T-minus 14 hours...

until we leave for the airport. It is difficult to pack when your toddler keeps taking things out of the suitcase and leaving them strewn around the apartment. Thanks for all your advice, I am definitely following your suggestions.

Got to go, Bat Girl is dismantling my suitcase (and muttering, "See...addle!" over and over again--I taught her to say that this afternoon when she is asked "Where are we going tomorrow?"). See you in a week!

Help, please

Next week we (me, the husband, and Bat Girl) are flying cross-country for a dear friend's wedding. When we were planning this trip, I decided that since we were going to have to endure long flights and time change and cranky baby no matter what, we might as well make a whole week out of it. So we are going to be gone for six days. That's six nights in a hotel room. Six days eating out for most meals. Two late nights (rehearsal dinner and wedding) for a child who normally goes to bed at 8 p.m. on the East Coast and instead will be kept up probably past 10 p.m. on the West Coast (that's a five-hour difference). Two coast-to-coast (5.5+ hours) flights with a very active toddler who melted down the last time she was on a plane, nearly a year ago, for just two hours. It's the longest we've ever been away from home with BG and the first time we're going someplace that's not a relative's house (with ability to cook for ourselves, for example).

So obviously I need some advice. I have combed the Internet (including this post of Cecily's) for all sorts of tips, which led me to purchase a Magnadoodle and a stack of Blue's Clues DVDs (we have a portable DVD player, which I tested out on BG on a long car trip a few weeks ago--worked great at toddler anesthetizing, except that she is still rear-facing in her car seat so I have to hold the DVD player for her and/or prop it up on a stack of blankets so the heat from the machine doesn't fry her little legs). I'll probably pack minimal toys--her bear, a few books for bedtime. The kid can entertain herself for ages ripping pages out of magazines or staring out the window at BIG TRUCK! CARS! DOGGIE! so I'm not too worried on that front. And worst comes to worst, we have Blue.

I also bought her her own seat on the plane, and I scored a Volo on eBay for cheap so we wouldn't have to worry about our beloved Techno getting mangled by baggage handlers (and yes, it had to be another Maclaren, not because I'm a snobby Big City mom but because I'm tall and the handle height on those $20 umbrella strollers makes me want to kill myself). We'll be wheeling her in the stroller through the airport and hanging the carseat off the back, then gatechecking the stroller. We have one of those teddy bear backpack harnesses so she can run around in the terminal without us having a heart attack trying to keep track of her.

I made sure we'll have a refrigerator in our hotel rooms (we're staying in two different hotels, just to make things even more complicated) so we can keep milk and yogurt and a few essentials on hand (and hopefully eat most breakfasts in our room to save $), and our first hotel is a few blocks from my mothership, Whole Foods. BG is a pro at eating at restaurants, so we have that covered--although lately she has been more and more impatient with sitting and behaving at the table, so that could blow up in our faces spectacularly. Not sure yet what we'll do for plane food--I'll have to pack something, as there is no meal service on our flight. Flights are scheduled to overlap with naptime, fingers crossed there.

I emailed a friend who lives in the area for toddler activity recommendations. I've been checking the weather obsessively--apparently the Pacific Northwest is still pretty cool but it'll be in the mid to upper 70s by next week. I have a long to-do list of things both minor (buy Purell) and major (buy shoes to wear to wedding). I'm freaking out a little bit. What am I forgetting? Any tips for traveling with an under-2 toddler? Any suggestions for stuff to do in Seattle?

Um.

Yeah. Sorry for leaving you hanging with that teasing post and then not showing up for nearly a week. Work exploded and then it was the weekend and I never have time to blog on the weekend because of being in Mommy mode and then, well, yeah.

So. I don't really know what came over me. I've posted here before about my ambivalence about having another child, swinging from pole to pole depending on the day and the season and whether I've just watched an episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8. (Cute kids! But OMG, there are so many of them!) Some days, I feel so complete in my love for my daughter that I can't imagine needing any more. Some days, I feel so lucky in that love that I can't imagine not wanting more. Some days, I fret over our budget and my stuck-in-the-Big-City career and think there's no way we can afford another. Some days, I think maybe if I just chilled out on my Whole Foods habit there would be plenty of cash for another year of organic formula. Some days, I am overwhelmed by how hard parenting is and think how crazy we would have to be to add another to the mix. Some days, I think about what kind of sister Bat Girl might be and think how sad it would be not to see that.

Then there's my husband, who after months of his own ambivalence has finally stated that yes, he would like to have another. It just seems right, he says. But he's also currently in talks to go back to work, in a job that would involve him being at work many, many, many hours a week, at a time of day mostly opposite to my own work hours. (This is just a fact of life of what he does for a living.) This would mean no more SAH dad, and instead paying for daycare and having less flexibility in my own hours because I'd need to race home to pick up BG before 5:30, and then with two kids, that means paying for daycare for two, and being basically a single parent every night, etc. etc. etc....

But then, I don't know what happened, I came into work that morning, and it was like a fugue state came over me. I was on my clinic's website, and then I was dialing the number, and pressing the button to be connected to the billing department, and talking to the nice lady there (oh, they are so nice at my clinic), and then I was sitting there thinking, What have I done?

Because it's not like we've been trying, or even not preventing. I'm still on the pill. And to be perfectly frank, we haven't had sex since 2007. (I keep meaning to write that post about sex but god, it's so depressing...) I mean, not like sex = baby anyway (can you imagine?), but I feel like one ought to at least put in a good-faith effort, right? So we'd need to work on that first. And maybe I'd go back on metformin, or maybe not. And then we would go straight to IVF, because I WILL NOT risk multiples after what I went through when I was pregnant with BG, and we would do single-embryo transfer. And even though my clinic takes my insurance, I only have a $10,000 limit for IVF and related expenses (I think including meds, but I'm not sure), and I think that barely covers one fresh cycle, let alone possibly multiple FETs, and we really couldn't afford it without insurance, and and and...

And then I get a headache and have to stop thinking about it.

I just

called my old clinic to see if they still take my insurance. (They do.) Huh?

Things I am not loving right now

• Clear bra straps, especially when worn with strapless, halter, racerback, or other strap-revealing clothing. Just because something is see-through doesn't mean it's invisible, people. Your bra straps are still showing.

• Cabbage Patch Dolls. Why do they put a (probably toxic, phthalate-laden) scent on a doll? Why is the doll's head sticky? Why is the smell so strong it literally makes me gag? Why does my child love this horrible toy, so that I had to smuggle it out of the house in the middle of the night?

• Getting a stomach bug in the middle of a terrible heat wave. Nausea + vomiting + 98-degree heat = v. bad.

• Molars. Fuck molars.

Adventures in hygiene

Bat Girl has developed this charming new habit of picking up some random bit of whatever and bringing it to us, saying, "What's this?" (Well, actually it sounds more like "Wassdis?" but we know what she means.) That is, it's charming when, say, we're in the park and she asks "Wassdis?" and I tell her it's a rock and she wanders around saying "Wock! Wock!" for the next 15 minutes. It was much less charming this morning when she handed me something and said "Wassdis?" and by the time I realized it was a small clump of cat litter--as in, cat litter that has hardened into a chunk because it has been PEED ON--she had already stuck her fingers into her mouth. Damn you, molars. Much scrubbing ensued.

*****

I was out of town for three days and my bloglines seems to have exploded. Pardon me while it takes me a week to catch up.