is it just me?

that I am long overdue for a new post. What else is new. Anyway, just after my last post the lizard family went on vacation, so let's start there, shall we?

braver than I am
We were seated on the plane waiting to take off on one of our two flights (can't remember where.) At the last minute, a new passenger is boarding, being escorted by a flight attendant. It is a tiny woman carrying a tiny baby. And then I see another child behind her. And another, and another. That's right, this woman is traveling alone with four children, all of whom appear to be under the age of five. Now, I have traveled alone with just baby Lizard, and it's not that bad. But four baby lizards? Umm....I don't know about that. And the woman was not even 5 feet tall, which means she could not put a bag in the overhead. The other remarkable thing is that these children sat in their seats, were plied with bottles and some sandwich (see how crazy? three kids young enough to drink from bottles?) and were otherwise offered no assistance or entertainment. I mean, at one point two little ones who appeared to be about three were tyring to help each other buckle their seatbelts. It was nuts. Oh, I should note that at first they were all seated separately. Yes, some genius at the check-in counter looked at this tiny person and her tiny brood and decided to put two of them in first class, and seat the other two separately in the back. Fortunately the flight attendants were clever enough to realize that THIS was a bad idea and fixed it. Also fortunately, she seated them all right in front of me so I could be mystified for my entire flight. Normally, being seated behind three marginally supervised small children would be a nightmare, but these kids were so quiet and good it was kind of spooky. I am not quite sure where I went wrong as parent, but I think it is safe to say that I will never have four tiny children that I can travel alone with. (Hopefully I will never have four tiny children, but I guess if I do I'll just pray they act like these midget kids.)

too friendly?
So, our ultimate destination was Santa Fe for a family wedding. We flew to Albuquerque, stuffed the lizard family plus my mama and papa lizard and all of our affiliated belongings into a too small car and hit the road. We were staying at this ridiculously nice place that a relative had selected and we could not afford. There was a very nice man working as a valet there who took quite an interest in my kid. In fact, he kind of creeped me out. Every time he saw us he would call her by name and wave at her and make her laugh. She thought he was fantastic, especially on day two when he brought her a stuffed animal. A new one. With tags. Just for her. What on earth? He took us an all of our myriad bags to our room and showed us around (it was a quick tour!) and then there was this horrible awkwardness because neither of us had cash on us and clearly he is not doing this for the love of a hotel room tour. But we agreed that although he was kind of creepy he was also a genius because we felt that we owed him big tips all the time. I mean, the guy bought my kid a present. And she loved it. It was a little javelina which is some kind of wild pig and she carried it around the state and even learned to say javelina which, I have to admit, was pretty cute.

So, we stayed at this ridiculously expensive place and ate $8 cheerios for breakfast and did not dare touch the mini bar. I have to say that it definitely wasn't twice as nice as your standard hotel, despite being twice the price. And while I enjoy a nice hotel as much - or more! - than the next person, I don't like feeling like I am being robbed blind. So, as soon as the rest of our family left, we moved to a cheaper place for the duration of our vacation. And that is when we learned that "you get what you pay for" is not a meaningless phrase. Now, this new place was kind of a bizarre condo complex that also runs a rental business. But the place was weird and the service dubious. The worst was when we decided to take advantage of their continental breakfast. We arrived in the dining area at 8:30 (service ended at 9) and there was...nothing. The juice machine was turned off, there were a handful of hard bagels in a plastic box, and that was it. It was completely bizarre. At some point this older guy who was in there chatting asked if my kid would like some cheerios (yes she would) and he disappeared and came back with a dixie cup full of cheerios. We cracked our jaws on some stale bagels, and vowed never to return.

