drinking with a baby

Not as in enjoying a beer while your baby enjoys one as well. I mean drinking while you have and are in charge of a baby. Cause if you have a baby, chances are there are times when you just really need a drink.

So, I have a baby whom I feed with my body. I also like to enjoy an alcoholic beverage every once in awhile. (If you didn't already know that, hi, my name is Tracy, it's nice to meet you.) My goal is to breastfeed Tabitha until she's a year old. Having already abstained from alcohol for the nearly 42 weeks I was pregnant (ok, I had the occasional sip of beer, and half a glass of wine once while pregnant) I was certainly not looking forward to being the constant designated driver for another year. So yes, I drink alcohol. Exhibit A:

This was my first power hour after giving birth; Tabitha was about a month old. And I only did half of it, actually. Man, I miss the days when all you had to do was hold her and she'd sleep like a champion. We were pretty damn loud that day, and she was right in the middle of it, passed out cold. She's become a bit of a light sleeper. She also used to go to sleep for the night around 8 and not wake up, even to eat, until 3 or 4am. Now it's a total crap shoot, some nights she's only up to eat once, other nights (ahem, like last night) she's up half a dozen times. Regardless, we've still managed to do some drinking lately.

A few weekends ago (because I've been working on this post for about a week) my mom was here to visit. Unfortunately she couldn't babysit for very long during the day (that whole boob thing), but she certainly could at night! We went out with Ilya and Mercedes and hit up a couple of local breweries. I had some delicious dark beers, Alfred hopped on a moving train, and we gorged ourselves at McDonalds on the way home. Then the following weekend we went over to Lucy and Phil's house, along with Gara and Kevin, for oysters. Oh, and some booze. No babysitter that night, so Tabby came with us and went to sleep there. Good thing Alfred stayed sober enough to drive. Hangovers are so, so much worse when you have a baby. Definitely a fun couple of weekends though, we needed a little break from our typical evening routine!

hibernating

I've heard rumors that it's cold outside today. The internet told me it was 51 degrees at like 10:00. That's cold for me now. In a month it will feel warm I'm sure, but I'm not ready for it yet. So Tabitha and I are hibernating like a couple of bears today. She's even been eating a ton all day like she really is fattening herself up to survive the winter. I have not eaten much, mostly because my digestive system has been mad at me and hurting me and making me nauseous since last night. It would have totally been a pajama day except a) Tabby spit up on her pajamas and then peed on them while getting her diaper changed so I was a responsible parent and put clean clothes on her, and b) I hadn't showered in 2 days and decided a shower was a priority today. So I took a nice, hot, long (aka 20 minute) shower during her first nap this morning and it was glorious. I am, however, still wearing pajama pants. Yesterday I was all ambitious and house wifey and made dinner and a yummy peanut pie for dessert. Today I'm staring down the dust under my coffee table and trying not to pee my pants as I sit in my glider all day while Tabby naps in my arms and wakes up to frantically nurse again every 20 minutes or so.

We were due for a lazy day at home. Our social calendar has been hopping for the past week! There was Thanksgiving of course (when Tabitha managed to pee on the floor while lying on her changing table), then we spent half of the next day at at a Mexican restaurant with Ilya and Mercedes. We got a wee bit drunk on margaritas, thank you for asking. Monday we had a lunch play date with my friends Lucy, Gara, and Mercedes, and Tabby's friends Ellie, Marly, and William. Monday I also had book club (anther Mexican restaurant=more margarita drunkenness) and coffee club the next morning. Coffee club is agroup of stay at home moms who meet once a month to discuss interesting, non-kid topics. For example, yesterday we discussed women in politics and why the US has never had a female president. Lucy (of bravofam.com fame) has been introducing us to various mom/baby activities. She's my social coordinator. Thank God, because otherwise I'd be going crazy here alone every day.

Ok, back to big important things like reading funny websites and doing Christmas shopping online.

Guess what's got 2 thumbs and had the day off today? That's right, this girl! It was great, because I got to a) sleep in ( I got almost 10 hours of sleep last night, which I badly needed, having gotten less than 10 hours of sleep the past 2 nights combined), and b) work on cleaning and unpacking the new house. Our bathroom, the upstairs bathroom, and the living room are almost done, the kitchen and our bedroom are maybe 2/3 done, and the dining room actually has no boxes left in it. One of the upstairs bedrooms is pretty much set up too, actually, the one that Mike's currently staying in. (Oh, by the way, Mike's here. More on that later.) The office is a complete disaster, it's where we kept putting all the random stuff we had nowhere else to put as we were moving in. At least some of it's going to end up in the attic, but I probably won't be tackling it for another week or so. Anyway, we're much more settled in after today, which is nice. Hell, we're probably almost as moved in as we ever were at our last house.

