Good morning. Today already feels heavy, with super gloomy skies outside and closing arguments of the trial of Derek Chauvin on the TV, but I am trying to keep the faith and remain optimistic. How was your weekend? Ours was momentous because Joey and I had an honest to God date night for the first time since Dempsey was born (but also since way before that because we took quarantine pretty seriously all of last year)!!!! Felt good. AND… Dempsey finally finally finally gave us a real laugh. Worth the wait!

Joey was on a Friday afternoon run, so I entertained Dempsey with… a La Croix can?? He has so many real toys but all he wants is tags and cans. I maybe taped over the top, so he couldn’t cut himself on the opening. Ha! Joey dressed him up for dinner and we ate a real good quiche that had lots of fresh herbs and feta in it. After Dempsey went to bed, we started the Live Action Oscar-Nominated Shorts. Made it through all but the last one before I was ready to fall asleep on the couch, but I was so moved by “Feeling Through,” the story of a chance meeting between a homeless young man and a deaf and blind man. So sweet 🙂

Um Dempsey’s new thing is to wake up at 5 AM and that is a huge NO. I’ve tried to do some research and he’s either going to bed too early or going to bed too late, so that’s helpful. I think maybe he just wanted me to be able to catch the end of Bang Bang Con 21! Last April, BTS streamed past concerts in full on YouTube for two days and good lord, was it thrilling to watch, but that was back when pregnancy insomnia and no baby to take care of during the day made it easy to watch something taking place over night. I caught the end of the first concert when I randomly woke up at 1:30 AM and then got to watch the second half of the third concert when Demps woke up. Guys, I don’t need coffee, I just need to wake up and watch the “Dope,” “Silver Spoon,” “Fire,” “Idol” medley from the São Paulo concert. I’m so sad it’s over! Joey made us lemon buttermilk pancakes so we could watch the end 🥰 He also snapped THEE CUTEST pic of Dempsey. Do you even see that sweet face?! Later on, I was holding him on the couch and making funny noises and he was legitimately laughing! It was the world’s best sound!

Our date night started with my sis and Wayne coming over to babysit and then we gave them some instructions and off we went! We hit a 4:45 PM showing of Nobody and um, THAT MOVIE RULES! Bob Odenkirk is the best and I was delighted to find out Christopher Lloyd was in it and he’s still got it! Also, more movies with an hour and half run time, please. We realized Friday night that we probably should have made a dinner reservation ahead of time and then we couldn’t find anyplace that had any openings, oops! We decided to try our luck at Cart-Driver and they quoted us an hour and a half!! We called/walked around to a few other places, then decided we’d just wait and lo and behold, our table was ready ten minutes later. We sat at the bar, ordered drinks, spicy Brussels sprouts, two pizzas and only peeked in at Dempsey a few times 🙂 Seemed like he was well-behaved for his babysitters and he was sound asleep when we got home. A successful date night, indeed!

Up at 4:30 AM!!!! But I was able to get him to go back to sleep until 6:30 AM at least. We got a casual breakfast from Huckleberry, then chilled out for a bit. Joey went on a run and I cleaned the upstairs bathrooms while Dempsey napped, then I headed out to get my hair cut. My gal has three kids, so she knows and could relate to all the things we’re experiencing with Dempsey right now. Always fun to chat with another mother and feel so understood 🙂 Back at home, we had a relaxing rest of the day. Dempsey made it from 4:25-7 PM when we put him to bed! I love spending a good chunk of time with him and it’s only going to get better as he’s able to stay awake longer, yay! Guys, he’s going to be 6 months old tomorrow. How???

Please take care!

I made carrot cake baked oatmeal! What is it about spring that makes me only want to eat carrot cake-flavored things?? Italian carrot cake, carrot cake baked oatmeal, carrot cake waffles/pancakes. I know I have a carrot cake overnight oat recipe someplace but I’ll wait until it’s not 40 degrees to break that one out. As for the baked oatmeal, tastes like a delicious cobbler almost?? I love it!

The house my mom grew up next to is for sale, so when she sent me the listing, I asked if you could see her house in the pictures. She pulled up the street view and showed me the very house she lived in as a child. Built in 1900! I so loved seeing where she grew up and hearing her memories of the house. She had aunts, uncles, grandparents, a family bar and her dentist all on the same street too, so how cool is that??

Have I mentioned I’m going into the office one day a week?? Okay, it’s just a half day, but feels nice to socialize with my co-workers again and be out of the house for just a bit. This also means I’m pumping and man do I find it boring and time-consuming, but this is the only time I’m going to complain because women who work full time out of the house have it way way worse. You guys are my heroes!

I feel like I need a paragraph on Dempsey but what do I say other than HE’S PERFECT, I LOVE HIM, ALL THE HARD PARTS ARE TOTALLY FINE AND WORTH IT BECAUSE HE’S THE SMILIEST AND THE BEST?? Also, he just sits up now?? That happened so fast. And okay, he’s not all the way there but he’s doing so good! Oh and my mom nonchalantly texted me yesterday saying “He rolled over.” Maybe it’s because I had been telling him, “Do not make me tell your pediatrician you’re still not rolling at your six month appointment!” 🙂 He loves standing, he loves his Rockies bat, he loves when I loudly say “MAMA” to him (for real, I get thee biggest smiles!) and he loves when Daddy holds him high up in the air. He is just the best!

We tore through the last season of Shameless this week and man oh man did the quality of this show deteriorate. Every character seemed to have a new plotline every episode and they even introduced a new character in the penultimate episode?? It lost it’s timeless feel, it’s stakes and it’s strongest character by the end. I couldn’t stop thinking about how good it used to be! I was at once relieved it was all ending and hit with this overwhelming sadness to see a show that we’ve been watching for TEN YEARS end.

I am so dreaming of a post-vaccination vacation! The logistics of traveling with a baby (where do they sleep? do you have to bring a car seat? what if they need several naps a day?) are intimidating to me, but traipsing around with a cute baby and showing him new sights (watching him look at and take in things is seriously so fun!) sounds amazing! Where should we go and when can it be?!

I’ve also been thinking about all the things that have slipped through the cracks because of COVID. For instance, we moved and bought a treadmill and now I’ll never go back to the rec center we used to work out at and I’ll never see all the other 6 AM exercisers again. That is just so so strange and sad in a way. I am excited to re-enter normal life but maybe also not ready to confront all the ways this pandemic has changed us.

sNOw thank you! I keep having to remind myself of all the snowy Mother’s Days we’ve had because, in my mind, we should be DONE with snow by now. But no, it started coming down mid-Thursday and is still lightly falling now. I guess we (and the dog and the stroller) are in for another weekend. And we even had Saturday night Rockies tickets (that Joey seems to think we’re still using…)! Oh well, hunkering down with a cute baby ain’t so bad 🙂

Please tell me about your week and have a good (and hopefully warmer than us) weekend!