), he gets Micah and is still able to do his morning routine (good for me and good for Micah), and he gets home before 5pm (great for all of us). The hard year is behind us and we're thoroughly enjoying this thing called [a relatively normal] life!