Early September sent me to Vegas for the ABC Kids Expo. Lots of walking. Lots of great contacts. Judged the JPMA Innovation Awards, which was pretty cool. Over 100 entries. Only 10 winners. That was hard! Also hard? Finding non-fried foods to eat anywhere in the vicinity of The Strip. You'll be pleased to know that I went somewhere other than my hotel and the convention center this year. I met this lovely person, Anya, who is an expert on travel with kids, and she drove me down the strip one evening, and we also went out for a beer during the week. The beer was bigger than my arm and I had to drink it fast to avoid the liederhosen-wearing, bell-ringing, table-dancing, German band at the restaurant, but that is probably a story for another time.
Mid-September is my baby girl's birthday. She's seven! Hard to believe. I still remember how impossibly small she was when they laid her on my chest. I also remember quickly demanding that my husband take her because, holy crap, I didn't know what to do with a baby, for heaven's sake! He actually didn't know, either. Poor M. She's lucky she's made it this far with two clueless parents. At seven, her favorite color is purple, she is still crazy for horses, she loves Webkinz, reads like crazy, thinks fishing with Daddy is fantastic and wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up.
Around M's birthday, I always end up thinking about how I ended up hanging around the online pregnancy forums when I learned I was expecting the unexpected baby. That was January 2001, which means that in a few months, the women I met wayyyy back then will have been my friends for 8 years. I was just looking for some answers to my incredibly noob pregnancy questions (if the test says I'm pregnant, I'm, uhh, really pregnant, right?). Who would have guessed some of those women would become my closest friends?
Fall is finally in the air. My favorite season. Not too hot, not too cold. Halloween. My birthday. Clothes in my favorite colors. An excuse to break out giant wool sweaters. Football! Camping. The occasional bonfire at the lake. I love fall.
I'm making an effort to take more walks this fall. The whole "busy at work" thing is having a negative effect on me. My ass is taking on the shape of my favorite recliner. This is not good. Not good at all. Must walk. Must not become furniture-shaped. Might be hard to find cute fall clothes in recliner-shaped sizes.
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