On Being a "Stay at Home"

Today was my first real day of staying at home while Tom went to work. I'm officially on maternity leave, though Baby Lew isn't expected for a couple more weeks. It was awesome! I really think I'm going to like being a stay-at-home. (I can't quite claim to be a stay-at-home-mom yet).

I started out with a couple cups of decaf coffee on the front porch, while the neighborhood loose dogs came by to visit Ruby at the gate. The neighborhood loose dogs are loose in the sense that they're not tied up. I'm not saying anything about their promiscuity, though I am glad that Ruby has been fixed. After that, I discovered that Facebook has some fun features like chatting! I chatted with a couple of high school friends and also with a couple La Ceiba friends.

Our maid arrived to do some cleaning around 11. We chatted about the holidays and our families for awhile. Since we were out of laundry soap, I strolled down the street to buy a 2 serving bag of soap so she could do laundry. After reading a few more blogs and sitting out on the porch again for awhile, I was ready for Tom to come home from his long day at the office.
Tom rolled in around 2 on his fancy wheels- his Schwinn mountain bike- and we caught up on the day's happenings at school. I wanted to hear about all I had missed!

I definitely think that I'm going to need some projects to get me through the next few weeks. Although playing on the internet was fun today for a few hours, I don't want to do that every day. I've got a few sewing projects and cooking ideas. I also need to pack a bag for the hospital at some point. That should keep me busy for a little while. Tom suggested I take up the hobby of pickling and canning. Hmmm... I'm open to other suggestions.

Home Sweet Home

We made it! And I didn't even go into labor on the plane or anything!

Tom and I are home in our 80 degree house and so happy to be here. We did arrive with a few less things than we left with. Okay, we arrived empty handed. When we left Omaha yesterday morning, we had a stroller/carseat (my beautiful new Chicco) and two suitcases, and a backpack. We're home safely with our backpack. The rest- well that's a long story...

We had such an easy time in Omaha when the nice lady at Northwest told me that I could "valet check" or gate check my stroller/carseat combo. I thought this would be a good idea because it wouldn't be handled as roughly as other luggage. We wheeled it to our departure gate and were prepared to meet it in our destination city, Chicago. The nice lady said she'd check it through to there since we wouldn't actually need it during our 1 hour layover in Minneapolis. Upon arrival in Minneapolis, we were treated to a ride on the Special People Cart. Since I'm preggo, a nice gentleman set us up with a sweet ride to our next gate.

We arrived in Chicago O'Hare with our 2 suitcases and the backpack, however the stroller/carseat was nowhere to be found! Since it had been gate checked it didn't have the tracking tags on it- just a tag on each that listed its destination. The guy in the lost luggage office at O'Hare was pretty busy and not really a lot of help to us. He was in the middle of dealing with a dog mixup. Apparantly, two dogs with two different destinations (ORD and ORF) were switched and ended up in the wrong cities with the wrong families! This situation made my missing stroller/carseat seem a lot less troubling.

We then had to take a shuttle from O'Hare to Midway airport so we'd be ready for our early morning flight today. We talked with a kind woman in the Midway lost baggage and she helped straighten a few things out and gave us some resources. After arriving at our hotel, Tom proceeded to file the appropriate claims and call all the right people - what a great husband! By 11:45pm, we had received the status that our stroller/carseat was probably gone for good. Nobody had seen it anywhere, and that they'd probably be buying and sending us a brand new one. In the time it takes for the claim to be processed and shipping to occur, they gave us $100 credit to buy a new stroller. The woman on the phone encouraged us to take a midnight taxi to Walmart, buy a stroller, and present the receipt for reimbursement at our 5am check in. I went shopping on Amazon instead. This is what Northwest airlines is buying us for our stroller/carseat troubles:

We woke up at 4am and went to the Midway airport, checked our 2 remaining suitcases and got on our plane. There was a very tight connection in Atlanta (only about 20 minutes because our plane was running late). While we made it to the connecting gate just in time, our luggage did not. Upon arrival in San Pedro Sula, we were down to just our backpack. The people at Delta have located our 2 suitcases and they'll be arriving into La Ceiba tomorrow night. No real biggie, but OF COURSE we'd lose our other 2 bags too!

While the trip home was stressful at times, Tom and I both did a really great job of not getting too worked up. Travel itself is exhausting enough, and I now understand why women in their 8th month of pregnancy don't often travel. The baby is still happily hanging out inside me, and I'm hoping he'll be comfy there for a few more weeks. We're going to fetch our dog in a few minutes and then we'll be so happy to sleep in our own bed tonight. Home Sweet Home!

The Chicco Cortina Travel System

This dream has become a reality for Karine. She actually started weeping when I assembled it in my mother's living room. Tears of pure joy. Now we just have to get it back to Honduras.

Baby Trike

Karine and I are huge fans of Sarah Palin. We think she is adorable. Governor Palin has many wonderful qualities. She is hot. She says really funny things. She winks a lot. She shoots moose and makes burgers out of them. She is a trend setting baby namer.

It is no doubt the Palin influence which led us to seriously consider naming our little boy Trike. We have decided against it. We donate this name to our community of loyal readers. Enjoy!


We also considered Baby Tank.

Baby Hephaestus

Hephaestus was a pretty cool guy. He made thunderbolts for Zeus and was married to the most beautiful creature in the Universe. He was a big supporter of technology, artisans, and fire. And he was really, really strong.

But he was also really ugly. So that name is out too.

Sledding

Tom is great with kids. Here is what happened when he took our nieces and nephew sledding last week. We think that is it very, very cold in Minnesota. Also, going places can be sort of difficult.

Stuff We Like: Miniature Statues

We got some sweet new knickknacks for Christmas. We love knickknacks. Here are some miniature statues of Albert Einstein and Louisa May Alcott. Aunt Betsy gave them to us. You can remove the heads and store tiny treasures in their neck cavities. Awesome!