Almost a month ago, we spent the weekend in London. What, I forgot to mention that? Yeah, I know. I’ve been busy.

J planned a surprise trip for my birthday as sort of a last hurrah before we have two kids and never never ever get to travel ever again because I’m convinced that grandparents would be completely unable to handle two of our kids for more than a 24 our time period. OH, THE ENERGY. What I would do for that kind of energy, especially right now.

We arrived in London on a Saturday morning on no sleep, and spent the day walking around and squeezing as much as we could in the short time we were there.

We had the fortunate experience of traveling with our friends, a couple who had never been to London before. We had a great time showing them around, and having traveling companions made an enjoyable trip even more fun.

We stayed at the Andaz hotel, which is a new concept in hotels, and has only been around since about September 2007. There’s no check-in desk - when you walk through the door you get your own “concierge” who checks you in, gives you a tour of the room, and serves you drinks while you wait.

By the way, a little tip for anyone considering such a trip - the Andaz’ published rates are equivalent to like $8 billion per night - but if you call up and say you’re planning a special trip for your pregnant wife, and can they cut you a break, they’ll slash the price for you. It really wasn’t that bad of a deal.

The hotel had little bowls of fresh plums everywhere. They were delicious! And they have complementary breakfast (menu - not buffet) which is wonderful … especially since otherwise it’s the equivalent of $50 per person.

Our first stop was St. Paul’s Cathedral. We were unable to take pictures inside the cathedral, but we climbed all the way to the top and got a great view of the city.

I’m considering that climb to be my greatest accomplishment during the trip. My leg muscles were sore for days. I slowed everybody down, but I made it. The others didn’t complain too much when I used the “climbing for two” excuse.

After St. Paul’s, we went to Lord of the Rings, the musical. Technically, it was phenomenal. It was all the show that money could buy. The script itself was more like a recap of the movies than an actual story by itself. They had to squeeze so much into 3 hours that if you haven’t seen the movies or read the books you’d probably be pretty lost. And the guy that plays Pippin is just plain annoying. But visually, it was fascinating to watch.

After the show, we took an evening stroll along the Thames.

I just love London at night.

During our stroll, we stopped for dinner to enjoy some genuine British “fish & chips.” The waiter put the plate down and in front of me was the biggest slab of fried fish I have ever seen.

And I at the whole thing. Without even realizing it. Apparently I worked up quite the appetite climbing to the top of St. Paul.

After dinner, we went to the Tutankhamen Exhibit at the O2 Arena. It’s coming to Dallas in the fall, so if you’re around here I strongly encourage you to see it when the time comes.

On Day 2, we headed over to the Tower of London to see the Armory, the Crown Jewels, and whatever else we could fit into the hour we had at our disposal before the flight back.

The White Tower inside the Tower of London.

We then returned to our hotel, checked out, met our driver and began the hour-and-a-half drive to the airport.

And missed our flight.

Public Service Announcement: FYI, American Airlines at Gatwick Airport has its own security that you have to go through IN ADDITION TO regular airport security. So if you arrive at the airport 5 minutes after the security guys have gone home (!!!) you will not be allowed to check in and board your flight.

Also, there’s only one flight per day to the States out of Gatwick.

Also, it costs $260 PER PERSON to change your flight, plus the shuttle fare to Heathrow Airport where the later flights are.

Also, there are no more direct flights to Dallas, so you have to be routed through Chicago.

This Public Service Announcement has been brought to you by the Association of Exhausted and Sleep Deprived Travelers Who Obviously Needed to Waste Some More Time Attempting to Return to the Comfort of Home.

Fabulous.

So the flight back was an adventure… But perhaps it was good that we were so exhausted because we had reached the point of sleepless insanity where you can’t do anything but laugh in the face of ridiculous inconvenience.

We made it back to our house about 1am (which was 7am London Time), having been awake for yet another 24 hours.

Bed has never felt so good.

In the future, perhaps we will try to spend more time at our destination than on the plane, but overall this was a really fun trip and we’re glad we took the weekend to go. Especially since it will probably be the last time we can travel internationally for a long time.

Last night we held a going away party for our friends who are about to jump into the mission field in Paris, France (yeah I know, poor them). We discovered that hosting a party is so much easier when other people bring most of the food.

