Coming Home.

I can tell Vegas was a really good vacation because when I came home and started doing the normal stuff I have to do everyday I felt a familiar tightening in my chest which I have otherwise not paid any attention to. Having it be gone and then coming home and feeling it come back and settle in my chest I realized how awful it actually is and that I probably should be on some sort of anti-anxiety medication.  It's like I am living with a fucking** gun to my head!
**F-bomb explained below**
But of course I'll just keep plowing through having fits of anxiety every so often during the day, especially around wake-up time, nap time, meal time, go to work time, come home time, and bedtime.
The transition from non-mommyhood to mommyhood is more like a metamorphosis of some sort: one day you are a normal, young person and then suddenly you are a...a...I haven't quite figured it out quite yet. What I do know is becoming pregnant is a little like a pretty little frog being put in a cold pot of water, only to have someone turn up the heat nice and slow. You don't even know anything is happening or changing until one day you look like this:

 and find yourself on a vacation in Vegas realizing you are living with a whole load of stress and anxiety everyday which makes you bite your fingernails and the surrounding skin around them and you have more acne than you ever had going through puberty and you grind your teeth at night when you finally are able to go to sleep after tossing and turning from worrying about everything from what it costs just to drive to the grocery store to the fact your rear-end is looking more and more like your mothers everyday and you are starting to get headaches like all the other people out there who live with their buttcheeks squeezed so tightly they have to manually release them at nighttime while they sip a glass of wine. If I don't do the medication I should probably look for my purple silky blankie from when I was a little tiny girl so I can go in the corner whenever I need to and suck my thumb.
Besides that frightening revelation Vegas was amazing. Downtown reminded me of home, just bigger with boobie flashcards all over the sidewalks. I affectionately started referring to it in my head as "Las Boobes" or "Titty Town". There were boobies just about everywhere, except on my chest of course. The good Lord just skipped me over in that line. I have tried to make up for it by using the "Bandeau" type bikini but really I think the stylists just have it out for us non-chested women because I swear those bathers just make it worse! They flatten you at like your just been pressed and ironed and they somehow seem to do this both ways, horizontally and lengthwise.They don't just make your chest look smaller they make it seem like it doesn't even exist. Or if it does it's on the same level as piece of angel hair pasta wrapped in pretty flowery material.  Kind of a side note but thought I'd better let any other little boobie sisters out there know: stick with the padded halter tops. One hundred and fifty billion million times more flattering.
 Our hotel was beautiful with winding walkways surrounded by lush green grass and leafy lush bushes all right in the middle of the desert (I am so sorry to whatever po-dunk community Vegas is stealing all the water from, but for this weekend I really appreciated it. So for all your dying crops and cows, THANK YOU!) 
There were two pools and two hot tubs which I soaked in to my heart's content. I rushed my tan like I always do and ended up looking like a red-spotted leopard by the first evening but thankfully I have at least one good gene and that is that my sunburns usually tan up within a day or two.
I'll tell you what though, I learned my lesson. Day two I loaded up on SPF30 three or four times, just like my husband Joey does and has done for the last ten years or so, making sure to get everywhere, especially all those places that seem to burn up like a piece of unattended broiled toast (the hips, around the breasts, the forehead, my scalp, and, of course, my nose. Hello Miss Rudolf the Peeling Nose Reindeer!) This is the first time I have ever applied sunscreen in any sort of grown-up way, ever. And guess what?! It works!!
On the night after the race we went out with some of the other runners and I was just a little teeny itty witty bit out of place. Just a little though.
OK, OK, I sat there all night like a fucking bump on a log. But I did learn how to use the F word, if you haven't noticed. Being the obedient, people-pleasing, pastor's-daughter I am I never learned how to use it properly. It took a lot of observation and practice in my head but I think I finally have it! At first I couldn't get it straight: do you drop it at the beginning of the sentence, or the end? Or both? And can I call the ladies the B word or is that just for the guys?  And how many words are there for male genitalia? 100? a million? I'll never learn them all!

Still, I love love love love love spending relax time with my husband. The daily grind leaves so little time to get away. We get about a weekend a year. I cherish it.
Coming home was great thought too. I couldn't help but drop to my knees the moment I walked into my parents house to pick the chubalubs up: I just had to get down and as close to their little doughy faces as possible. Noah acted like I was delivering the mail and completely ignored me. Ethan at least said hello before going back to whatever he was doing. Eventually, though, we were all in a big group hug and I think I may have cried.
And even still, a whole twenty four hours later, everything they do is incredibly precious and cute and I think I have taken more pictures in the last day of them than I have over the last year.
The whole thing-going, coming home-makes me want to do more of it. The other day some fifty year old geezer guy I ran into said that because of the economy they just can't take their kids (almost the same age as mine) to Hawaii every year anymore. "It's more like every three years or so. It's too bad. We leave on Thursday for ten days, but man, it's been forever. Last year we had to go to Mexico instead and we didn't feel safe there."
I was, like, feeling so sorry for him. And his poor kids. This damn economy! Hawaii every three years instead of annually! How sad! And to have to use unsafe Mexico as a substitute! Just awful!
I'm hoping for a maybe **crossing my fingers and my toes and my eyes** trip to Hawaii with JUST my husband in about ten years. But I'd take Mexico. Joey does carry a gun and all.
I will post pictures as soon as I get some uploaded. Viva Las Vegas baby.