So, Mike's here! He got in late Monday night (technically Tuesday morning, it was around 12:45am I think). He and Alfred have been palling around, as usual, though today I got to play a bit as well. Right now we're doing a power hour. It's our first, actually, which is kind of weird. Since it's been like 2 days. We were supposed to do one earlier but Alfred had a bunch of errands to run, so he was being all responsible and stuff. Lame. Last night Ilya, Mercedes, Kevin, and Gara came over for dinner. And Mister. He didn't eat, though.

On Saturday we went to Mercedes' and Mister's birthday party, which was fun. They had a barbecue party. It was all delicious. And an ice cream cake. And a dog food cake for Mister, which Ilya tasted. Apparently he tastes all of Mister's treats, too. Full disclosure: I tried one of Mister's treats once, it was peanut buttery, it was actually pretty good.

We're talking about Mike's trip to DC. Alfred and I almost lived in DC. True story. I sort of wish we lived there now. I'm going to go ahead and post this now, because I've been working on this post for approximately 40 minutes.

ginnie!

We went for one last hurrah this summer over Labor Day weekend: Ginnie Springs! It's another park where you go tubing down a river/spring, but this park is privately owned (as opposed to Ichetucknee, where we've gone before) and so drinking is more or less allowed. So we drank. The first trip down the river started out all sorts of innocent and fun loving.

There were 9 of us total. We had 2 floats, one that fit 8 people and then 1 that was basically an inflated armchair. I'm not sure that Mercedes touched the water all day; she could definitely have gotten away staying completely dry, that's for sure. The big float was fun to do back somersaults off of into the water, though. As the beer and camel back of margaritas started to kick in, things got pretty energetic.



We had a nice big lunch after our first trip down the river, complete with more beer. We played around on land for awhile (pretty sure there was a photo shoot on the beach volleyball court conducted by yours truly with Eric and Susan's camera) then headed back to the water. The second trip was pretty fun too, but by the third time we were all pretty wiped out.

I slept the entire way down. Seriously, someone woke me up and I thought I was supposed to move over on the raft to let other people on, but we were at the end. Whoops. Alfred and I actually did make it out to dinner with some other friends that night, but we were so spent we headed home early and crashed. We really had fun though, definitely a great way to spend the last big weekend of summer.

par-tay!

Last night was our annual end of the season party for work! Not to brag, but I totally started this tradition 5 years ago. I planned the first 2 annual parties, then my replacement planned it the year I was gone, then last year we didn't have one (it sort of fell through), then this year it was all me again. We set the date about 2 1/2 weeks ago, I ordered all the food within the past 3 days, then got all the decorations and got everything set up yesterday afternoon. I did have help with decorations and set up. It was pretty fun, I do like doing this sort of thing. It was pretty simple too. We had about 70 people RSVP yes, and probably about 50-60 showed up. I'm not sure, I could try to figure it out but haven't bothered. It started out all normal and innocent.

After the first couple of hours, people started leaving, and the people who were sticking around started getting a little tipsy. (We had 3 cases of beer and 20 bottles of wine.) At some point my maintenance guy started singing along with the music using the microphone that was attached to the sound system. It all went downhill from there.

I may or may not have performed "Baby Got Back" for the benefit of a few of my employees. I was smart enough to stay far, far away from the microphone. It was really a lot of fun, I had a blast! It was a great way to end our busy season and go out with a bang.

oh, my liver

(FYI, I started this post Saturday morning. It's now Monday night.)

Actually, I haven't really had any beer since Tuesday after work, but I drank enough Saturday and Monday to last awhile. I'd say our booze fest was a success. Alfred and Mike both finished their cases on Monday, and I finished my half case. I think Katie was within a couple of beers, I'm not sure about Maureene. Lucy, Ilya, and Mercedes all joined in for part of the day too. We played a whole bunch of flip cup. Only a couple of puking incidents. Not bad at all. The rest of the week was fun, even though I had to work a lot and couldn't join in in all of the festivities. I could make pizza, though! We had it 5 times total, twice for breakfast. Katie left on Tuesday, and Mike and Maureene left on Thursday. Now it's just us again. But we have pictures!

meat off 2: porkin'

Last week was spent mostly in preparation for Christmas: buying and wrapping gifts, sending out cards, the works. I did manage to get out both of the packages I needed to, and possibly even on time. We still have, oh, about half of our gifts to buy. We're getting there, I guess.

