Girls' Weekend

Friday morning, Rudy and Caleb left Nola and I home alone for the weekend. Rudy and one of his college friends went on a turkey hunting trip. They dropped Caleb off in Ft. Smith with Jan. Nola and I were on our own for our first-ever girls' weekend. I'll get to that in a minute, but for posterity's sake, let me say that Rudy killed his first turkey on the trip. As a result, Caleb met me at the door on Sunday with a ziploc bag containing 2 turkey feet and a turkey beard. Eww. (They did NOT come any further into the house than the garage, by the way.) He was also toting a new Spiderman toy and multiple kids' meal toys and sporting a temporary tattoo. All of the above are sure signs that he has spent a couple of days with one (or more) of his grandparents.

So, what do you do when you have 2 1/2 days all to yourself, with only a 2 month old baby to care for? Well, I don't know about you but I did as little as possible for most of it. Nola and I literally didn't leave the house (pretty much the living room) from Thursday afternoon until Saturday afternoon. We watched a couple of movies and a lot of DVR'd TV shows. We ate and slept and that's about it. On Saturday afternoon, I'd had about all of the sloth life I could take. I got cleaned up and off we went. We stopped in a few shops looking for a couple of baby gifts. Let me just say...I cannot believe what people are willing to pay for shoes, clothes and other baby stuff. I was astonished (appalled, really) to see $75 outfits for newborn babies. Juicy Coutour? Baby Dior? Really???

Needless to say, we didn't find what we were looking for, so we changed our gameplan and went to Hobby Lobby for a craftier gift. Now, I just have to get crafty and make the gift. After our HL stop, we stopped at Kathy's for a quick bottle and diaper change for Nola and then headed off to the grocery store. Sunday morning, we were up and at 'em and made it to church with time to spare. Nola was a little fussy, but I didn't think much about it. Then...she spit up all over the front of my dress in the middle of the opening hymn. I headed for the bathroom and got myself cleaned up as best I could. I sat through the rest of the service with her in her carrier, trying not to be grossed out by the smell of my dress. But I really wanted to hear the sermon because Carness was starting a series on world religions and I'm really interested in hearing it. Rudy and Caleb got home not long after Nola and I did. We did some things around the house and then the boys took a little trip to the driving range. Rudy's report: Caleb's not ready for the driving range. (I thought that was a pretty funny deduction.)

That afternoon and evening, Nola was still fussy and she actually spit up 3 more times. I was trying desparately to get things together so that my return to work on Monday morning would be as smooth as possible. I packed her bag, my bag and Caleb's bag. I laid out all of our clothes. Rudy made our lunches. We were prepared! Before bed, I noticed that Nola was a little warm and took her temp. Sure enough, she had a low-grade fever. I tried not to panic, but realized that I might have to go back to work with a sick baby at home. (Honestly, I'm not sure what's worse on the first day back after maternity leave - a sick baby at home or a well baby at daycare.) I took it again before I went to bed and it was normal. Hallelujah!