An update on Mommy, and a cute word from Boba

I had my first mini-vacation for the summer last weekend...I flew up to Seattle to attend the wedding of one of my grad-school classmates. It was a wonderful wedding, and Seattle seems to be a pretty cool city (I say "seems," given I was only there for about 48 hours). The only problem was - well - I hate to get into the details but basically one of my Seattle meals didn't agree with me. In a really bad way. So unfortunately my memories of this weekend are kind of marred by my, um, digestion problem. If not for that, the vacation would have been great! Oh well.

Fortunately, this weekend I'm flying up by myself to visit my husband in Northern California, and though I'm not too thrilled about being separated from Boba, I'm looking forward to some quality time with the hubby. On August 21st we celebrated our 10-year anniversary of meeting each other, and on September 14 we'll celebrate our 5-year wedding anniversary! So, it's a good time for Jason and I to have a romantic weekend together up north. Sorry, Boba, but Doe & Papa will take good care of you!

I don't have any good new photos of Boba to post, unfortunately, but I do have a cute Boba report. She has the most adorable word for "blanket." It's "bwankink." Is that the frickin' CUTEST, or what??!? Oh, and she calls butterflies "utterbwyes." Dance class is "dance cwass." She even has a Filipino accent sometimes; she pronounces the word heavy like "hay-bee." I swear, I'm going to be so depressed when she starts speaking coherently. It can only go downhill from there.

Boba in Halifax

Yes, once again - it's been a while. What can I say??!? My darling child was away from me for another week in early August, during which I was a pretty busy worker bee here at my company...I volunteered to work late (as in, 'til after 10pm) two days that week, plus I had various other commitments that I needed to take care of. Besides that, you ask, was it a restful time??

Well, considering I received a very strained phonecall from my father on Wednesday morning (they had been gone since Sunday) saying that they were coming home a day early (Friday instead of Saturday) because they hadn't slept in 3 days (welcome to MY world!) and because Boba was suffering from a cold - news that should not have sent me in a paralyzed state of fear, but DID, nonetheless - the week was not as stress-free as I would have liked. I realized, very quickly, that breaks where I stayed home and Boba went away weren't conducive to a restful time, mainly because I start doing things like obsessive cleaning and incessant worrying. I guess I could say that the time I spent was productive, in a sense, because I could be 100% present for my job, and then at home I actually had time to complete tasks I hadn't done in a while. But I felt TOTALLY incomplete. Because my child was not around. And I could not be a mother to her.

It turns out, of course, that Boba was just fine, and the cold went away after about 3 days. By the time she came home on Friday - squealing "Mommy!" in glee as I rushed towards her in the airport - she was feeling peachy. And the not-sleeping thing?? Well, totally normal for a tot whose routine has been blown to bits and whose internal clock is going, "WTF - you guys are four hours ahead??" Having gone on "vacation" with her before (I'm convinced that travelling with kids is NEVER a vacation), I know just how hard that transition is, and since she was also probably wondering where the heck her Mommy was all the time, I can completely understand how things were hard for Lolo & Lola.

(I repeatedly told Lolo & Lola how hard it would be to travel with Boba without me, and encouraged them to reconsider taking her with them, but NOOOO...they said they could handle it. So there it is, for all of you who were thinking that I handed her off to them without a second thought!)

In spite of the difficulty, I think they still managed to have a good time, and the photos below only capture a few happy moments...but I'm told there were many, many more.

Right before boarding Thomas the Tugboat

On Thomas...with two safety devices: LifeVest and Pacifier


Outside the guest house on the path to the water

"Hmmm...do I really want to go back to San Diego??"

Mommy Gets a Break (or Two)

Good lord, is it August already?

July just sped by, mainly because of the work factor (mentioned in earlier posts). Things actually slowed down significantly for two reasons:

1. Most of my projects wrapped up in the second-to-last week in July, and,


2. Jason took Boba up with him to Tahoe for a week.

I KNOW!! YOU ALL KNOW WHAT THAT MEANT!! That I, your only-occasionally-present Flambo, had a whopping 3 days to myself last week! Granted, they were 3 mid-week days, so I had to spend the majority of them at work, but I also got to do things like watch Harry Potter 5! And finish reading Harry Potter 7! Which really were the only things I wanted to get done, aside from cleaning the house and stuff...but I know you don't want to hear about that, and god forbid you should hear about a mom who chooses to CLEAN when she gets a break! Yes, I know I'm a complete weirdo like that!

So I had a very restful 3 days - the sleep quotient was FAN-FRICKIN'-TASTIC - but of course it was all tinged with a certain sadness because I did not have my little Boba with me to make life that much more exciting. To be frank, I was very reluctant to have Jason cart her away for the week, because I am her MOM, and all you Moms should know what I'm talking about. Yes, she was in more-than-capable hands; she was in the best care, to say nothing of making her father incredibly happy since he's missed her terribly for the past, oh, 6 weeks. But you know...I worried here and there because there is this weird little voice in my head that keeps insisting that I am the only one in the world who can make this little one happy. Where does this voice come from, you ask? Well, I'm not sure, but I think it's something to do with having had her in my womb for 10 months, and then, you know, there was that little act of birthing her as well.

But I know Jason was up to the task of single-parenting, so for the most part I relaxed and kicked back and basically enjoyed my quiet time. Up in Tahoe, however, Boba and her Daddy were having a rockin' good time, going to the beach, playing with other little friends, going to Gymboree, etc. Here is a lovely photo to prove that the Daddy-Daughter bond is as strong as ever:

Naturally Jason was unable to take many shots of the two of them, but you can see from the following portraits of our beautiful baby girl that he is absolutely in love with his subject.

I joined them late on Friday night, and Boba was so thrilled to see me that she stayed up for about an hour after that...which was a sign of things to come for our sleep situation the following two nights. Yep, my 3 nights of heavenly sleep were followed by some pretty painfully exhausting nights. Oh well. It's all about balance.

And guess what?? Next week I get ANOTHER break, since Lolo & Lola are taking Boba on a vacation with them. Crazy! What will I do with all this free time now??!? Oh, I know...the house will be positively SPARKLING!! ; )