All By Myself...

Tuesday, Loran left for another business trip to San Francisco and Seattle (Google and Amazon). I give huge credit to single moms. This stuff is hard.

Tuesday, I attempted to bring Ella to school, which meant I had to bring Lily to school. I decided this would best be handled by putting Lily in the front pack, since that thing puts her into an instant coma - I figured I could buy a couple of crying free hours, complements of my body heat and heartbeat. It worked! Ella's teacher lifted Ella during the song "Grand Old Duke of York" but otherwise, I was completely in control of the situation! Lily slept the entire time, waking only at the end to realize she hadn't eaten in a few hours. We raced home, fed the baby and all was good.

Lily O'Gutt

Wednesday was St. Patty's day. We're not Irish, but we dressed Lily up to be Irish. My grandparents brought us some corned beef sandwiches for lunch. My mom invited us over to their place for dinner and in the afternoon, my awesome friend, Rachel brought us spaghetti pie for future dinner (Friday!). I felt very loved, because anyone who knows me, knows that not having to cook = show of love. But of course, there had to be a hitch, things couldn't go this well with Loran out of town. As I was standing outside talking to Rachel before she left, basking in the warm weather, Ella stood in the doorway watching us, then with her new-found height, reached up and locked me out of the house. Luckily, we have a spare key hidden, but that was certainly delightful. Luckily, the spare was still hidden and not misplaced from the last time one of us locked everyone out.

Great Grandma reads with Ella

Grandpa got the doll house out of the attic and Ella dove right in!

This is the "roar stick" it's a cat toy, Ella likes to wildly swing it around and say "roar!" There are no cats within a 10 mile radius when Ella has the roar stick. The belly laughter produced is priceless, even if a toddler with a stick is a little dangerous!

Grandma gets a lashing from the roar stick.

Lily helped Grandma do dishes, but is laying low to avoid the roar stick...

Grandpa and Lily

Wednesday overnight proved to be quite trying. Lily was back to her crying jags, which left me in tears also, and I didn't get to sleep until after 2am, then she was up at 4 until 5 and then again at 7. Meanwhile, I was learned overnight that Loran had checked into the hotel and because he was the last in and they were running short on rooms, he was upgraded to a suite. So, he gets to live the suite life, and I'm trying to convince a newborn that sleep is awesome.

A suite?!

Thursday, after getting about four hours of sleep, I was up in time to have Ella ready for PT. After PT, we piled into the car and took a little girl-family road trip down to Mankato (only a two hour drive...one way). This trip was sponsored by coffee and Diet Coke. We had a great time with Chelsey, Megan and Ashley. Ella came home with a new word. Maybe. Except, when she says it, she sounds a little like a Frenchman. Our drive home was pretty uneventful, luckily. In the few hours we'd been in Mankato, the deer vs car challengers were stacking up along the main highway in/out of town. Apparently, the rising river is causing the deer to look for higher ground. That higher ground is the highway. I saw plenty of live opponents still hanging out on the side of the road, so I was happy to not have to challenge them.

Friday was our hang-out day. We slept in a bit, ran some errands and I made some new curtains for Ella's room. And finally, FINALLY, Loran came home around 9pm. Ella was so excited to see him, and we let her stay up so she could play and show off for Daddy.