One Week Home, Three Weeks Away

One reason I haven't blogged much lately is that work has become ridiculously busy. When I get home, feed myself, feed e-baby, bathe e-baby, and spend an hour getting her to sleep, there's just enough time to chat with SNG for a few minutes, fall into bed, sleep awhile, wake up at 6am with a nagging need to get some work done, work until 7am, shower, get dressed, get e-baby fed, diapered, dressed, and back to daycare. Repeat, repeat, repeat. A couple of weeks ago she was fine with alternating between me and SNG putting her to bed, but this week it has to be mommy every night. It is sweet but frankly, I'd love to have that hour (every other night) to get some more work done.

For some reason, I like my job more when it's busy like this. It's not an unreasonable amount of travel, and while I'm in the office I'm running like mad. I'm a mad-running-fool so it works.

But tomorrow I'm taking a vacation day because my cousin PartnerInCrime and her family are coming to town to HOUSEHUNT! Yay! I am really looking forward to their visit and the 3-day weekend. Technically, they're coming to decide whether or not they want to relocate here, but I'm optimistic. The weather's supposed to be crappy part of the weekend, so I'm thinking of indoor things to do. There's a terrific children's museum that our one-year-olds will love. There's no point impressing them with shopping-- Raleigh is simply not on the map with regard to shopping, and they're coming from Seattle, which is one of shopping's minor capitols. Ditto for restaurants, unless you like homestyle southern cooking. Which, fortunately, PIC does.

On Tuesday e-baby and I will be flying to San Antonio and staying in various parts of central Texas for almost 3 weeks. SNG will come out for a week in the middle, to attend the annual family eat-bike-camp-and-dogs-in-the-woods only this year, dogs are banished to a separate area and we have cabins instead of tents but I'm sure there will still be plenty of bicycles and eating. This year, Kiltman will be coming with us, and I'm really stoked for the family to meet him. I just have this funny feeling that he fell off our family tree somewhere back there, as he's very clearly a Rhodes boy. Except, you know, without the guns.

OK, so what's new in babyland?
Oh, this blew me away. E-baby can count to 2, with her words and her hands. And she can identify the color blue. Most of the time. I'm not sure whether she understands the idea of numbers, even small ones like 1 and 2, but the blue thing seems to be right on. Oh, and her teacher mentioned that she's the only kid in her class who can tell them, clearly, when she wants something to drink. So I guess the other kids just follow her and when she asks for water, they point and grunt and get water too. Girlie is her Tuti's granddaughter.