Katie and her Grandma

Geoff was away at a conference this week, so my mom came up to stay with us and take care of Katie while I've been at work each day. You can't really tell from this picture, but Katie is delighted by her Grandma. They've had a great time, but I know Mom will be glad when Geoff returns and she can go back to more of a grandparent role, able to hand off the baby when she gets fussy. I'll be glad when Geoff returns, too, for those reasons and others.

Katie and her Grandma Originally uploaded by jessamyn8470.

Take that!

I was in Marshall Field's when I took this picture. Right after I took it, an employee approached me with an irritated look. "You can't take pictures here, ma'am." Really? I asked him. Not in the whole store? "Not in the Thomas Pink section, ma'am." So you know what I did. I walked until my feet were no longer on the floor of the Thomas Pink section, and then I turned back toward it and took a few pictures of it. They weren't very interesting, but I didn't let him stop me from taking them, by God. I showed him!

Rainbow Originally uploaded by jessamyn8470.

I taught the Louisville Airport a lesson, too. Rebecca and I got really irritated with them a week and a half ago before our flight back to Chicago. When we arrived, we read the signs, got in the appropriate check-in line (according to the signs), and then were told that we needed to be in a different line (there was no apology for the signs being wrong). By then, of course, people who had arrived at the airport after we had, and who should by all rights have been behind us, especially since they apparently didn't even read the signs, were in front of us.

Then, to add insult to injury, the lines we'd originally been ousted from were re-opened, so a big group of people who'd arrived at the airport after we'd been moved from one line to the next moved over to the new line and got checked in immediately. We were still waiting in our line.

When it was our turn, the employee wasn't friendly to us at all. We asked about a plastic bag for Katie's car seat, and without showing any regret at all, she told us that they were out of bags, but that "we don't expect any bad weather." Oh, well, if you don't expect it, then I'm sure we're fine! (As it turned out, there was no bad weather, but the LATCH hooks for the car seat were lost in transit, never to be seen again.)

By then we were irritable in general, so every tiny rude interaction left us mumbling and grumbling. After we'd gotten through security, I went into the restroom while Rebecca waited in the hall with Katie (who was in her stroller).

There were two rolls of toilet paper in each stall. As I was pulling toilet paper from one of the rolls, I noticed a small red sticker behind the other roll: "Please pull from smaller roll."

I noticed that I was, in fact, pulling from the larger roll, not the smaller, and I thought to myself, "Ha! Fuck you, Louisville Airport! Take that!"

The moral of these stories is that I am not to be trifled with. Marshall Field's and the Louisville Airport are still reeling, I'm sure.

Waterlogged

In the fountain at Millennium Park in Chicago. This boy didn't have a bathing suit on like a lot of the other kids, but he happily got soaked over and over again. This picture looks to me the way summer feels.

Waterlogged Originally uploaded by jessamyn8470.

Mirror Bean

Yesterday I walked over to Millennium Park on my lunch hour. Last time I was over there, the park wasn't completely open yet, and you couldn't walk all the way over to the giant kidney bean sculpture. Now you can - this is what it looks like underneath the kidney bean. I was wearing a denim skirt and a pink t-shirt yesterday. How many me's can you find? (Click the picture to see how many me's I was able to spot.)

Under the Bean Originally uploaded by jessamyn8470.

Did I mention that Katie did great on the plane, sleeping through not only both flights, but also through the hour that we sat on the runway before our flight to Louisville took off? She is doing great, overall, although I have been informed that she is worrying her Grandma today a little bit. My mom is here taking care of Katie - today is their first day at home together. I think it's going ok, but that (not really a newsflash, but easy to forget for anybody who doesn't have to do it every day, me included) it's a tough job to take care of a nearly-five-month-old. The fussing, the sleeping, the eating, the grabbing, the chewing, the babbling. The attention-demandingness of it all.

Chicory Originally uploaded by jessamyn8470.

Katie and I had a relatively difficult day on Saturday ourselves. Geoff packed for his trip and left for Indiana at about 11:30. He spent the next four hours or so driving to Anderson. Katie and I spent from about 11 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon trying to get her to sleep. Finally, she slept for an hour and a half. And then she woke up, and it was 6:00, and where had the day gone?

She made up for the difficult day, though, by going to sleep at 8:45 and not even making a peep until 4:30 in the morning (at which time she ate and then went back to sleep until 8 am!). Heather & Arek (who live upstairs) had the monitor with them while I went to Erin's bachelorette party for a couple of hours, and they never even had to come downstairs.

This afternoon after I'd talked to my somewhat stressed-out mother, who'd called to let me know that she was a little stressed-out, I called her back.

I let her know that there was chocolate on the nightstand next to my bed, and that she shouldn't be afraid to use it. Chocolate will help at least a little bit, right?

(Katie and I didn't end up going on any of the mini photo shoots that I had envisioned. I took the photo above on Saturday morning, before Geoff left on his trip. I have always loved the blue flowers of the chicory weed. Is that the same chicory that goes into coffee?)