Three Cheers for Freedom!

This week we had our first little trip away from home.  We loaded up dog and baby and a car full of crap (for serious, why so much crap?) and drove a few hours to see our favorite White Hot friends.  Cassie and I had been planning for this holiday since last summer when we both got knocked up.  While our little fetuses (shouldn't the plural form of fetus be feti?) grew bigger and bigger, so did our dreams of gin cocktails, French 75's and rivers of wine.  When the time actually came, we indulged, certainly, but not nearly as much as we'd planned way back when we were, oh, 25 weeks pregnant and feeling like that was the most tired we'd ever be.* So there were earlier bedtimes and a little more tiptoeing than last year.  Still, how awesome it was to hang out with some of our very favorite people and our spawn.  At times, I'd stop and look around and realize again, "Oh my god--we have babies!"  Bananas, I tell you.**

What was even weirder than the fact that, joining us, were a little half-Hugh/half-Cassie and a little half-Matt/half-Mandy, was that those little babes didn't really change things like I had feared they might.  Sure, we had to focus much of our attention on the kiddos, but we could still hang out, love on our pups, and laugh until it hurt.

 Penelope gave her daddy a hug.

And Charlie gave his daddy an anti-hug. 

Since coming home, I've been trying to get rid of all of the unnecessary crap around our house (seriously, why so much crap?), Charlie's been grabbing things and sucking on them, and Matt and I have been trying to teach/train/beg Charlie to nap.  We're one screaming session away from reading him the book gifted to him by my soulmate.  But we're all figuring it out.

 I think that Panda is possessed.  Earlier today it was just sitting on the mantle and began to play music.  

I'm probably going to wake up and see it sitting on my chest with a knife.

How Charlie feels about naps.  Either that, or he knows that Panda is out to get us.

Oh, and I've been taking Charlie to the Forsyth Park farmer's market on Saturday mornings, which basically means that I get to spend the rest of the week sounding like an obnoxious Portlandia character, bragging about local corn and blueberries.  It also means that I've been eating pounds upon pounds of peaches--so many that I actually burned my face with peach juice.  How does that even happen?

Soooooo, how did you spend America's birthday?  And have you been eating lots of local produce?




*Oh, and nobody likes a drunk baby.


**Babynanas.