Yesterday Alfred and Kevin had their second round of meat competition: pulled pork! Look at how lovingly Gara and I are gazing at the pork shoulder.

This time Gara and I made mashed and sweet potatoes, Caesar salad, and cooked apples to go along with the pulled pork. Once again, the sides were spectacular.

After the meal (it was much closer this time but Alfred pulled out the win in the end) it was time for some more serious drinking, including various games. Beer pong was rather popular for awhile. Brian was so good they had to handicap him a little, although really I think Dylan was probably giving him moral support.

Later it became flip cup, then a few keg stands happened, along with approximately 70 jello shots throughout the night. Alfred definitely took part in flip cup, he was pretty good at it actually. And Lucy's a freaking machine! Kevin and Gara's lawn got kind of torn up in a neat little circle around the table, as you can see rather nicely in this picture.

This girl had to go easy on the booze, because I had to work today. Hurray! Only 1 more day of work until a week off though, so it's not too bad. Plus we made a whole $1.74 today, so totally worth it!

birthday weekend!

Huzzah! Still thinking about my birthday! I love it!

On Saturday morning we headed over to Ben and Jerry's and were standing at the door, ready to go, the minute they opened. We had big plans to tackle the Vermonster, which is a massive sundae consisting of 20 scoops of ice cream and tons of toppings. There were 13 of us total, including Ellie (who didn't get to eat any ice cream) and Robyn, who is not in this picture. We made very, very short work of the Vermonster this time. It was delicious.

After ice cream some of us headed to lunch, because somehow we weren't too full, and filled ourselves up with pizza, wings, beer, and other goodies. We lost some more at this point (Kevin and Gara had to get ready for a wedding, and Ilya and Mercedes left to go visit a puppy!), but the last few of us rallied and moved on to another bar. Ellie enjoyed a deliciously buttery dinner of mixed veggies while we (mostly) stuck to beer (my stomach wasn't too happy with me). From the bar we went back to Lucy and Phil's house, then joined back up with Kevin, Gara, and Bill for a rousing evening of drinking and speed Uno. Gosh, it wears me out just typing it all out!

We ended up spending the night on Saturday, and went out to brunch the next morning to an awesome little diner. I went to town on some pancakes, bacon, eggs, and home fries, since it was the last day of my birthday weekend and my last chance to eat like a pig. After brunch we headed home for the first time in days. Laundry needed to be done, bathrooms needed to be cleaned, and then some TV needed to be watched. It went by so fast, but it was such a fun weekend!

boston!

It's been a busy week, to say the least! But finally, a Boston post!

I left work a little early on Friday and met up with my girls at a bar after a mostly uneventful journey. They had already had a few drinks, so they ordered me a cocktail to help me catch up. We stayed out for a few more hours, catching up, then eventually made our way back to our respective hotels and homes and crashed for the evening.

Saturday started out pretty cold. Katie was busy with her conference, and Steph had to take care of her dog, so Katherine, Rosemary and I headed out for breakfast. We ate, wandered around Beacon Hill for a bit, and then ended up going back to the hotel for awhile. Some of us had been bitten pretty hard by a rattlesnake the night before, so we needed a little rest to gather our strength for another evening of excitement. Katie and Steph joined us in time to walk through a snowstorm for dinner.

We went to an Italian place, which was good but not fantastic. Then we walked back to the hotel, through the same snowstorm (it was snowing and blowing and wet and cold and gross) and were greeted by this:

They had gotten cake and champagne for Katherine and my birthday! We all got decked out in some robes and slippers (lovingly provided by the housekeeping staff) and ate and drank our little hearts out. At some point Rosemary and Steph decided we needed more booze, so they braved the storm again for some more wine and champagne. We played some speed Uno (because of course I always carry our Uno cards in my purse) and polished off a few more bottles. Katherine and I decided we wanted a snack, so we headed out in the snow to find the CVS that was apparently a block away. We walked in various directions for awhile, then gave up. By the time we got back to the hotel, the other girls had decided to go meet Ingo (Katie's husband) at a bar nearby. On our way, we walked right past the CVS that had eluded us moments before. Curses! But we got some appetizers, and a couple more drinks, so it was all good.

Sunday was still cold, but dry, so it was a good day for walking. We wandered around Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall, then went over to the Paul Revere House, then hit up Mike's Pastry for some cannolis!

