August 12th - Mom's Visit

And mom has officially gone home to G'burg. We'll be there in 4 days, visiting. More about that later.

Mom got here at 8:00 on Thursday night. She had to drive a friend to Hershey med for a procedure, went to lunch, and then drove home and packed, and THEN left to come here, getting stuck on the expressway for an hour first. Long day. Bob put the 3 tiki torches that we have around the pool and we all went swimming. It was a little cold, but it was neat because Bob NEVER swims after dark - spider potential outside, I believe. I hate 'em too, but the backyard doesn't bother me. We made pork loin for a very late dinner (1oPM!) and hung out.
Mom and I have a lot more to talk about lately, mostly baby-related stuff.

The next day, Friday, we hung out and then had to go drop off both cars to be worked out at the mechanic's - Bob' s needed an oil change and fluids, and my transmission felt funny. It wouldn't shift at the right times, you know? Mom drove us back from the mechanic, and we stopped at Wawa for lunch, (hooray for chicken salad croissants!). Then Mom and I went shopping in Deptford and left Bob to finish his lawn care in the back yard. I don't ask him to do lawn stuff, he just likes to do it, just so we're clear.

We went to A. C. Moore and picked out stuff to make that baby's scrapbook with. I would be perfectly happy with a baby book and a picture album per year, plus all the digital pics on our computers that I know we'll take. But Mom really enjoys scrapbooking, so there we are. She kept insisting this was for me, I could decide, but I'd say something looked good and she'd change it anyway... She spent $50 on scrapbooking supplies - paper, stickers, etc. - and I found more tiki torches for $1 a piece - booyah!

Then we went next door to Babies-R-Us. Fun, very fun, but probably not the best idea. Now, when mom arrived Thursday she brought our baby a Care Bears onsie, 4 rompers, a moon & stars picture frame, a baby dinnerware set, a pack of moon & stars bibs, and a gift set that includes a hat, a blanket, pants, a shirt, and a onsie. I thought it was freakin' Christmas. Ha! In BRU she was on over-drive. I had to stop her from buying every dress she picked up. And that was hard, because I wanted them all, too. After we got out of the clothes section (1/2 hour, minimum) she wanted to walk around the whole store and show her everything we'd registered for. I had the distinct feeling she wanted to buy baby gear. Thankfully most of the stuff we registered for they don't carry at BRU, they're from Baby Depot. But I showed her stuff LIKE what we registered for. I did find another caterpillar, to replace the one that we bought on August 1st and sadly broke. Bob was happy. Mom bought: 2 bibs, 1 hat, 1 sweater, 1 shirt/dress & pants outfit, and one dress, 1 textured board book about puppies, and 1 "taggies" book. Is that it? Yeah, holy crap, my kid's closet is getting full. We're going to need that dresser soon. Baby's getting her Aunt Laura's old 6-drawer dresser when Laura moves to Brigantine for school.

We came home, I showed Bob all the baby's new digs, and we all chilled for a while. Then we went to pick up the cars and happily there was nothing wrong with my transmission. Just needed fluid and a look-see. Bob's car was all set too, and the checking and oil changes and fluid changes of both our cars cost $87. Pretty damn good for same-day service. I love knowing people who know people in the auto-repair world. Drop Bob's dad's name and you're done. I once got a whole new set of brakes installed and my total cost was $50.

Later we went out to Peter's, which we LUV. If you're in the south Jersey area, you MUST try Peter's Diner on the Black Horse Pike below Turnersville. I think that may be Williamstown there, not sure. Anyway, FANTASTIC food, and lots of it. I got chicken picata - 4 small chicken breasts in a butter/garlic/lemon/white wine sauce with mushrooms and capers. Damn. SO I eat 3 bites of that, eat the baked potato and the broc and the soup and the salad and I'm going to burst. Plus I have more than enough for lunch the next day. Gotta love it. Bob got a chicken sandwhich and a canoli. MOM got the seafood platter. Yeah. At a diner. Lobster, crab, scallops, tuna steak, salmon, stuffed shrimp, stuffed mushroom caps...I THINK that was all. Holy crap. And creamed spinach. And backed mac & cheese. And soup. And a big-as-your-face piece of chocolate layer cake.

We came home (waddled home) and went swimming with the new tiki torches and Bob had strung white lights along the top of the deck and the rails. It was SO pretty out there at night! We've now extended our swimming hours!
Mom wanted to do a few pages of the scrap book and kept insisting that I needed more pages of me being pregnant in there. I was like, "This is HER book, not mine. 2 pages of pictures of me being pregnant and 2 pages of my baby shower is enough. There will be other albums of pictures!"

ANYway, today we basically puttered around the house, Mom went swimming by herself, and she left around 2:30.

I decided I wanted to sit down and blog for a while. And that turned into a LONG while, but whatever. And then it's clean-up time. God, I'm so anal. When did I get this anal? I'll have to work on that. The kid will cure me.