tiny pots
One stop on our trip was a visit to a pueblo. We weren't really sure what this meant, but lots of people told us to do it, so we did. I thought it was weird that you would go to what is effectively a neighborhood of native americans and just walk around and...what? look? gawk? feel like a weirdo? So, we picked one that seemed to have an established thing for visitors, hoping that would make it less awkward. We got there, paid our entrance fee, got a map (of an area of about four square blocks, haha) and walked around. And it was kind of weird, just as we suspected. But this pueblo is well known for a particular kind of pottery, and several people run shops out of their home. So, we picked one at random and walked in. We see about six pots on a shelf in someone's living room, a two year old watching cartoons, and no sign of anyone else. Then this old woman comes out and tells us in Spanish that someone is coming. So, this middle aged guy comes out and at this point we're feeling kind of weird about standing in his living room but we feel like we should look at his pots. Then he kind of got rolling and starting telling us about how it was made, etc. Then he offered my kid a homemade tortilla, and I accepted because homemade tortillas are delicious. So, finally we decide to buy a tiny pot, and tell him so and then he says "this one is $70". WHAT? Apparently our faces showed our shock because he immediately reminded us that they were hand made and painted and blah blah. So at this point, what with the tortillas and all, we kind of feel like we have to buy it so we do. While he's wrapping it up, he offers US tortillas. We first decline, but then he says "you pregnant, you need to eat!" and I really love tortillas. Then he says we need Coke. heh. So he brings this plate of tortillas and this giant tub of Country Crock and a knife, and two generic brand grape sodas. HA. He putters around endlessly wrapping our pot, while we sit there and eat delicious tortillas. And truthfully, by the time I left there with my tiny pot I hardly felt ripped off at all.

the wedding
Going to a wedding when you can't really drink and look silly dancing and kind of want to be in bed is not that awesome. Getting married by your brother who apparently was always meant to be a wedding officiant is pretty awesome. The groom changing out of his suit and into track pants and a t-shirt so he can breakdance is super awesome.

the rest
The rest of our trip was spent driving and hiking around the area around Santa Fe enjoying the fall colors and beautiful weather and scenery. And while I am not sure that I would recommend a hiking destination at altitude when one is 7.5 months pregnant, we had a great time. We ate a lot of food that involved tortillas, chilis and cheese, saw a lot of beautiful places and came home happy. the end.

freak of nature
I have now entered the final stages of pregnancy. Something happens during the end of pregnancy where you cross the line from someone with a cute belly to someone who has this giant alien attachment to their front. And although people look at you and tell you either that you look fabulous or you look "big" you can see in their eyes that they are vaguely horrified by your condition and are secretly praying for you that it is temporary. And this is sort of how I feel as well. I mean, yeah, it's a miracle or whatever but it is also a CRAZY process where your body turns in to this completely bizarre thing that you can't quite believe is yours. And at the same time you start to feel not so tip top. In the grand scheme of pregnant people, I feel pretty good. But let's face it, it is not the most fun a person can have. And while I have not yet reached the stage of "get this baby out!" I have reached the stage where I am glad it is not any longer than it is (just under a month). And I will be happy that everyone stops looking at me like that. Seriously, people. I can see you.

super duper
I sometimes worry that I am becoming too Madison. It's a nice place, but people here are kind of weird. Mostly in a good way, but I don't want to cross that line into total liberal college town merrell and fleece wearing person who can't look nice if their life depends on it. And I don't want to age prematurely. Therefore, I am concerned by two things: I go to yoga class at a yoga co-op, and I recently went to a chamber music house concert. Really, a yoga co-op. Does it get any crunchier than that? We all have our Sigg bottles and our recycled mats (actually, mine is just a regular mat) and we 'share' before class. Eeek. Fortunately it's fat lady (aka pregnant lady) yoga so soon I will be done. And the house concert. Well, it was kind of cool to hear classical music played in someone's living room. But we were the youngest people there by a solid 15 years, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself which worried me. I was vaguely consoled by the fact that our college-aged babysitter actually believed us when we joked that we were going to this campus bar where the average patron age is about 19.5 after the concert, and might be home late. At least people think it is possible that we are still young and crazy and cool.

jacked up kid stuff part two
Apparently not only are some kid books kind of wacko, but lots of things on tv are too. Baby Lizard thinks that she really likes watching tv, and she asks to do it but the truth is she has an attention span of about 4 minutes for it. Except for her Elmo DVDs which she can watch in their entirety. So my question is - why do all the kids on Elmo (and a decent number on Sesame Street in general) seem borderline retarded? I mean, clearly there are lots of kids out there who are relatively normal and could presumably act that way in front of a camera? But they have all these kids who talk weird and don't sound very smart. I find it kind of baffling. Also, I have recently seen a few minutes of some kid shows that have adults in them, and I am kind of intrigued by what they are like in real life. I mean, on TV they talk funny and act like real dorks, but that's why kids like them. But maybe they are just normal people who wanted to be actors and weren't able to really make the big time and so ended up with these weird kid gigs? You know, like Urkel? I am very curious about them.

okay, that's all. I will try to remember to post before another month goes by so no one does anything rash like remove me from their RSS feed.