I apologize for the lapse in my blog.  I’ve spent the entire month screwing up my son’s schedule, which in turn screws up mine.

First, I spent two weeks with my mother-in-law in town.  Then, a few hours after I took her to the airport Angel drove me to Chicago to spend the night with Laura and Kyle and their munchkin before hitching a ride with them to Midway and flying down to Phoenix- where I then stayed for 8 days.  I got home early this morning (2:30am), so with all of that going on my blog has been lost in the shuffle.

I had my first Mother’s Day:

Which involved a lot of baby snuggles and turning the heater back on in the house- ugh.  Will winter never end?  For Mother’s Day, Lucas’ gift to my was taking my iPad off of my hands:

I miss Arizona.  My supportive husband encouraged me to make a trip down to visit my friends, so I RSVP’d to a wedding, crashed at my brother and sister’s house, and then made plans for every lunch, dinner, and happy hour between touch down and take off.

I spent Wednesday night and Thursday morning in Chicago before heading to the airport.  Lucas had quite the time playing with all of Hailey’s toys and it appears that Angel and I need to get Lucas a slinky.

I have the world’s best traveling baby.  Seriously.  Our flight from Chicago took off at 7, which is 8pm in Michigan and only 30 minutes before bed time.  but my awesome baby just curled up against me and was sound asleep before take off.  Since the flight wasn’t full and the seat next to me was open I laid him down on it and cashed in some drink coupons when the flight attendant came by.  My traveling companions had the same luck with Hailey and the three of us enjoyed some adult beverages for 3 hours.  Meanwhile, it seemed like all of the other parents were having troubles with their little ones and probably cursing the three of us and our perfect children and beers.  But I proudly (and lovingly) stared at my little munchkin and high-fived myself for not being that mom.

On Friday night I went to a wedding reception for a friend from the MBA program with a few of my other MBA friends.  It was great to hand Lucas off to his God Parents who were so excited to spend the evening with him!  Until probably 7:30 when my adorable baby turned into a cranky east-coast-time-zone baby and screamed for a solid hour before they could finally calm him down enough to sleep.  I adore them for putting up with him and REALLY appreciate my evening off of mom duty.  I get those so rarely.  And by “so rarely” I mean this was the third babysitter in 6 months, rare.

On Saturday I went to a pool party and put my water baby in the water for the first time.  Little Dude LOVED it!!  He was splashing and loving life and I was appreciating the fact that everyone pretended not to notice my stretch marks in my bathing suit

Then I went back to Paul and Michelle’s house, where my mom was also staying for a few days to spend time with us:

On Sunday we put Lucas back in the pool, grilled, and I missed the Arizona lifestyle a little bit more.

My brother asked me the first night if it felt weird to be back in Arizona and not go “home” and I said no.  Because at the time, it wasn’t.  But then on Monday I went over to Katie and Jeff’s house, who happen to be my old neighbors.  They threw a block party and at the end of the evening it felt weird to get in a car and drive by my house, see the lights on, and keep driving.  My neighbor’s told me that my tenant’s son is in town from college for the summer and when I drove by and saw the light on in what Angel and I made Lucas’ nursery, I cried.  For the first time I had a pang of that being my house, my neighbors, my son’s room and it just wasn’t okay that it wasn’t my home.  So I guess you really can’t go home again.

On Monday our tenants gave notice that they were moving out on July 19th in our other house.  So I spent the week hiring a Realtor, picking paint colors (since it appears that we now desperately need to paint that house), and officially making this trip an IRS write-off for checking on our rental properties.  In good news, the Realtor that I hired already has a tenant in mind who saw the house this weekend and loves it so she’s not eve listing it in MLS.  Check that off the list.

The rest of the week was a parade of meeting with friends, family, old coworkers, more friends, more family, and even more friends.  I miss them all.  And by the end of the week the trip became bitter sweet because I loved seeing everyone but felt like I was running around saying goodbye to everyone again.

Yesterday, sweet little Lucas decided that it was the perfect time to start teething.  I mean, I thought he was before, but then he started having some interesting diapers, screaming for seemingly no reason, and completely inconsolable.  Sounds like a perfect day to travel!  You remember those high-fives for not being that mom on the plane?  Well, karma is a bitch.  It started out like this:

But quickly went downhill once we took off.  Never again will I travel without baby Tylenol.  Actually, never again will I leave the HOUSE without baby Tylenol.  Maybe I’ll just tape a secret stash of the gold to my hip in case of baby teething emergency.

In the good news, the drunk folks sitting a few rows up had surrounding travelers pissed off and commenting that the baby behaved better (plus a few choice colorful words) so at least their anger at a bad 3 hour flight was directed to people who didn’t choose that day to start teething.  Thank you, drunk travelers.  I’m jealous, and I would also like to buy you another round.

Today, to celebrate getting the baby home without bursting into tears myself, I spent all day in my pajamas playing with Lucas on the floor and feeding him Tylenol and boob every few hours.  If only babies could be born with a full set of teeth to spare their parents what I imagine are a few hard nights ahead of me….

Anyway, my trip home was awesome but reminded me of a few verses from the song The House That Built Me: