some of the things that are coming out of this little girl's mouth are truly amazing.
yesterday she was playing with two wooden figures... one was a black & white striped cat, the other was a souvenir figurine from someone's trip to guam, complete with feather headdress and gold painted accents.
roxi carried the cat from the living room back to her bedroom, left it there, then came back and played with the guam souvenir, tickling each one of us on the neck with its feathers. she then took it to her bedroom, too.
she came back, empty-handed, looked up at lulu and so as to explain the absence of both figures, said, "the cat and mister guamie are having conversation." (i was pretty stunned that this 2 1/2 year old knew the word 'conversation'.)
lulu replied, nonchalantly, "they're having a conversation? about what?"
"balloons."
of course.
and then, just a few minutes later, i was lucky to catch this gem on video (3.2 MB .mov). even though ray is not here, roxi is talking about him and remembering him fondly.
it's been a while since i posted any photos of my niece, roxi.
so i felt i had to rectify that.
she turned 2 on monday.
and she is gorgeous.
the trip home was a blur.
the night before, i found myself totally unable to fall asleep. i guess that after 2 full days in bed my body just finally decided it had rested enough and didn't need any more shut-eye. stupid body. i was going a little mad that night, willing myself to fall asleep. i finished a fantastic book (which i hope to tell you about in my next post), i wrote a few emails, and i stared at the ceiling. i finally drifted off around 3am, and woke up when roxi did before 7.
when i got out of bed i discovered that i was now dealing with a tender GI tract, unbelievable exhaustion and -surprise!- a new head cold. i'd been unable to keep up with the airborne regimen while i'd been, uh, expelling, so the cold finally grabbed hold when it got the opportunity.
so, yes, the flight home was pure misery. a gurgling stomach (i thought choosing apple juice on the plane would be a good idea, but instead it left me with incredibly painful, constant gas), a dripping nose (the woman sitting next to me on the plane looked horrified when i took a monolithic stack of kleenex out of my pocket) and a complete inability to fall asleep sitting up. utter torture.
something odd happened that kept my mind mildly occupied, though. i discovered a group of three college-age kids who had the exact same flight schedule as mine. i'd noticed them last thurdsday as i walked the gangplank (i don't think that's the right word) to board my first flight. they were two guys and a girl, all attractive, and one was talking about avoiding capital gains taxes on a house he'd bought then recently sold. i make mental note of interesting conversations like that, so i recognized them when i saw them board the second leg of my flight from detroit to denver. funny coincidence. they were going to the same place i was.
but when i arrived at my gate yesterday, ready to come home, i saw the three of them again, waiting to board the flight to minneapolis. how bizarre. part of me wondered whether i was hallucinating, i was so tired. even more odd was the fact that the three of them were seated directly across the aisle from me. (had i been less of a bleary, disgusting creature i would have definitely said something to them about the coincidence, but i felt like crap on toast and i just closed my eyes and listened to my ipod.) i saw them board ahead of me on the final leg home to RDU, then i lost them after that.
by the way, have you been to the minneapolis airport? they might as well call it the mall of america and save the tourists the bus ride. there are clothing stores, makeup stores, CD stores... it's a little disorienting. honestly you have to find your way through the commerce to get to the airplanes.
so, anyway, yeah. i'm home now. and it should be no surprise that i've called in sick to work. i hope to spend the day sleeping, making sensible food choices, and catching up on tivo.
oh, and i'll be watching this video as often as possible. (4.7 MB .mov) i swear, this will forever be known as the vacation of glasses and gasses.
well, look what i missed while i was zonked out! snow! icicles! a high of 30 degrees!
yeesh.
many thanks for the well-wishes. i should report, though, that things actually got quite a bit worse for me since i posted last.
i didn't pass out again, but i did spend several, uh, productive sessions in the bathroom. very productive. i have never produced so much in my life. from simultaneous locations, nonetheless.
after i was done producing i spent approximately one full day in bed, recovering. i am apparently unaccustomed to these stomach bugs. rob recovered from his in 24 hours. it took me 48.
but i'm feeling much better now, thank you. i even attempted a chicken sandwich for lunch today. (my stomach is gurgling quite a bit, but i think that just it's way of getting reacquainted with food.)
even better, roxi treated me to a full-on barrage of silly dances this morning as her way of saying "glad you're feeling better, aunt kissta!" it felt good to laugh. (8.5 MB .mov)
roxi's eyes have been crossing, and her opthamologist's recommendation for treatment is to start with glasses. hopefully they'll help strengthen the eye muscles so that they won't continue to pull inward.
i was born with crossed-eyes myself (born with 'em! had to have three surgeries! young!) so as you can imagine i have been cursing the family genes for allowing this to happen to roxi, too. (of course, her condition isn't as bad as mine was, but still...)
shortly after i arrived in colorado yesterday i went along to the eye doctor to watch roxi get her first pair of glasses. i hoped that she'd take to the them well and i could alleviate some of my inbred guilt over giving her crappy eyeballs. :-)
before, with the most gorgeous mom on earth:
the doctor slides the glasses on her face:
"yeah? are you sure?"
"really... i'm not so sure about this."
despite the pained expressions, she left the glasses on. she didn't fuss and really didn't seem to mind them. she did put her fingers on the lenses a lot and tried to push the frames up the bridge of her nose, but she didn't try to forceably remove them until we got home.
at home, after a few attempts at removing the glasses (thwarted by the parents) she seemed to settle right in to them. she ate dinner, played and generally forgot she was wearing them.
even after bathtime she didn't seem to mind having them on.
sweetest girl in the world, i'll tell you what. and if it's even physically possible for her to be cuter, the glasses make her so.
i don't know how she does it, but lulu always manages to send me adorable roxi videos on the days i need them most.
this had me in stitches (11.3 MB .mpg) and pulled me out of my funk.
this was one of the best presents i got all day. (6.2 MB .mpg) that, and mary stuck pretzels in her ears. i honestly don't know which is better.
also amazing was divaville with my bestest girlfriends (i think you'll find evidence of a few bottles of wine in that slidehow) and drinks and dinner at the federal afterwards. (the skirt steak with chimichurri sauce was out of this world!)
did i mention that i also got a zappos gift certificate? and jewelry from my boyfriend?
it was a near-perfect birthday.
in the last couple of days i:
went to knitting group and made large strides on my current project, a scarf with an intricate pattern (intricate for my skill level, that is).
signed the contract for replacement windows.
saw "walk the line", which --i am honestly surprised to admit-- i enjoyed more than "brokeback mountain".
scheduled appointments to get my teeth cleaned, my eyes examined, and my body checked-up.
contacted the company who did my original foundation repair to see if they'd come check out the new cracks in the house.
considered buying one of these to aid our progress through a giant bowl of pecans, given to me by a co-worker, from his yard.
performed the magic that is divaville.
loaded CDs i received for christmas onto my ipod.
returned the featherbed. i think it was hurting my back more than the mattress alone.
arranged for my dishwasher to have its one-year preventative maintence check-up. (a true test of whether i did a good job installing it myself.)
yet to do:
dinner with jill & jamie; a/v geeks.
sort the durham symphony music for tuesday's rehearsal.
take lisa out for drinks for her birthday.
book a flight to denver for march (?) to visit roxi. (10 MB .mpg)
take my ibook to the apple store and have them figure out why the issue they supposedly resolved last april is happening again.
get my hair cut.
pay bills.
go mattress shopping.
eh, fuck it. i'll keep blogging.
i may choose to edit the content a little more carefully than i previously did, but i'll keep doing this, right here, for a while longer.
i feel exposed, see. it's a little too easy for strangers to google my name and be one click away loads of personal information about me.
i'm sure i was, like, aware of how the internet works when i set this thing up, but i guess i never thought this far ahead. i mean, who knows who reads this? i'm discovering that there are more eyeballs here than i was previously aware of. it feels frighteningly one-sided at times.
so, hello strangers. feel free to introduce yourself. please... i wish you would.
that said, thanks to the commenting non-strangers for your encouragement and concern. you make me feel good.
i had a groovy holiday. i am so in love with my niece that the mere act of typing those words reduces me to tears. i sobbed while tearing myself away from that family at the airport. this little girl is so cute, and she dances like nothing you've ever seen, even when there's no music playing. (5 MB .mov) then there's my brother... one of the finest, funniest, smartest humans on this planet. and his wife -- one phenomenally amazing woman. i envy her spirit, her mind, her creativity... her proximity to my brother and niece.
do you ever feel like you're stuck? like you want to be somewhere else, but you don't know how to get there? i desperately yearn to live closer to my brother's family, but i don't know how to make it happen.
correction: i don't know how to make it happen while retaining what i currently have.
sigh.
