They're dropping like flies

Our family, that is. Amy has been in Afghanistan since before Liam was born. Darin and Jennifer left for South Korea a few months ago. My parents moved to Maui (albeit temporarily) this month and tomorrow, Dana and Bruce are heading out on their annual month-long sojourn to Florida.

Even Chad is getting in on the action. He left at the crack of dawn this morning for NYC, where he will be until the wee hours of Saturday morning; last time I spoke to him, he was strolling down Lexington Avenue in search of a good deli. That puts me into the position of Single Parent for the rest of the week. I love The Dude but by the end of the day I am usually ready for a break from him, something I will miss this week.

I always have these dreamy visions of what will happen while Chad is on a business trip. I will miss him, yes, and can't wait for Saturday, but I have these far fetched to-do lists that see me replastering the living room walls by day and scrapbooking ten pages each night and doing all sorts of other things that I must not accomplish during the rest of the time because Chad Is Distracting Me.

This isn't true, of course, and after just one day spent alone with Liam I am having a hard time just getting the bare minimum done (and that is even WITH Dana generously babysitting for a while tonight so I could make it to a class at the gym.) The house is a mess and I didn't get all the garbage taken out, Carl's package is not in the mail, and I did not even cook myself a vegetable at dinner time but rather relied on raw fruit to supply that part of the food pyramid. At playgroup today I foolishly scheduled another playdate with Autum on Friday but realistically I am thinking that a bit of rain might not be so bad because then Chad is less likely to come home to a sty.

No real point here, except that we miss all of our absentee family (and brace yourself Chad because things are only going to get more slack around here as the week drags on.) Even my two relatives remaining in the country are a distance away - Steph in Toronto and Katrina in Kingston, and we never see enough of either of them. Rather than sharing a photo today I thought I'd post one of the most recent additions to Liam's baby album - a summary of who went where and why, and how come we kept seeing them over and over again all summer (i.e. trying to cram months' worth of quality time into just a few days.)

OK, so that wraps up today's official 'entry'. Now, here are the anecdotes of the day for Chad, so I don't forget them all by Saturday. I warn anyone else reading this that this material is likely to be mundane beyond belief, will probably brag on Liam more than necessary, and may even delve to the depths of such topics as the contents of Liam's diaper (which let me tell you, sparks a lot of conversation these days):

The roofers next door didn't show up until this afternoon. We got the gas bill in the mail, and another card for Kathy Cook. I paid the Sears bill and went to Sonya Roe's to have her check my ring, which is fine. She went on about how Liam is a pretty baby and said we're lucky because she thinks most boy babies look like little old men, but she thinks Liam is cute. He smiled at her like crazy - I think that's the first time he's done that to a stranger (maybe he understood what she was saying?) The gift I went there to get is gone so I need to come up with another idea. I fed Liam some more peaches for lunch, but he threw up (as in more than just a regular spit up) so I think we need to cross those off the list for a while, they don't seem to be sitting well. We went to playgroup today and it was a technician from the library doing a promo for their children's programs. I'm going to sign us up for Mother Goose, but I understand their waiting list is super long so we may not get in in time. Liam was being a little clown at playgroup, was actually very smiley and chatty which is also a first. He found a new toy there that he was absolutely in love with. I thought of looking it up in the Sears catalogue for Christmas but maybe it's better to just let it be a novelty he plays with once a week at the OEYC? He wore his BOO shirt today and everyone kept asking where we got it. Your mom came to babysit tonight while I went to the gym - Liam did well with her. As Megan and I were leaving the gym a souped up car in the parking lot looked like it lost control and was headed toward us - we both honestly thought it was going to hit our cars and then plow into us. The idiot driving had control by the time he passed us but we both had our stomachs in knots. And, I didn't get all those branches taken out to the curb - I can't find any string to bundle them. Sorry.