Today's post, then, is not about knitting (surprise!) but about our first overnight outing with the Bean. I'm lying, of course, since we spent two weeks with him in Mississippi, but his grandma got Conrad a car seat, a bed, a bouncy chair, and a bathtub, so it all seemed just like home. Last weekend, however, we went to Pittsburgh and stayed at a hotel, which was quite adventurous. Since Conrad had proven himself to be an excellent air traveler (he's completely unfazed by airport- and airplane noise) we went about flying to Pittsburgh cool as cucumbers, only to realize once we got there that we needed a car seat for the rental car and that the Bean had nowhere to sleep, to bathe, and to have his diapers changed. Getting a car seat was wonderfully uncomplicated and not worth the tears I had shed in frightful anticipation (apparently every car rental place also rents infant seats); the solution to the bathing problem was also easy: we simply didn't bathe the Bean. Diaper changes, sleep, and play? Here:
Owning a full-sized bed ourselves, we've always been in confused awe at king-sized beds. Now that we're traveling with a Bean in tow, king size is making perfect sense. For a little Bean, that's plenty of room to play, sleep, and get one's undies changed, all the while the parents are hanging out with ya. (Co-sleeping did make me a tad nervous though, and I was happy that the hotel provided us with an infant travel bed the following night. I was almost shocked by how accommodating the hotel was.) We ended up spending a lot of time in bed even during the day, as it was rainy and gray the two-and-a-half days we were there, and our plans to go for long walks and such went to naught.
And the reason for flying to Pittsburgh in the first place, the curious reader asks? A million years ago, last September, I agreed to speak at a conference, foolishly assuming that at the age of two months Conrad would stay at home with his dad while I traveled by myself. Foolish was the thought not because Dear Husband can't handle the Bean for a weekend--he's proven himself to be a very independent babywearing/-feeding/-changing/-soothing sort of dad--but because it would have broken my heart to be separated from the Bean for so long. So, we all went to Pittsburgh, and while DH and Bean rolled around in bed, I spent the mornings conferencing (but I skipped the afternoons).
And (1) to talk to adults and (2) to talk to adults about topics not related to babies was almost mind-blowing. Although at some point I couldn't help myself but dragged this poor guy into a conversation about pumping breastmilk, only because he had mentioned the word "bottle." Except for that one instance I did pretty well, and no-one can accuse me of mommyjacking.
Now, we had been very excited to go to Pittsburgh, but as it turned out, while we sort of were in Pittsburg, we weren't really in Pittsburgh. The conference location was great, but the conference hotel was squished into a strange dystopian American landscape: looking out of our top floor window, we saw an interstate to the left, a row of chain restaurants in front of us, and a Walmart superstore to our immediate right. It was sad. The only afternoon stroll that the weather permitted took us to the Pittsburgh Strip, and that made up for the otherwise unfortunate impression we got of the city: the Strip has a gazillion of restaurants, and we ate ourselves silly on Enrico's biscotti and the best baklava ever. (The baklava alone are worth a trip to Pittsburgh, I kid you not. We were told that the secret was butter--isn't butter always the secret?--for these baklava [and what, please, is the plural of baklava?] were Syrian and not made with honey. OMG, so good!)
And now I going to catch up on y'alls blog posts and see what's happened in your lives recently. I haven't really followed anyone in, well, two months.
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