It was a very enjoyable evening, and we had a good turnout. We visited with a lot of people we hadn’t seen in a while, and I’m fairly certain I gave myself diabetes from all the cake and sweets.

Totally worth it.

Little Button had a blast as well. She made a new friend at the party - a couple we know brought their son, Lucas, who is 3 ¹/₂. Button was a little shy and standoffish at first (after all, J has been telling her that boys are bad until she’s 30), but she soon warmed up to Lucas and they spent several ours playing together. They had a blast running around, sliding, watching TV, eating cake, and chatting. The current state of our playroom is proof that good times were had by all. By the end of the night, Lucas was calling J “Daddo” and Button was (repeatedly) asking Lucas if she could hug him.

At one point, they even closed themselves inside the pantry and conspired together. Soon, Lucas emerged to ask me if he could have a breakfast bar - which was no doubt Button’s idea, as she asks for them several times per day. I walked into the pantry to find Button holding the box of breakfast bars.

It was so nice to see her really playing and interacting with another child. I have been somewhat concerned about her tendency to be a little aloof around other children, blaming myself for not socializing her enough. While it’s probably accurate that I’ve been a little lazy in getting her used to other kids, it occurred to me last night that most of the kids in our peer group are younger than she is.

Button is very advanced for her age in language skills - which when said by a parent may come across as bragging, but really it’s just a fact, and one we take very little credit for. A fact that has been stated by our pediatrician and just about every adult who comes in contact with her. Actually, we learned last night that apparently our friends who have kids sit around and talk to each other about how brilliant Button is.

So needless to say, the kids she usually “plays” with, who are mostly several months younger than she is, don’t have the same language skills and therefore can’t fully engage in her favorite form of entertainment: endless conversation.

Last night between Button and Lucas, there was a constant stream of chatter emerging from the playroom. When they eventually came down to join us, they continued to make observations to each other, ask and answer questions (in complete sentences). It was really quite adorable to watch them interact.

And by the end of the evening, Button finally had to admit defeat and concede that she had met someone with more energy than she has (gasp). She was completely worn out and started insisting that she was “ready for her nap right now” before all the guests had left.

When J put her to bed, she wiggled under her covers and sighed as though she did not know it was possible to be THAT comfortable. Then she said, “Daddo, I had a great day.”

Indeed.

Ok, I upgraded Wordpress so hopefully it will start working for me again.  I’m doubtful though, since it’s still not letting me add categories.

This has been a difficult week.  My mom has been ill with some sort of excruciatingly painful nervous system disorder that the doctors were unable to diagnose for weeks.  They’re medicating her, and it’s working to take the pain away, but the medication makes her crazy.

She’s usually a really emotional person anyway, but when she’s on this medication it’s like being around a bipolar schizophrenic with Alzheimer’s.  I couldn’t let her watch Little Button for her normal 2 days this week because she’s seriously not herself and I was too worried about her judgment.  When I told her I would be keeping Button home this week, I might as well have stabbed her best friend, run over her dog, and published a book on “why my mother is a failure.”

The other day I went over to my parents’ house to wrap all their Christmas presents (I was trying to be helpful in any way they would let me, since my mom has been ill) and I totally overdid it.  I was useless and dead by the time I got home to J.

Though I’m now in second trimester, I’m not getting my energy back.  This is different from the first time around, and much more inconvenient with a toddler.  A toddler with rampant energy who can sing at the top of her lungs and spin in circles and dance for 4 hours straight while I sit on the couch staring at her in disbelief.

I think I finally got all my Christmas shopping done.  This season has absolutely kicked my butt.  Last year I ordered everything online and was done several weeks before Christmas.  I had a giant spreadsheet detailing gifts purchased and to-be-purchased for each member of my family and J’s family, as well as automated price totaling to ensure that money between each person was balanced and that no one was left out.  Last year, I was the ultimate anal-retentive Christmas Elf.

This year, I’m more like the Christmas Sloth.  I only sort of remember what I’ve gotten each person, so I hope it’s somewhat balanced.  Since I waited so late, I couldn’t order anything online so I’ve had to leave the comfort of my home to actually SHOP.  Which is more of a challenge with aforementioned 2-year-old.  Ok, “challenge” would be putting it mildly.

The other day I was especially low on energy, but we had to go shopping so I packed up Little Button in the car and we made several stops.  At each and every store, she made every effort to run away from me, refused to use her “inside voice” and had a total temper tantrum when she had to give up her lollipop to enter one particular store.