i got sick a couple of days before we left north carolina and carried my germs with me, infecting little roxi and my brother upon arrival. then my cousin joy showed up, sick. i have a feeling i probably left some of my virus behind in my wake, too -- i'll bet there are others that probably started sneezing after i left, and i just don't know about it. so, uh, sorry about that, family. and apologies to all of the people on the planes, too. sorry you had to breathe that recirculated, germ-filled air. i tried to hold my breath.
i'm still blowing up a lot of snot, but it's not as bad as it was on christmas eve. i think that was the worst day. 6 of us had just travelled 13 hours, packed together in a minivan, from northern colorado to southern new mexico. we were all initially worried about how 18-month-old roxi would handle the trip, but in the end i was the one who complained the loudest. my head was stuffed up, my throat was dry, i couldn't sleep. i had hoped that the road trip would be a fun, bonding thing for all of us, but for me personally it was miserable. (i do have fond memories of doing a silly little jig for roxi in a disgusting truck stop, but other than that the trip is a blur.)
i'm rambling. you wanted me to keep blogging, you fools!
those giggles just melt my heart! (2.85 MB .mpg)
in exactly one month i will see these silly people in person. i cannot wait.
this is my biggest smile-inducer these days. (2.2 MB .mpg video)
last week i sent my niece, roxi, a surprise box of presents. (no, she is not spoiled!) all the gifts had cows on them. a cow toy, a cow book. cow socks, a cow puppet. i don't know... i just like cows, i guess. they make me laugh. i thought she'd like them too.
apparently she does. the way she says "moo" in that video cracks me up. i watch it 10 times a day.
mom visited the tusselwuppers last weekend and just sent me some photos and videos of her trip. i haven't blogged any photos of roxi in quite a while, so i hope you'll indulge me today.
this picture, to me, is pure joy. and it makes me miss my family a lot.
i found this in my inbox when i got back from dinner last night. roxi's penmanship is fantastic for a kid her age, don't you think??
lulu just uploaded a bunch of photos of roxi to snapfish, and this gem was among the best. it is the best. i mean, just look at it!!
i cannot believe how gorgeous this child is.
i've decided that i should really make a point to see this child every, oh, 3 months or so. in the 3 months since i last saw her she really grew up a lot. she used to be a baby, but now she's a tiny person. she's full of joy and giggles and slobbery smiles... and i don't want another 3 months to go by without experiencing more of that. she's amazing.
so, anyway, today we had our christmas celebration at the tusselwupper's, and joining us was lulu's brother, lee. we all ate and unwrapped and played with ridiculous toys, and wore silly hats... and it was a fantastically great day.
but sadly, we leave town tomorrow. mom and i are heading back to lives distinctly lacking in the US RDA of roxi, rob and lulu.
family vacations can be so bittersweet.
sorry for the overabundance of baby photos, but roxi is the most exciting news this week. (aside from the fact i got stinking drunk last night. rob mixes a mean cocktail.)
today roxi experienced a pool for the first time. rob & lulu are starting to think about enrolling her in infant swimming lessons, but before doing so they wanted to see how she'd react to being in that much water. having a pool here at the hotel was a great opportunity to find out. and she did amazingly well.
but before she could get in the water, though, she had to put on her swimming diapers.
but then we headed down to the pool and she took to the water like a fish frog. her swimming technique looks like it is going to be, um, interesting. (1.2 MB .mov)
there was also a hot tub to try out, and she really loved splashing around. (3.2 MB .mov)
roxi likes avocado:  | but she's a messy eater:  |
roxi is learning how to eat with a spoon:  | roxi is learning how to drink out of a cup:  |
roxi giggles when her feet touch her ears:  | roxi is going to be a computer programmer: 
roxi wants gamma to be a computer programmer, too. (3.6 MB .mov) |
damn, she's cute. here she is bouncing in her swing and playing with my sock.
she's gotten so strong since i last saw her september. she uses her legs to bounce not only in the swing, but on your lap, too. she's starting to get the idea of crawling, but only if you put your hands behind her feet to give her something to push off of.
she's way more interactive, too. she grabs for things, she smiles when you smile, and that laugh... oh, that laugh!! it just melts my soul.
here's a little quicktime movie of roxi bouncing in her swing.
this visit is about more than just the baby, of course. (yeah, right.) i LOVE seeing rob & lulu... they're the best. my mom is here, too; she flew in from new mexico yesterday. she & i are staying in a hotel, so as to give the tusselwupper's more space.
it snowed here yesterday. there are probably 4 inches on the ground. very powdery snow... at least it looks that way from our third-story window here at the hotel. i'm a bit scared to go downstairs to check it out in person, because the forecast today calls for a high of 11 degrees.
