Snippets

- My parents have been in Jordan and London for the past ten days, visiting my sister-in-law's family and my cousin, respectively. They haven't traveled internationally for almost forty years, so hearing about my small-town folks trekking about the Middle East will be a HOOT, let me tell you. That said, I miss my mom - I never realized how often I call her, mainly to whine about how tired I am, and I keep having to remind myself that she's not an option. Until tomorrow, when she comes back. MAMA!

- We had our orientation meeting for Carter's new school today and I am once again blown away by its awesomeness. He's getting very excited about it and has been telling everyone that he's going to a NEW SCHOOL and he's going to make NEW FRIENDS! Hopefully this excitement will dull the inevitable anxiety during the transition. I told his current school that he was leaving a couple of weeks ago, and it went better than I anticipated. The director didn't give me crap about it or make any snide comments, but that's probably because I got all teary when I was telling her and made it a point to reiterate how much we like her facility and how great they've been and how it's nothing negative about her school, etc. Then I had to tell his current teacher - more teariness from yours truly. Then she started sniffling too and all was forgiven.

- We have no major trips planned this summer, and I am very pleased with this. When Carter was a baby we hauled our asses to Cape Cod and Boston for a week, and as lovely as it was, traveling with tiny babypeople is a stressful experience. I'm perfectly content to bop on up to see Grandma and Grandpa for a long weekend in July and call that our summer vaca. It helps that I'm from wine country. There will be wine - oh yes, there will be wine. And candy. And really, really good coffee.

- Little G has quite the sniffle today and I've been sucking snot out of his face like it's going out of style. I find myself once again praising the heavens for the brilliant Nosefrida - and I'm also quite grateful for our happy little humidifier friend.

- Speaking of the Schmiffins, we did a little sleep training back in late April, and for a few lovely weeks everybody at Chez Draitser was sleeping through the night. Despite all my hand-wringing about it, it was easy as pie - the first night he fussed for about 35 minutes (Carter and Daddy slept on the living room floor) and then conked out til 6am, the second night for five minutes, and that was it. Then he started teething and the whole thing was shot to hell. He's currently waking up once a night around 2am, and I do an 11pm dreamfeed before going to bed. Once these accursed teeth break through (DEAR GOD, TEETH! WHERE YOU AT?) and the cold evaporates, we'll re-train. I had forgotten that's how it works - something always arises - sickness, teething, whatever - JANKS your great-sleeper up, and you need to redo everything. Sheeeeeesh.

- I am really loving on Farmer's Markets lately. Our old Hollywood one was not particularly kid-friendly, but I discovered an amazing one in Studio City, just over the hill from us, with an incredible petting zoo (bunnies and duckies and piggies, oh my!), train (not that Carter will ride on one), pony rides (ditto) - the whole shebang, and Carter's daycare friends go every Sunday so we've been meeting up for playdates in which they basically run around like hooligans while we (okay, me) scout all the celebrities with their kids wandering by (what's UP, Jason Priestley and family!?!). Throw in some organic produce and everybody's happy.