Angie's Excellent Adventure begins

I'm off in less than six hours to begin my adventures! I leave for the airport at 3:30am, will be in San Juan for lunch, and will feast on roast pig for dinner at Cisco's wedding.

Puerto Rico, here I come! (Just don't get too fond of me, though. I won't be staying long.)

The hands-down best way to buy shoes

I've don't like shopping. I love having new stuff, I'm rather fond of buying things, but the shopping experience is simply a means to an end. Now that I have no time (have I mentioned that??), shopping rarely happens.

On Monday, when I wore my 3-inch skinny heels to work, I realized I desperately needed new shoes. I walk 40 minutes or more every day. I've gotta be reasonably comfortable, at least *some* of the time!

Enter Zappos.com, which I'd only used once before. Always free shipping; always free returns. They have amazing search criteria; in the case of my prior purchase, I looked only at black boots, size 6, 1 3/4-2 1/2" heels, skinny calves, within a specific price range. On Monday morning, I looked for black ankle boots, 1 3/4-2 1/2" heels, size 6, within my price range. I bought a pair I liked on the first page; had notification within the hour that I'd gotten free upgraded shipping; and had great new boots at my door yesterday. I love Zappos!

No sleep... so tired... ARGH!

Two weeks ago the Bug started waking up in the middle of the night crying. She needed comfort, and probably needed Tylenol, too - her top left molar was coming in. This passed after a few days, but re-started again after a few more. I think the top right was making itself felt.

The last four or five nights, though, have been terrible. For Joker and me. The Bug is waking up, crying out for us, whimpering, making a fuss, which escalates until she is hysterical and we need to calm her down. I'm not sure what happened (she's been a great sleeper for 15 months), and we don't know what to do. So every hour or two, both of us are awake and one of us is out of bed. Plus I'm a lousy sleeper who has trouble getting back to sleep each time. We are probably exacerbating the situation by calming her down each time, but if she's not asleep we aren't either, and we don't want her to be miserable!

Is this a phase? Will it pass on its own? Any pearls of wisdom to share??

Doing the crazy thing

It's hard to be spontaneous with the Bug. Even just running a quick errand requires cramming a diaper, some wipes, and a sippy cup into my bag. Sometimes, though, I surprise myself.

We've got two destination weddings of very good friends coming up. One is November 22 in San Juan, PR, and the other is the 29th in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. We knew about the second one first, and planned a week vacation with the Bug and my parents. Unfortunately, that meant we would miss the first wedding. We tried to change our plans so that we could do both, but it was cost-prohibitive.

We were bummed to have to miss it. So Friday morning, at Joker's suggestion, I bought a ticket to fly down to San Juan. I'm leaving at 6am on Saturday, and returning right after the wedding on the 3am flight back to JFK. Even though I'll be the one physically there, it was a team effort. Joker and I... we still do "crazy."

Bug's exploding vocabulary

People who know me aren't shocked to hear that the Bug is turning into a bit of a chatterbox. She has been yammering since she had the pleasure of hearing her own voice. For a long time, there were no discernible words. Then she added Dada, "cado" (avocado, her favorite food), and duck. For the past couple of weeks she's been adding new words every day. Her vocabulary now includes Mama, dog, Sirius, Buffy, ba-ba, more, bubbles, door, floor, box, toast, milk, banana (more or less, that's a tough one), shoe, sock, bow, cheers, moo, windy, brr, nose, eyes, ears, oh, uh-oh, "I want" (generally before "more" or "bubbles").

When she's eating, she'll point at each bite of food on her tray and repeat the word after me. Same thing when we're reading a book. She'll chatter to herself in bed after she wakes up and before she falls asleep. It's amazing how quickly she's coming along!

Another future Eli?

Congratulations to my good friends (and fellow Yalies) Maureen and Steve, who welcomed their second son Jacob Douglas Webster yesterday morning. At 10 lbs. 5 oz. (no, I'm not kidding!), Jake's gonna be able to hold his own against older brother Steven. Mama and baby are doing great.

Old school Sesame Street

The Bug generally does great in the car, but she gets a little bored coming home from the babysitter at the end of the day. We tried to resist, but it makes her ride more enjoyable if Joker plays her a DVD in the car. The only kiddie DVD we own is Baby Einstein, so we started renting episodes from the early years of Sesame Street.

We've now seen the very first episode ever of Sesame Street. It's pretty cool. Gordon's got a great afro and mutton chops. Sketches include the guy who falls down the stairs laden with cream pies, and an ode to cows and milk, and the special features include golden oldies like "Rubber Ducky" and "I Love Trash." Big Bird has a strangely tiny head. And shocker of shockers, Oscar was orange that first year! I think that Joker and I probably enjoyed it more than the Bug, but we'll keep getting these old Sesame Streets for her late-afternoon amusement.