11.
i mean, who's in charge of this kind of thing? 11 is so stupid.
anyway, we don't have much scheduled... tomorrow is christmas eve, and mom will probably go to church while her heathen spawn will likely consume a bottle of wine and curse at things. saturday is christmas, and there are a ridiculous number of presents under the tree... so we'll probably be busy ripping things open all day long. then sunday we fly back.
a short trip, but totally worth it.
as always, my brother's visit was far too short. (of course, if he stayed for a year it would still be too short..)
the whole family (rob, lulu & baby roxi) stayed with ray & i. it was wonderful having the baby in the house. she's a total dreamboat, as you can see.
when the tusselwuppers arrived friday night we went right to el rodeo, rob's favorite mexican restaurant in durham. the mere mention of the place causes him to drool. it appeared as if they've changed their menu, though, which disappointed him (the "vegetarian combo #1" no longer consists of the same stuff) but what he ordered as a replacement was still quite good. we walked down the courtyard to offbeat music afterward and i bought a few CDs for divaville.
on saturday the tusselwuppers went to visit lulu's grandparents, who also live in durham. rob sneaked out mid-afternoon, though, and he & i went to the crossings to play 9 holes of golf. i didn't do very well (likely because i was playing with my own clubs, which suck. i do better when i have a rental set, oddly enough.) but we still had a lot of fun together.
saturday night we were all invited to a fancy dinner at the forest at duke, hosted by lulu's grandparents. also in attendance were lulu's mom and aunt, who both drove down from virginia for the tusselwupper's visit. it was a big fun party and i thought it was wonderful to meet lulu's relatives. i feel like my loving family is bigger now.
when we got back home, rob & ray played a game (or 7) of HORSE in the backyard while lulu & i sat inside and chatted over a batch of bacon grease popcorn.
sunday morning the 5 of us drove to mebane to visit with some old friends & roommates. it was great catching up with everyone, even though the parents (everyone but ray & i) were pretty much only interested in talking about their kids. (there were a couple of attempts to discuss other things, but nothing really stuck.) kid-talk can be entertaining to listen to, don't get me wrong, but it's not a conversation i will ever be participating in. still, it was a beautiful morning.
hunger struck as we were leaving and we decided steak & shake was in order. god, how i love steak & shake. rob & i both ordered the same thing: patty melt. drool.
the tusselwuppers headed back to lulu's grandparent's house for the evening, and when they got back rob & ray were rarin' to play more basketball. lulu and i were rarin' to drink a bottle of wine. we were their cheering section, too. it was a beautiful, mild evening. very relaxing.
(relaxation was needed, i might add, because ray & i were preoccupied with hurricane frances all weekend. ray's family lives in florida... his mother in satellite beach, two siblings in palm bay, a brother just north of orlando, and another sister in sarasota. with the size of that damn storm, his whole family was in harm's way. we watched the weather channel all weekend long.)
this morning we got up early and trucked over to elmo's for breakfast before they had to leave for the airport.
i cried big sobbing tears as i hugged rob & lulu goodbye in the parking lot. it's so sad to see them leave... i love that family so much.
my brother, rob, and his family (lulu on the right, roxi in the middle) are arriving in north carolina (from colorado) tomorrow.
they're going to spend saturday evening with us before heading to topsail beach to be with her family for the week. they'll be back in durham labor day weekend and I'M SO UTTERLY PSYCHED that i think my face will bust into a million pieces from grinning so hard.
yay! family bonding, beers, and golf. i predict some golf.
oh. you know what? i don't think i've ever explained the word "tusselwupper", and i feel i must.
my brother's last name is wessel.
lulu's last name is tupper.
when they got married they talked about hyphenating (yuk) or one taking the other's name (double yuk), and finally --jokingly-- settled on combining their names.
into tusselwupper.
in fact, the file name for the picture above is "twup.jpg". tee-wup! love it!
ray (ubinger) and i (wessel) couldn't resist combining our names either, just for fun: we're ray & christa wessubingel.
we made up a good one for sarah (ovenall) & georg (patterson) too: povenattersall.
i'm home.
i had a wonderful week.
i love my little niece. i love my family. it was totally awesome to get to hang out with lulu so much... she's a phenomenal person. and i feel such joy in every minute i spend with my brother.
i hope that someday we can all live closer to each other. i hate that this darling child is all the way across the country. and i feel like i would just be a more complete person if these people lived nearby.
the three of them will be swinging through durham on their way to the beach at the end of august. i'm thrilled to be seeing them again so soon... but after the closeness of these last few days i have to admit that the end of august feels like forever from now.
