Adventures in Mobility

Alas, we have reached a new phase in the Cali girl household. Yes, the weather is warmer, the flowers are blooming, the hummingbirds are out. The grapevine has tons of wee baby grapes on it. The pomegranate tree is starting to bulk up with baby pomegranates.

But that's outside. Inside, we have a whole other cup of coffee brewing.

We're crawling.

Well, let me rephrase that to say, "Maya is crawling."

She's been practicing the crawl for an awfully long time now. Getting up on all fours, rocking back and forth... But she couldn't figure out how to coordinate putting one hand in front of the other, and one knee in front of the other for the longest time! I kept thinking -- she's about to crawl... in a week we'll have a crawler... but alas, she had different plans.

Last Monday I left for Vegas for a quick work trip. I really was not worried about it. My New York trip in March totally had me prepared for this. Vegas is a quick hour flight away, I'd be back by Wednesday, and to be totally honest, I really looked forward to some good wine and a luxurious bathtub. We were at a meeting/conference at the Red Rock, and the rooms there are quite nice. So I was game.

I had a dinner commitment with a customer for Tuesday night, but nothing for Monday night. There was an opening reception in the exhibit hall for Monday night, so I envisioned bringing up a glass of red to my room, ordering some room service, getting in the tub, and chilling out. Life with a baby doesn't offer much opportunity to be selfish and lazy!

Well, as the saying goes, make plans and then let god decide. At the reception, our CEO was in discussion with some other colleagues about their dinner with another customer that evening. I guess she was not too interested to join - it was a group of men, all they'd probably do is drink, smoke cigars, and trash women (one of them is going through a nasty divorce and is in the "women suck" phase). So she turned to me and said, "Cali girl, we're going out for dinner!" Oy! I mean, I was definitely looking forward to the opportunity for some one on one time with her, but that just about killed my plans for a quiet, zen evening.

We ended up having a nice time though... Ordered some good wine (she's a wine afficionado) and had lots of great conversation. She really wanted to know how it was being a mom (she has no kids and is quite anti-kid to be honest) and how it was balancing life with a kid. She asked about H (she knows him) and how his business is surviving in this bleak economy. We just had a nice, genuine, heart-to-heart talk and it was really nice.

Anyways (gosh, I'm rambling), the meeting was great and I did enjoy myself -- seeing some great customers, having nice meals, general good times. I got home Wednesday right in the middle of rush hour traffic (God bless) and battled the freeway home. I ran my little legs in as fast as I could because it was right around Maya's bedtime, and as I came in, I saw her in the crib (via the monitor). She was still awake, but at that point I didn't want to go in there -- if she saw me she'd get excited and it would be hard for her to settle down.

In the morning I was so excited to see her and I scooped her out of her crib... ahhh, there is nothing as heavenly as seeing your babe after a few days of not being together. I went to work and came home as quickly as I could in the late afternoon... and when I went into her room, she crawled over to me! It was so awesome!

Friday and Saturday turned into "Operation Babyproof." We had done some preliminary babyproofing when we saw she was practicing crawling, but we had to get the big guns out. H and I went to a local baby-proofing store and bought gates, plug covers, and other random supplies. We moved out sketchy furniture from the living room/dining room.

And now, it's "go baby go!" It's so much fun to just sit her down and see where she'll roam! We've had to retire the bouncy chair (she just does not want to sit still) and I believe the jumparoo is about to go as well.

We had a really nice weekend -- some nasty drama H had with EEW on Thursday dared to ruin it -- but we did not let it. On Sunday we had some family and friends over for a BBQ and pool-time, and as always, it was lovely.


By the end of the weekend, my girl was standing!!


It was painful easing back into work today, but now we're on with the week. And since I don't work Fridays, it's a 3 day week for me!!