This Saturday was a little better than last – not so hot, Mallory took a nap during the game, Rick got home before Mallory’s bath/bed time AND Michigan won their football game – yeah!! I’ll post the football pictures and stuff under a different post. And there will be a long post on the Arlo blog this week too…stay tuned.
* * *
I’m heading to Austin right now (sitting in the Chicago airport, but will be in Austin when this finally gets published). Mallory was cute when I told her I was going on a trip – she kept saying “ME GO!!!”. I *very* briefly entertained bringing her along; my sister has a good friend in Texas who Emily said would love to watch Mallory during the day, but quickly decided that it would be best for me to have some alone time, especially during crazy football season when I get no time to myself. I am very certain that Mallory will be GREAT all week and will not cry because she misses me. When she & Rick dropped me off at the airport this morning she was still whining and saying “ME GO!” as I was saying goodbye and giving her a hug & a kiss. But I handed her back to Rick and she said “See ya!” and was ready to move on. That made me feel better, because usually I am the only one who can comfort her – she won’t go to Rick if I am an option. She gets to spend today with my mom while Rick works – I hope my mom is up to the task of Mallory two days in a row :-)
As we were packing up her stuff for Gigi’s today, she grabbed her new monkey toy (that she got from Rick’s dad who was in town visiting this weekend) and her stuffed Goofy. She was carrying both around the house, asking each of them “go Gigi’s house? go Gigi’s house?”. It is so funny to see her language skills develop – the arrival of the little three-word sentences is awesome. Rick & I were talking about how there are so few words that we don’t understand – anytime she says something with the expectation of an answer from us, she is totally understandable. She does her share of babbling but there are hardly any times that she says “ksfjh uo809jcm adoif, Mommy?”.
* * *
Landed in Austin. The flight was an hour delayed departing Chicago (first it was mechanical problems and then it was because some handicapped man was going to freak out if he had someone sitting next to him so they had to kick someone off the totally full plane…).
Anyway, about an hour before we were scheduled to land in Austin, the handicapped man (who turned out to be in the row behind me) started to have a seizure and just like the movies they made an announcement asking if there was a doctor or nurse on board the plane (there were three). The guy came out of the seizure but not before we overheard one of the flight attendants ask the doctor if she should tell the pilots to divert our flight. Luckily all was well but then when we did land, they announced that we all had to stay seated while paramedics came on board to deplane the handicapped guy. Registration for my conference ended at 5p so I was getting nervous that I wasn’t going to make it to the hotel in time. But my chatty-Cathy taxi driver (SERIOUSLY – can ALL of the stories you are telling me be true??) got me here by 4.30p to find that the registration desk was already closed up for the day. So I am trying to relax and breathe in fresh (ie NON-airplane) air and get rid of my headache and nausea; I thought the paramedics were going to have to start working on me with as sick as I felt when we landed. But I am feeling better and all settled into my room.
It was very weird to travel by myself. I saw so many other moms and dads in the airport with their little ones in tow and I would start to miss Mallory and then I would go back to reading my magazine and think “nope – this is just what the doctor ordered”. I have to remember to thank my bosses huge when I get home – this is not only a great professional development opportunity for me but a wonderful perk for this mom of one who is baking another one.
* * *
I called my mom to check in how things were going. I could hear Mallory jabbering in the background – my mom said she was calling my mom’s cat “Nino” but the cat’s real name is Cleo. The cat is skittish and freaks out when any one is at the house, espcially my mom’s noisy grandkids so Mallory is in for the search of her life if she is going to try to find the cat. LOL. And they went for a long walk and my mom said that every time Mallory saw a plane, she’d point up to it and say “Mama!”. My mom also said that if someone didn’t know that I went on a plane for a trip, they would probably guess I was dead and in heaven with the way Mallory was pointing to the sky and saying my name.
* * *
Ok, off to post the story of Saturday and pictures from the game.
Oh wait – I’m going to eat first. See ya later