last night after dinner we all got sucked into a stupid movie on TBS. after that, sliding doors came on, which i actually like quite a bit, and i stayed up late to watch it.
mom left for her conference yesterday, so i got to take over the guest room and after the movie was over i went to bed and slept like a champ. 8 hours, i think. i wish i could give some of that to lulu... although she probably gets 6 or 7 hours of sleep a night, it's broken up into small chunks.
roxi is really enjoying her play gym. lulu tells me that even a week ago it was too much stimulus for her, but she now has a pretty long attention span for it. she was really smiling a lot this morning.
we met rob for lunch at a pizza & sub joint that was excellent. i have to say... that calzone may have been better than pizza palace's. (ssshh!)
i finished the blanket today. it looks pretty good... for a first-time-knitter. i'm not at all thrilled with the job i did of stitching the squares together, but hey... i'm new at this. i think it'll be a good rolling-around-on-the-floor blanket for roxi one of these days. (it may be a little too itchy & hot right now.)
it's in the 90s here this week. i always thought colorado was supposed to be a chilly place.
everything about this baby is cute.
we went to rob's softball game today and everyone was all, "ooh, baby!"
wherever we go, people smile at her.
we went to eat indian food tonight and the manager kept coming over to look at roxi.
i even changed my first poopy diaper tonight, and that... was... wait, no, that wasn't cute at all.
here are two new things about flying:
1) on american airlines (and maybe others, too) you no longer have to show your ID as you board. yes, you still have to show your ID to the ticket agent and to the pre-security TSA agent, but no longer to the AA gate attendant.
they make a big announcement about it too: "please have your boarding pass ready. you don't need to show your ID anymore when boarding the aircraft!"
i'm left wondering if the airlines are finally winning back just a little control over their passengers, or whether the TSA has just told them that this is no longer a necessary inconvenience for us (since they've already invaded our privacy a half-dozen times since setting foot in the terminal anyway).
2) when the plane lands you are now instructed by flight attendants that you may use your cell phone while taxiing to the gate. it used to be a big no-no to use one while you were inside the craft, but no longer. as soon as the wheels touch the ground it's apparently ok.
this is the dumbest thing i did while travelling:
after snacking on pretzels and soda on the plane, i decided at DFW during my layover to buy a soft pretzel and soda. how stupid was that?? in fact, why do they even put pretzel stands in airports? i feel like an idiot.
this is the cutest thing i've seen all day:
ok, these are the shoes. ray went so far as to say the black ones were 'almost stunning'. he didn't say anything about the blue ones. maybe he was simply stunned into silence by the black ones. not sure.
i know i've said this before... but i do so love the wide shoe warehouse. it's a store just for me! (well, for me and for transvestites... one of their recent ads in the indy made it clear that they also target that clientele.)
this trip to the WSW was especially gratifying for me, as i brought along my narrow-footed friend, mary. normally mary (and Lisa the Normal-Footed) and i go shoe-shopping at DSW or SRI, where wide shoes are in the minority and i rarely have any success. well, at the wide shoe warehouse the tables were turned... i was finding all kinds of great things and mary found nothing. hahahaha!
sorry, that's mean. really, i felt kinda bad for mary. but not that bad, 'cause we went to DSW afterward where she found cute black strappy sandals and i found nothing. (well, i found a pair of 4-inch blue & green stilettos that made mary's eyeballs pop out of their sockets, but i didn't end up buying those.)
anyway.
i talked to rob last night, and though he's admitted that he & lulu are more than exhausted by their constant stream of houseguests since roxi entered the world, he still affirms that he is looking forward to my visit. i'm going to believe him.
it sounds like they're both so sleep-deprived... i'm prepared to do nothing next week except their laundry and their meal preparation. (though, the more i think about it, i don't know that they're really all that busy with the baby if they can find the time to create things like this.)
i leave for colorado a week from today.
i'm excited to see my new little niece. i'm excited to see lulu. i'm excited to go golfing with my brother (even though i haven't golfed at all this year). i'm even a little excited about the few days my visit overlaps with my mom's.
basically, everything about this trip excites me.
and everything that has to happen between now & then just seems perfunctory.
i told you i was going to post a lot of baby pictures. isn't she gorgeous?
i spoke with rob very briefly last night; it sounds like things are going pretty well for their little family. some headaches with the breast feeding, but otherwise splendiferous. i called just as roxi was finishing up a bottle and i heard my first baby noises... she sounded like a slurpy robot. maybe that was just the cell connection.
