It was John’s birthday today (well, yesterday, seeing as it’s now after midnight), and I’m ashamed to say that I had no present for him. His birthday sort of sneaked up on me, and then jumped out at me from behind the bushes a couple of days ago. “I’ll have time to figure something out,” I thought to myself. And then promptly set aside all thought of the date.

In a last ditch attempt to disqualify myself from the lamest spouse competition (in which I have been a strong contender for many of John’s past birthdays), I determined that I was going to bake a cake.

And lo and behold, I baked a cake.

More amazingly, I managed my first solo outing with both kidlets. You see, we needed groceries in order for me to accomplish my baking goals.

I felt ever-so-capable as I let John sleep in, and managed to get Phoebe breakfast, eat breakfast myself, wrangle Phoebe into her clothing and get myself dressed, while intermittantly either feeding or otherwise tending to Theo. I got Phoebe into her shoes, strapped Theo into the infant carrier/carseat, and we headed out to the car. Stepping outside I realized it was much colder than I’d expected. So we headed back in to get Phoebe’s jacket. Then after running around looking for the jacket, and further toddler-wrangling, we headed out back to the car. I realized as we were in the driveway that I had told Phoebe we’d bring some milk in a sippy cup for her, but not wanting to delay further, I pushed us forward. I plopped Theo’s carrier into the carseat base, buckled Phoebe in, and we headed out. And it was barely past 11:00.

We were about 3 houses up the road when I realized that I’d forgotten our cloth bags for the grocery store. “Gah!” I said. After some internal debate, I turned around and went home. I decided that I should get Phoebe the promised sippy cup of milk, and a snack for the road, too. I bundled us all back into the house, gathered the bags and provisions, and bundled us all back into the car once more.

Amazingly, we made it to the store before noon. I wore Theo in the Bjorn, and Phoebe rode in the cart. (Lifting Phoebe, who weighs a good 35 pounds, was quite a challenge while wearing Theo.) And we shopped without further incident. (At least for the most part. There was a minor meltdown from Phoebe when we arrived at the parking lot when she realized we had forgotten to bring her book, and when I told her we were not going back for it.)

As for the baking, I wasn’t able to make any pretense of surprising John with a baked cake. But bake it I did. Yes, from a mix. But I preheated, measured and stirred with love, dammit.

Here I am again. I have lots to say, but little time to say any of it. Once again, I feel the need to apologize for the sparsity of my comments and comment responses. I can manage to read on my laptop pretty well, and am actually quite well caught up reading the posts in my feed. But seeing as I have a newborn attached to me what feels to be about 75% of my waking hours (plus some of my sleeping hours), most of the typing I’ve been doing lately has been one-handed. And often in the dark, as Theo is bothered by bright lights. My remaining awake time, when I have the use of two hands, I tend to spend eating, fixing food for or otherwise tending to Phoebe, and doing occasional other tasks. I’ve even had more than one shower in the past 3 weeks.

Things are largely good, though our household has been beset by a cold. Phoebe had a minor cold a few days ago, and as of yesterday, the rest of us seem to have caught it. Theo included, poor munchkin.

We went down to see John’s parents this weekend. They were thrilled to get to meet Theo. When Phoebe was born, they drove up from New York they day after we got home from the hospital. But now with John’s dad’s continuing health problems (he is largely unable to leave his bedroom, let alone the state), and with John’s mom being the primary caregiver, they had been unable to meet their newest grandchild. Seeing as Theo got a glowing bill of health at his 2 week appointment on Monday, and seeing as our schedule is looking tight for the next few weeks, we took the opportunity to drive down on Saturday.

Phoebe was very excited to go visit Grammy and Grampa. She’s been asking to visit for a while. She did, however, suggest that we should leave Theo at home for this visit.

The visit was good, but seeing as we did not heed Phoebe’s advice, passed by for me in a bit of a blur of feedings and diaper changes. (Note: I just had to rephrase this, as I had typed “…passed by in a bit of feedings and diaper changes for me.” There are times when one just doesn’t want to leave attachment ambiguity hanging like that.)

We had a phenomenally smooth drive down. Both kiddos slept. We ran into no traffic. As we approached rest areas, we decided to push on, knowing that stopping would mean that Phoebe would be awake from that point forward. In the end, we didn’t stop at all, and arrived in just about 3 hours.

We came back late last night. The ride back was not too bad either, though there was some traffic, and a few stops. Well, I guess the trip was closer to 5 hours. Phoebe was awake for about half of this, demanding that we “talk about” stuff. (One of her most frequent phrases these days is “talk about X.” Current favorite Xs include air conditioners, alarm clocks, and car accidents, a topic that didn’t thrill John as he was driving…) So perhaps it was a bit of a long trip. But there was no screaming, at least.