Nearing the end of my rope, I decided to cut the trip short - but we HAD to make one more stop to get a very necessary gift for J.   While inside the store, I had her by the hand so she wouldn’t go running off - and she somehow managed to end up sprawled on the floor while I was trying to make a difficult decision about the merchandise.  I pulled her up by the arm, but she slipped out of my grasp and banged her eyebrow on the tile.

Total.  System.  Meltdown.  You would have thought she cracked her head wide open.

With everybody staring, we left the store for the sake of the other shoppers.  We walked around outside.  She cried.  People stared.  We sat on a bench.  She cried.  People stared.  We stopped and ate lunch.  She recovered.  We re-entered the store in the hopes that I could FINALLY get the 10 minutes I needed to make the purchase and go home.

The second we entered,  she immediately broke away from my grasp and went running through the store, tripped on her own feet, crashed and burned, and went careening into a display case.

OH. MY. GAWD.

As the hysterical crying ensued, and once again everybody in the store stopped to stare at the bad mom with the crazy child, I snapped myself out of the open-mouthed stare and went to pick her up.

At this point, I became THAT MOM who refuses to take her screaming kid out of the store.  I was getting that gift, dammit, because I COULD NOT ENDURE coming back here again.

Through the remainder of the time at the store, Button intermittently cried, sang at the top of her lungs, tried to get away from my death grip, squirmed, talked excessively (loudly) so I could not hear the salesperson, batted at my hair, wiped snot all over the place (did I mention she has a cold?) and threw tissues on the floor.

In the end, I walked away from salespeople who couldn’t wait to see me go, with a gift that I paid entirely too much for because I couldn’t think clearly enough to make a sound decision.  I put Button in the car, sat in the driver’s seat, and cried.

I’m so tired every day.  I really need to go grocery shopping.  I really need to finish painting my mom’s Christmas present.  I really need to buy something for Button from Santa.  I really need to do laundry and finish cleaning in preparation for the inlaws who are coming on Monday.

I really need to visit a friend in the hospital who just had an emergency hysterectomy.  And I need to make some meals for her family because for crying out loud, they have 5 toddlers (no, that’s not a typo) and her husband is having to be Mommy and Daddy and Nurse and Santa.

So there are obviously people in this world who have it much harder than I do.  But somehow that doesn’t stop me from wanting to curl up in bed and wish it would all just go away.  In the meantime, I guess I’ll go on complaining.

Thanks for being my audience.

What do you say to a man who has suddenly lost his only child?

I don’t know.

As a parent, how do you recover from having your life, your blood, your heart, torn from you? When the rest of your life changes in an instant and your hopes and dreams that all centered around your child are inexplicably shattered…how much strength must it take to force yourself to keep breathing? How do you get up and live the next day, knowing that you’ll never ruffle that head of hair or hear those giggles again, that every notion you had about tomorrow was just an ill-formed illusion?

I don’t know.

Had it happened to me, I’m not sure I could.

I don’t know this man. He’s more like a friend of friends. But I cry for him.

There is an internet effort going on to send a gift of support to his family. If you wish to transcend distance and participate, you can find more information here.

So I’m finally taking the time to sit my butt down and figure out how to make a Blogger template.  Specifically, a Blogger template that works with all those silly “widgets” in New Blogger.  I have chosen my guinea pig and hopefully you will soon see something … worth seeing …

In other news, I mentioned that I was trying to get rid of some old scrapbooking supplies.  Well, completely by coincidence, I received an email from a friend who is going on a mission trip to Russia to minister to women and they need … wait for it … SCRAPBOOKING SUPPLIES.  She asked if I had anything I could donate.

HELL YEAH.

I have 14 albums, 7 refill packs, 120 punches, 2 Paper/Stickers Binders with a box full of pocket pages, 2 Paper Takers, 80 large sheets of stickers, and 1,800 sheets of patterned paper that will make their way overseas in a few months.  But more importantly, they will be OUT OF MY HOUSE in a few days, which means my office closet will be de-cluttered just in time to put the house on the market.

Speaking of which, the flooring company comes Monday to install the laminate downstairs, and after that we’re in business.  I know you can’t see me freaking out right now, but suffice it to say that I have chewed off every single fingernail on my hands.

Yeah, baby.