They were just as good as I remembered. After a pretty full day of walking and sightseeing, Rosemary had to leave to catch her flight, and Katie and Ingo had to spend some time at their conference. Katherine and I headed out to Steph's current home, where Katie joined us later for some homemade soup for dinner. We turned in relatively early (by midnight!) since Steph had to work the next day.

Katherine left for the airport after a last breakfast with me and Katie on Monday morning, then I wandered around for awhile by myself. I wandered over to where Steph works and had lunch with her, then had to head for the airport myself. I ate dinner at the Five Guys that was in my other post, and got in about 15 minutes early. And then I had to go back to real life. It was a great weekend!

d'oh

We're getting close to the end of the year, and we've only been to Universal once so far this year, so Alfred and Ilya decided we needed to take advantage of my other four free tickets before it was too late. So off we went yesterday. It was much less crowded than when we went last month; this is totally when we should go every year. It was great, the longest we waited for any ride was maybe 15 minutes. Also, I have a new favorite ride there: the Simpsons ride! It was so fun! It's a motion simulator ride that makes you feel like you're on all these different types of rides in Krustyland. The ride itself is really cool, a lot like Spiderman, but there's a lot of little jokes in there too that makes it better than Spiderman, at least in my opinion. We actually went on it twice. So fun. I didn't even really mind waiting in line because they show clips of Simpsons episodes while you wait.

Later, when we were on our way to go on Spiderman, a couple of Universal employees came up to us and asked if we wanted to go on Spiderman. They took us in through the exit and got on and rode with us, so we didn't have to wait in line. Then after we got off, they gave us 4 free express passes to skip another line later in the day. It was awesome! We used them for the Jurassic Park ride, although we should have saved them for the Dr. Seuss trolley thing. We tried to go on it 2 or 3 times, but decided not to wait in the line each time. Oh yeah, and we were drunk by then. Because, you know, Universal has 2 bars that have Happy Hour. I had at least 1 too many drinks. We rode the Dr. Seuss carousel like 5 times. We apparently sat in traffic for an hour and a half on our drive through Orlando, but luckily I kept falling asleep. I slept through most of the drive back, which is probably really good because I kept feeling nauseous. Anyway, good times were had all around. Thank you for driving us back, Mercedes!

rib off!

(No pictures today, unfortunately we had no camera this Sunday because I had accidentally left it at Ilya and Mercedes' house. My bad.) This past Sunday we had a big event: the first ever Meat Off competition between Alfred and Kevin. They both have smokers, and when we were at Universal a few weeks back they got to talking and came up with the great idea to have competitions to see who's best at preparing various meat products. The first competition was ribs. Alfred makes some awesome ribs, but he was doubting himself a bit. He even tried a totally new recipe a week or so before the Rib Off, but it kind of sucked so he ended up going with his old standby for the competition. Anyway, I/we spent Sunday morning cooking: he started his ribs and helped with the cole slaw, and I finished the cole slaw and made cornbread and macaroni and cheese.

The rib off was at Kevin and Gara's house, and they had invited a whole crew to help us eat and judge. In the end I think there were about 12 people there. We watched the Jaguars game technically, but they played so badly that by the end only 1 person was paying any attention. I was a little worried we wouldn't have enough food, but in the end we had a ton of ribs, pulled pork, our sides, baked beans, cupcakes, and Oreo cheesecake (which was flipping amazing). And lots of beer. And tequila. And I think some rum and vodka. I managed to get away with only 1 tequila shot, plus several beers, while Alfred enjoyed at least 5 shots of tequila and God knows how many beers. Yeah, he was still drunk the next morning. I imagine Lucy had to prepare some formula for Ellie that night. They were playing that stupid game where you hit the top of someone's beer bottle with the bottom of yours and make their beer foam up, and glass ended up everywhere. I say "they" because I hate that game and steered clear. There was a dance party in the living room at one point; someone hit their head on the light fixture on the ceiling. It was really a lot of fun, hanging out with friends and eating a ton of good food. The cheesecake and mac and cheese were fan favorites, and as far as the ribs were concerned, general consensus was that Alfred's ribs edged out Kevin's. Which is good, because I kind of told him I wouldn't love him anymore if I didn't like his ribs better. But I did, so our marriage is safe. For now.... I hear Kevin makes a mean pork shoulder.

friends!

First of all, I apologize to my thousands of readers who have had nothing to read for days on end. My internet had been stolen for days on end. By the most nefarious villain of them all: Alfred. Well, and time, to be fair. On with the post!

