Walking Backwards

More on this weekend while Nicholas watches television before his nap: Like I said, I went to a scrapbooking party on Saturday afternoon. It was bad. It was with a group of women from my friend Annie's church, which made it worse. However, making them uncomfortable did make up for it in a small way. We took out our pictures and everyone had shots of their children or their wedding or their loving and adoring family. I had pictures of me getting drunk with my friend Maria, me behind a giant wooden cut-out of a dragonfly, and lots of me and my friends making asses of ourselves. No one knew what to say when I went around asking whether or not I should use the pictures of me in a drunken stupor or me making strange and contorted faces. Annie was on my side and started acting strangely by putting the scrapbooking stickers on her face. We were ignored like strange and poorly behaved children. I did like getting to see Catherine's house finally and see baby H, though.

After leaving there I went to pick up my husband and child and went to another friend, Seanna's, house for dinner. Seanna's son had his third birthday while we were gone, so I brought him his birthday gift. We talked about work and school and being grown-ups and the idea of second children. The plan is that we get around to doing this dinner thing a few times a month. They're coming here next weekend which I hope will make me less likely to fall asleep at 8 like I almost did at their house. Nicholas also had a great time with his friend and I think he would enjoy having someone over that finds playing with play-doh as fun as he does. Of course, for some reason these get-togethers don't ever seem to model the idea of the dinner parties in every home magazine I've seen, but we like them and we're too lazy to do it any other way.

Sunday, my in-laws came to visit us from Houston. Joe's father has weekends off for the first time in forever and they are having a hard time keeping themselves entertained. It was also one of the first weekends they didn't have family in their house after hurricane Rita (most of our family is still rebuilding). The brought Nicholas a very loud toy car and several new winter outfits (thank god) and they brought me some chocolate covered pecans that have mysteriously disappeared. After lunch, they left. It was a really great visit. Still, it was very strange to have them here because they haven't ever visited just because before; we go there often enough. There was one moment that surprised me; I don't remember what we were talking about but my step-mother-in-law made the comment "that's why we're not surprised that you don't want any more kids." I didn't know that I had expressed this to my husband's family yet. I know Joe hasn't talked to them about it. I guess they figure that since we haven't gotten down to business yet that it is just assumed we don't want any more. I wish Joe could be so understanding. He still wants more, damn him, and I worry that he is going to win since no one is on my side.

Other things we did:
- Went to the grocery store five times. Still have things we need to get there.
- Went to Toys R'Us and bought birthday gifts for all of the October/November birthdays in our lives. I also started on X-mas shopping.
- Weeded the front beds and pulled out all the plants that died while I was away.
- Did thirty-million loads of laundry. Still have four more to do.
- Ate the rest of our Halloween candy.
- Got Nicholas ready for his first day back at preschool (today) where I got to be "helping parent"
- Cleaned the bathrooms and realized that I have to re-caulk our bathroom now that I finished the guest bathroom.
- Thought about cleaning the rest of the house and then decided against it.