Those east coast girls are hip...

Harrison got to learn firsthand just how cool Boston girls can be when we went and visited Brenda and Robin over the weekend. We had so much fun and my only regret is that I somehow walked away without getting a picture of Robin and Harrison together. Sad. Things started out well with H-man proving himself to be an enjoyable travel companion. He was especially willing to get the feel of New York during our short layover by laying down in the grime of JFK airport.

As Brenda pointed out, I really am more of a laid-back mom than I realize. The picture does not do the filth of that floor justice.

Once we got there, we headed out to Boston's North End, where we stopped at Mike's Pastry Shop to load up on cannoli. (I'm really glad I checked that on dictionary.com--can you believe that's the plural form--singular is cannolo. Oh, and if you haven't had one, here's the definition [which doesn't taste nearly as good]: tubular pastry shells stuffed with a sweetened filling of whipped ricotta and often containing nuts, citron, or bits of chocolate. )

Mmmm. Bren Bren knows how to treat weary travelers. To make a long, sad story a little shorter, this is the point in the trip that Harrison started experiencing (I'm guessing here) some emotional trauma from all the unusual-ness of the trip. We had a long string of melt-downs for the next couple of days. Luckily, he's an excellent sleeper and I had brought along a few Baby Einsteins, so he was able to achieve a little stability.

Plus, our hostesses were fantastic at distracting him and helping him calm down. Having piles of dirty old snow to offer him worked in their favor.

Overall, it was really relaxing and a good catch-up for me. It'd been way too long since I'd stayed up way too late talking about way too lot of nothing while eating way too much junk food. (Your homemade carrot cake counts as a vegetable though, right Rob?)

Obviously, Harrison got in on the girly stuff too.

Anyway, after a couple of days at Bren and Robin's, we got to hang out at Aunt Trish and Uncle Scott's house. H-man immediately felt at ease there. They had pulled out all kinds of fantastic toys that he couldn't get enough of. He also seemed to automatically bond with cousin Nick. He just kept pointing at him and smiling.

As always, I was completely impressed by my little cousins. Sometimes I forget how young they are when I'm talking to them because they are so on-the-ball. We played a rousing game of "Park-N-Shop" that Michaela handily won while Anna had one of the worst strings of luck I've ever seen in a board game. I wish we could have had more time together; it was such a treat.

Harrison also took to the Morrow's cat, Princess. I'm not sure which he liked more, Princess or her chair.

Everything ended well, and even though we had several hours' worth of delays, Harrison stayed happy the whole way home. That's more than I could have hoped for. Check him out watching the planes. He loved it.

Surgery update

I know I need to be posting pictures of the cutest little boy I know, but I'll try to get some good ones up this weekend. For now, I just wanted to publicly thank all our family and friends who were so sweet and supportive with Harrison's little surgery. Everything went very well and he seems much improved. I was just feeling so blessed because we had SO MANY friends and loved ones call to check on him. That's what makes life sweet, isn't it? Having people you care about care about you and what's going on in your life. So thank you. Harrison is blowing you all kisses RIGHT NOW (watch out, they're kind of snotty).

The random and the happy.

I've been tagged by a fellow blogger and now I'm supposed to tell five random things about me and six things that make me happy. Here goes:

The Random

1. I just tried to work on weeding my flower bed, but it was chillier than I thought and windy as heck. I felt like some crazy pioneer lady until I realized that no one was making me stay out there in misery. I flung off my gloves and came in. I love being the boss-lady.
2. I am pondering a significant change in my hair style.
3. I have a strange interest in shopping via your television. I have never exercised the option to buy, but I like to watch fairly regularly. My favorite things to tune in for are home storage/organizational stuff (I like to think about getting organized) and women's clothing (I am fascinated by their selling techniques and the obvious following that have of people who seem to buy all their clothes this way.)
4. I have a trashy side to me that honestly prefers cheaper, more juvenile versions of things than nice stuff. Case in point, McDonald's honestly is about my favorite restaurant. You could never take me there and have me be disappointed or tired of it. I'm not exaggerating. I think that this part of me is generally contained within the food category, but it sometimes rears is bizarre head in other areas of my life as well. Sometimes I have to hide this trait in front of people I'm afraid will think I'm gross. Only Dan has seen it all. I've even been known to bring my own artificial syrup to Cracker Barrel cause their real stuff doesn't do it for me.
5. We went to our first dog show yesterday. It was so interesting. There are some wild and crazy looking dogs out there. We went in support of our neighbor who is a Rottweiler, Nashville. He's a gorgeous dog and we cheered wildly for him. He didn't take best-in-show, for which we felt righteous indignation. He was by far the superior dog.

The Happy

1. Harrison is getting surgery in less than 48 hours! To some, this may sound alarming or at least not happy, but at this point I CAN'T WAIT. His ear infection is out of control, not responding to the strongest injections of antibiotics. It breaks my heart to see him dealing with this on a daily basis, and I just want it fixed. As nervous as I am about my baby having surgery, I don't see any other options at this point.
2. I am married to the sweetest, most thoughtful man in the world. Words don't do him or his smokin' hot good looks justice.
3. H-man has this special "na-naah" sound that he makes whenever he's holding two of something. It must have started when he would find two binkies and celebrate, but it's moved on to anything he can find a pair of. I can be in another room or upstairs, and if I hear his specially intoned "na-naah," then I know if I go find him he will be victoriously holding a pair of something above his head. I don't know why this makes me so happy, but I grin from ear to ear every time I hear it.
4. I get to go to Boston and see my favorit-o girls Bren-Bren and Robin in a couple of weeks. Harrison is coming too. We're also going to get to see Aunt Trish and Uncle Scott and my sweet nieces and nephew while we're there. I can't wait. And almost as soon as we get back, the whole family is headed to Detroit to see the Tigers, Pistons, and Red Wings.
5. I mowed the yard for the first time this season a couple days ago. We have so many wild onions growing that it really smelled like I was mowing down an onion patch. The weather is beautiful and we love being outside. (If you're wondering, I wrote #1 of the randoms over a week ago and left it as a draft unfinished till now. Hence the change in my feelings about the weather.)
6. Dan and I are feeling so blessed to be welcoming the newest member of our family this September. This is obviously a very happy thing, but it belongs here doubly because I'm now 13 weeks and should be out of the pukey stage soon. Yeah!

I now tag: Jamie, Becca, Flee, Cora, Shell, and Ender