Naps are for wimps...

This daylight savings business has got me and about a million other moms out there shaking their fists in the air and screaming "why, universe, why?!"  Add to that a trip across time zone lines and you've got a recipe for sleeping disaster.  Before we were even faced with adjusting to "falling back" we arrived in Chicago and went out to a nice dinner with my sister Edie.  At Adobo, a lovely little mexican restaurant with killer margaritas and even better guacamole prepared table side, we were faced with what we knew was coming eventually in our parenting lives. The clock has run out on bringing baby to a restaurant and both parents being able to eat a meal uninterrupted. It really wasn't as bad as it could have been, I didn't feel fellow diners boring holes in the back of my head but we did have to play a game of musical dining.  I would eat a few bites with Corey distracting Oliver, then he'd pass him on to me and get a few bites of his meal. So this is how it went for an hour.  A few hours later my other sisters, Desi and Kiley arrived.  Mind you Oliver has not slept at any point in the past 5 hours.  So of course the aunties had to get in their snuggle time and then I finally had to try and put him to sleep.  I will remind you that we were scheduled to run a 5K at 7:40 the next morning. The next six hours did not go well.  There was tossing and turning and crying, mostly from Oliver but a little crying from me too when I realized I was going to be lucky to get three hours of sleep before running.

So at 6:15 I peeled myself out of bed and gave myself a little pep talk and ran 3.1 miles.  Like I said in the last post I have only run about five times in the past year and am not blessed to be able to run 3.1 miles effortlessly.  So it was a pretty brutal run but I finished and it wasn't in last place. I'm not going to share my time with you because quite frankly it's a bit embarrassing.  A lot of people finished ahead of me but a lot of people finished behind me and that's fine by me.  It was a great course to run on and we all had a great time and we got chocolate fondue and Ghiradelli hot chocolate afterwards and I'll run 3.1 miles for that any day!

The rest of the weekend went way too fast and I found myself on so many occasions thinking about how grateful I am to have such great sisters and be lucky enough that they are all my best friends.  I wish that I could see them every weekend and spend our time window shopping and sharing waffles smeared with Nutella and laughing at stupid videos posted to You Tube.  As referenced above, restaurants with baby are a thing of the past so we stayed in on Saturday night and cooked together and enjoyed a fantastic meal that featured seasonal ingredients.  It was a meal almost entirely made up of recipes found on Pinterest.  You can find the recipes by following the links I've included.  Our meal was made up of a Brown Sugar and Balsamic Glazed Pork Loin, Butternut Squash Puree, Sweet Roasted Rosemary Acorn Squash Wedges and some amazing brussel sprouts that Edie's boyfriend Tyler made.  It was unanimous that the Butternut Squash Puree was a favorite but it was all fantastic and they will all definitely be added to my rotation of fall recipes.

It was such a great weekend with so many moments to add to the memory bank.  Including but not limited to...
A couples sing-a-long with my husband to calm a baby sick of being in the car.  Note: we perform a killer Itsy Bitsy Spider and Wheels on the Bus in case you were wondering.

Grocery shopping at Whole Foods Market.  I consider myself somewhat of a grocery snob.  I love myself a good grocery store and I wish that I could shop at a Whole Foods all the time.  Why wouldn't you want to shop amongst artfully marketed produce, artisan cheeses, gorgeous flowers and amazing desserts?

Making the most of a delayed race by compiling a list of things to keep us going while running when all we really want to do is walk. (To the the driver of the semi that got himself stuck under an overpass in downtown Chicago causing the race directors to divert the race route, you're kind of an idiot).

Each time I'm with my sisters we make memories that we'll be talking about for years to come.  Some of them are good memories and sometimes some not so good memories like our legendary blow-out sister fight the last time that we were home together before my mom got sick.  Even though we want to forget how disappointed my mom was in us for fighting we still remember it like it was yesterday.  We talked about that fight this weekend.  Growing up in a house with five girls there was no shortage of arguments over clothes, make-up, time in the bathroom or being looked at funny.  My mom was used to these arguments and her calm demeanor and level headedness always diffused the fights and within hours we were usually all back to being friends.  But this time her reaction to the fight was different.  I could tell that for days after she was still upset by it even though it wasn't any different than any other fight we'd ever had over the years.  Her disappointment was palpable even days later when I called to tell her I was sorry that we had fought.  Thinking back even though none of us knew she was sick, even her, I think in some way she did know that her days with us were numbered and that was why she was so disappointed that we spent them fighting.  Now when we are all together we don't fight as often, maybe because mom isn't here to fix it or maybe because we all know that our time together isn't infinite and so we need to make the best of each visit.  Regardless, after every trip to visit my sisters I'm always in a little bit of a funk for the next few days because I'm missing them terribly.  This time is no exception but I am comforted knowing that Thanksgiving is only 2 1/2 weeks away and we get to spend four days together.  We'll spend our time eating turkey and sweet potatoes, playing cards, talking about visits passed and making new memories.