LizaWasHere

I am absolutely thrilled to report that last night, I did not wake up from acid reflux one single time. The fancy new drug from my midwife is getting a first-day thumbs-up from me.

Exhaustion may have been a factor. Noah is not the only one struggling with the transition to the new day care schedule. We’re leaving earlier in the morning AND getting home later at night.

The getting home later at night part is rough.

You see, the night goes badly if Noah isn’t eating dinner no later than 6:15 pm. Preferably closer to 6.

But we’re now getting home between 5:50 – 6:15 pm. And I am the dinner cooking mommy.

Last night, I started working on some dinner hacks to speed things up, like cooking ground meat for quesadillas/tacos/hamburger helper/spaghetti sauce in advance, and doing at least one crock pot meal per week. And Jill is going to take over 1 meal per week.

The problem has also been made worse by the fact that our pantry is still depleted from the massive cleanout and dump post wee buggy infestation. I asked Jill to put on water for spaghetti last night and discovered that there was no we barely had enough noodles of any description for all of us to have dinner. More storage containers must be acquired.

I also had a meltdown after Noah went to sleep. It was my version of Noah crawling into my lap and refusing to move for half an hour at day care on Tuesday morning.

Then I fell asleep during an NCIS on demand, and went to bed during the first five minutes of Top Chef.

I feel better now.

Jill and I just got home from the home opener of the new WNBA team, the Atlanta Dream, and we had a blast.

When we first settled into our seats, we were surprised that the other people in our group weren’t there. The seats were amazing! They were on the first level, Row M, stretching from the center court line 7 seats towards one of the baskets. We knew that 2 of the seats had been sold, and the people who bought them were very nice, and obviously very knowledgeable fans.

A number of celebrities were identified and announced on camera — other than the Mayor of Atlanta and the Chair of the City Council, I’d never heard of any of them. Which was fine with us until Jill ran into Emily Saliers in the ladies room on an unsuccessful hunt for paper towels. Saliers was not identified or announced on camera.

During the first few minutes of the game, people continued filtering in, but none of the people we expected to sit with — their seats remained empty. As the game progressed, Jill filled in details about various players and coaches, which was fairly entertaining. I might have a little WNBA crush on Katie Smith of the Detroit Shock. (She’s on the right.)

Maybe half an hour into the game, a woman came over to our seating area, bearing a tray of food, and politely explained to Jill that she was in the woman’s seat.

Jill and I explained that the group we were in had all 7 of these seats, but that if she really wanted seat #4, we would move over.

This engendered a nearly who’s-on-first level of confusion as the woman insisted that she’d been sitting there for the last 30 minutes. They compared tickets, and indeed, she had a ticket with our party. But we had been sitting there since before the game began, and indeed, had not seen her, or her girlfriend, or a little boy. We were certain.

Eventually we determined that the missing portion of our group inadvertently sat in the next section over. The friendly lost woman took the food back to the hungry child and girlfriend, and we hope they’ll find the right section for the next game.

About this time, the Dream were up by 14 points. This was a major, er, shock, since the Shock are a great team, and this is only the Dream’s second game as a team ever.

The halftime show was a performance by “18 year old pop sensation Sean Kingston” who Jill asked me 3 different times if I was excited to see. Every single time, I had no idea what she was talking about. Judging from the ear-splitting shrieks — especially during this song — of the teenage girls a few rows behind us, this was clearly a factor of my age. (And also my fundamental musical ignorance.) (But mostly my age.)

A minute or two into the second half, the extremely perky blond woman who ran the time-out contests that appear on the jumbo-tron appeared in the aisle next to us. In a fit of enthusiasm, I yelled “Whoo-whooo!” in her general direction.

The next thing I knew, I was agreeing to play a WNBA trivia game. On the jumbo-tron. In front of a “sold out” crowd of more than 10,000 people. A. Sports. Trivia. Game.

The better you know me, the more hilarious this is.

I am one of the least sportual people I know. I go to WNBA games because it makes Jill happy, because back in DC it was usually with a fun crowd of friends, and for the people watching and eye-candy. On Jill’s list of 47 things she was looking for in a wife, I got 46 — the one I missed was “sports fan.”

You too can watch me on the jumbo-tron, thanks to Jill and Flickr.

On the video, you can hear dozens of people screaming out the answer. But in my own defense, I actually knew the answer. REALLY.

Also, in case you were wondering, they did ask me the question in advance. I still had to answer it, but the on-camera version had been rehearsed off-camera. I won a 20 trip MARTA card and a “recyclable Dream goodie bag,” both of which they’re going to mail me.

The only slightly discomforting thing was how excited the Dream staff were that I was pregnant. (“Oh great! She’s pregnant — that’s fantastic!” x 3 of the 5 people.) It had a little whiff of homophobia to it. Nothing overt or rude, but a vibe.
Between the time that I sat down and the end of the game, not only did the Dream give up their 14 point lead, they ended up losing by almost the same margin. Other than that, the game was a unbelievably fun.

And I suspect we will crack up every time we think about me winning a sports trivia contest on the jumbo-tron. It’s already happened a dozen times, at least.

It only really hit us last weekend that this coming weekend is Memorial Day. Apparently, we’ve become people who live in the moment. But since I cannot remember a time when I have needed a little extra time more, at least not since Noah’s infancy, the realization was a welcome surprise.

Work has been busy and stressful of late. Esmerelda Freugenspiegel has become bigger and more unwieldy. All of us are still adjusting to the new day care schedule. The cost of food and gas has gotten crazy. I am so looking for some time to just relax and hang out with my family.

Plus if I can catch up on sleep, maybe the crazy hormone-infused dreams will stop?

Last night, I dreamed that I was a weapons engineer on the wrong side of enemy lines in a war.

In my dream it was WWII, but everything looked contemporary, if not futuristic. My car died, and I had to do one of those action hero jump out the driver-side window moves, and then race through tunnels and get on a subway that reminded me of the movie Brazil. I ditched my car keys in a trash can, avoided a very scary cab driver, and got on a tram of some kind. On the tram, to avoid detection I paid a penny for some propaganda literature that had been censored, and another penny for a strange fold-out brochure featuring Miss Piggy in a 6 foot long blond wig.

I woke up while I was trying to figure out how to fold the Miss Piggy brochure so that I could read the content without stretching my arms out all the way.

Speaking of being crazy, yesterday morning, Noah fought every single step of his morning routine, which I guess is his stress of the transition showing up. But the thing that upset him the most was the fact that we were out of brown yogurt.

Last night, I worked late and then went to a church preschool committee meeting. How come no one ever told me that church committee meetings were so much fun? I would have volunteered long ago.

After that, I stopped at the grocery store to get some more coffee yogurt.

They were out.

So I bought a tub of vanilla and a large jar of decaf instant coffee (the smallest size). Wish me luck in making my own brown yogurt.

AND we were up late, watching Top Chef. I was surprised but pleased with who got eliminated. Jill was surprisingly rooting against the person who survived — but I missed last week, and apparently that contestant was particularly annoying in that episode.

Top Chef Query: Which judge’s head would explode the most if they read the bit about my home-made brown yogurt plans? Feel free to include guest judges.