I hate home

After returning Wednesday night from a week long visit to New York for my sister's wedding, 2 full days at home was clearly more than enough.

On one of those days, we transformed the guest room from this....

Who knew babies need SO MUCH STUFF?

to this.

It now has only a bed and baby stuff.

Technically Eric did all the hard work, but I did some cleaning and provided emotional support. I'm not sure we can quite call it a "nursery" yet, but it's one step closer.

Friday night, Kara came up to Baltimore for a sleepover. Despite an excessive amount of hair braiding and naked pillow fighting, we still managed to get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday, and begin an epic road trip to Connecticut. Our third blogging musketeer Kari had her adorable baby boy two months ago and we were overdue for some baby time.

Kara was in charge of photography and this is what I got.

We had to do two takes to get a proper picture. The first one made us look like total fatties.

Plus those jerks didn't even tell me I was supposed to wear pink, so I just stayed in my pajamas.

We had a redo in the correct blogger poses.

 So much skinnier. Especially me.

I'm really working on my new mother karma. I spent many years without baby fever, tuning out diaper talks, and showing up empty handed to friends houses to half heartedly compliment their babies. Now I'm trying to make up for many horrible faux pas and at least provide food to new parents. I made lasagna for Kari and Mike and hopefully earned extra points by picking the basil for the homemade sauce myself from my mom's backyard. If I was really a good friend I would have made the sauce and cheese and noodles, but I'm not.

It does not get more local.

Everything in Connecticut is super fancy. They don't even allow fast food. Once we arrived Saturday afternoon, we got some fancy gourmet sandwiches and ate them in the perfect weather overlooking the beautiful beach.



The rest of the day was spent soaking in baby time and traumatizing me with birth/post-partum stories. Actually, that continued on Sunday too. We had a wild Saturday night around the fire pit with drinks (I had grapefruit juice with lime).




We got back on the road Sunday at noon, which meant we spent nearly a full 24 hours visiting. Then we began the torture of the drive back home. I have a lot of friends and family in various places, and go on more road trips than the average bear. I rarely complain about them. However, this one is a special one.

Theoretically, the drive is under five hours. However, looking at the map should show at least my East Coast readers a huge problem.

Basically anyway you slice it, you are going by the Big Apple, and even worse, spending significant time on the Jersey turnpike. Driving on the Jersey turnpike and/or near NYC is an experience that ranges from terrible to at the mercy of Ramsay Snow.

The Jersey turnpike. Lots of sitting at a standstill for no apparent reason.

Luckily Kara drove the whole way, and it only took about 6.5 hours for me to get home, which is probably one of the shortest return trips from Kari's I've made.

Long ago, it was tough to eat healthy on road trips, but now, tons of nutritious options exist. I didn't choose any of them, but they were there.

Mac and cheese and chips

Just kidding, I also had a diet coke, so totally healthy. I was exhausted from sitting all day when I got home so I had cereal for dinner.

Tomorrow, Eric and I are leaving again for an anniversary trip, and what I like to call our baby moon (he hates that phrase). Just a few quiet days in the Poconos, so nothing crazy.

Ok, I know that it is completely impossible for the baby to like.... punch a hole through my uterus and then tear right through my skin. I mean obviously that's ridiculous. But sometimes it really feels like he is trying to escape that way.

Feeling him move all the time is wonderful, I'm just saying that sometimes the amount of force can freak me out a bit. Is this normal or was Eric's dream that we had an abnormally strong baby based on reality?

Another exciting development is that he can now reach my ribs, I think. He's been reaching closer and closer the past few days. I've always heard people say "the baby is kicking me in the ribs" and wondered what the heck that felt like. Now I'm fairly sure I know.

What's your favorite road trip food?