Saturday we were house sitting. It's kind of a long boring story, but we weren't going to and then we ended up doing it. I'm sick of the whole ordeal and want out, but Alfred caved. It is a lot closer for him to go to work, so it makes sense, it just makes me mad. I don't like feeling taken advantage of. They asked Alfred to come pick them up at the airport tomorrow night. At 9pm. We live over an hour from their house. So he wouldn't get home until probably after 11. Ugh. He should say no. Hopefully he'll stay strong. Anyway, we were here on Saturday. We were doing some painting at a house Alfred bought through work and took a little break for lunch with Ilya and Mercedes. Lunch turned into drinking some beer, which of course meant speed Uno, which meant less work got done at the house than intended. But we got the painting done, with some assistance from a slightly intoxicated Ilya and slightly more intoxicated Mercedes. They may have been singing the national anthem for a stretch of time. There may be a video or 2. I imagine if there is, it's hilarious.

Sunday was pretty low key. I insisted on going home and then ended up not feeling so great, so I spent a good chunk of the day on the couch. Monday I braved spending the night alone at the house, and lived to tell the tale. (Have I mentioned that the police officer did come by on Thursday and have me ID the guy in a photo line up? I think I got it right, he said our neighbor did so that's good. Still haven't seen that he's been arrested though.) Then last night I came back here to see Alfred and hang out with even more friends! We went to dinner with Lucy and Phil (and Ellie, though she didn't eat much) and their neighbors, Kevin and Gara. We enjoyed a lovely Mexican meal, along with some frozen margaritas for the real women of the group (that would be me and Lucy). Very nice. No pictures. Sorry.

Tonight we're house sitting for the last night. I came back because a) we can watch Weeds episodes on their TV from our laptop, which we cannot do at home, and b) I'm a big old wuss and was scared at home by myself on Monday. In other random news, today was supposed to break high temperature records. Heat index was predicted to reach 99-103 degrees. I was out doing tours for 2 hours straight. Awesome!

cathy's pictures

I just downloaded Cathy's pictures and wanted to add hers to Mom's from yesterday. First up, a couple of shots of Mike and Cathy grabbing hold of some double D's. And in Disney World, no less!













I just think this one's cute.

And now, back to the drinking. Luckily Cathy had her camera with her when we were out in search of dessert Saturday night. We made a stop at a gas station at one point to buy more beer (which we then carried up and down the road before hiding it in the bushes in front of the hotel) and for some reason Alfred bought a can of cat food. And then took not one, but two bites.













Ugh. Moving on. They gave us crayons to keep us entertained and out of trouble while we waited for our food. Mike apparently got bored by coloring on the paper table covering and went for Cathy's face instead.

And then I got my water, tried to take a sip, somehow stuck the straw up my nose, and then dumped it into my lap.













And one last group shot. Good times.

my bad

As Katherine pointed out to me today, I haven't posted in 5 days. I've just been so busy having fun and whatnot. Today was my first day back at work since last Thursday, and so along with the end of my 24 hour a day, non-stop fun comes the return of the blog. First up: Orlando!

Everyone flew into Orlando on Thursday, and we headed down there to meet them after we both finally got home from work. Clearly, we did some drinking. Friday we went to Disney!

The kids had a good time, although they got a little tired of walking at times.

That night, more drinking took place. Obviously. I think that was the first night we did a power hour. That hotel had a little balcony that we all crammed onto and got drunk on. We did a whole lot of swimming before that. Ella is a crazy woman in the pool. She swam non-stop for like 2 hours. It's no wonder she's so tiny, she should be eating all day to keep up with the calories she burns.

Saturday Mike and Tony went diving (they took our new waterproof camera case with them, so at some point I can post pictures that they took underwater) and the rest of us hung out at the waterpark at the hotel.

We had to switch hotels that day, then off to a pirate dinner adventure. It was fun, with an extra pitcher of beer. Mason was laughing his head off watching one of the pirates get whipped. How adorable.

And another power hour that night.

Ella helped us keep things tidy. She also earned some good money in tips by pouring us our shots.


We were using our new power hour program on the computer, so we knew that none of us were sober enough to drive by the end. So instead we walked around, up and down the road that our hotel was on, looking for some place to get pie for an early birthday celebration for Mike. Eventually we settled on Denny's, a mere 100 or so feet from our hotel, after walking back and forth for an hour or so. Mike went wading in the retention pool in front of the hotel. Alfred ate cat food. I think there are pictures somewhere.

And then we left. Tune in tomorrow for episode 2: the beach!