i'm posting from my new ibook, by the way. it's been a difficult adjustment to the new operating system... i've been working with macs all of my computing life and OS X is far and away the biggest transition i've ever had to make. in fact, if i catch myself trying to switch applications by clicking in the top right corner one more time i'm going to have to have a word with myself.
the design of the computer isn't nearly as friendly as my old blueberry ibook... i find the sharp front edge kind of cuts into my wrists as i type. plus the apple logo is upside down from my old blueberry, so i find myself trying to open the laptop on the wrong end every time.
aside from those minor irritations everything else works beautifully. the computer literally anticipates my every move. when i want to use an ethernet LAN it knows what it needs to do to set that up without me even having to touch a single control panel. and when i go home and use the wireless network it hooks itself up for me. it's pretty smart, this little machine. (i have named him "smiley". a photo of david byrne is the machine's icon.)
in other news, all of my friends are gone. well, not all of them... but lisa is on her way to roswell, charo is in rural new york at a film festival, and mary is on a business trip to pennsylvania.
i was hanging out at lisa's house last night, feeding her cat, moses, and watching season two of "the office" when all of a sudden i got bitten. hard. by the cat. i guess i was giving moses too much attention and he decided he wanted to see me bleed.
this picture is so sweet it about melts my heart every time i see it...
because i was so busy blogging about joy last week, i barely had any time to talk about my new niece, roxi. (that's right... no "e".)
i've been phoning my brother & lulu almost every day, and everything seems to be going swimmingly with their little family. given the newness of all of this, it's a little hard to believe... i thought babies were nothing but headaches from the minute you brought them home. but roxi seems to be eating, sleeping and pooping without any trouble at all.
plus, she's cute as a button.
i'm counting the nanoseconds until i fly out to visit them (for a week, mid-july).
tuesday:
i go to work and joy drives to vass to visit her brother. she spends the night and drives back first thing in the morning.
wednesday:
* joy gets back from vass incredibly early (9am, maybe?), only mildly scarred from getting seriously lost in downtown durham.
* joy cooks me bacon & eggs for breakfast.
* we waste some time on the computers, then meet phil for lunch at the pizza palace. (i think i got faye to tell me where the new location is going to be, but i'm afraid to divulge it for fear i'll jinx it all...)
* rob calls during lunch to talk about roxi. it makes me very happy.
* after lunch joy & i walk down ninth street, stopping in cozy to look at all the pretty things. the woman behind the counter recognizes me (she's a friend of adam mckible's; i hate that i don't really remember her). i compliment her beautiful necklace: "did you get that here?" she says no, she got it at kohl's.
* joy and i drive to kohl's. it just so happens that today is the last day of a "buy one, get one free" sale. we take full advantage of it. many shoes, skirts, purses and capris are purchased. only one beautiful necklace, though.
* giddy from our bounty, we do a quick driving tour down franklin street and into carrboro just show joy how the other half lives.
* on the way back home we stop at caffe driade for caffeine in the woods. much good conversation is had.
* then back home for a home-made dinner (salmon cakes, cous-cous, corn on the cob & salad), then 3 episodes of "the office" on DVD.
a couple of big things have happened in the last 24 hours.
the new baby is the biggest one. rob is still with lulu in the hospital; she's recovering from an unexpected c-section. (it seems that she never fully dialated during labor, and this became the final solution.) i think she'll probably be discharged on monday or tuesday.
little roxie is apparently healthy and beautiful. i cannot wait to see some photos. i'm going to bore you all with endless baby pictures, i'm sure. i've never been an aunt before; i really want to be a cool one. (what sort of things should i plan to ensure my status as "cool aunt christa"??)
the birth happened while my cousin, joy, was on an airplane on her way here from phoenix. she got off the plane and found out it had happened while she was eating peanuts at an altitude of 10,000 feet.
so joy is here for a week. we're gonna bum around durham, visit chapel hill, and check out a couple of radio stations while she's here. oh, and a durham bulls game this evening, maybe a movie at the drive-in, and a party in her honor on friday night.
i'm already having a good time with her; we have never done anything like this... intensive time together. she's really cool, though, and i enjoy being with her.
over dinner last night at pop's, she mentioned that she didn't like the title of "first cousin once removed"... that's what she is to little baby roxie. she wants to be "aunt joy" instead. since i am technically the only "real" aunt this child has, rob told her to get my permission first. :)
i see no problem with having someone like joy being my co-aunt. i think she can help me be cool.
