I want to move to Devner

I think I am finally recovered from our Thanksgiving trip to Colorado. That, and I've learned to take my Unisom early enough at night that the stupor has lifted by the next afternoon.

This means I feel like writing an entry! That, and the vague memory of my sister waving a knife around in the air while proclaiming, "I don't care what you write about us and our family! Just write something already!" has me good and scared. She can be... intimidating.

(Dear sister, I love you. And you're totally fun and awesome.)

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The visit itself was great. The drive there and back? Not so much. I don't think I've ever been so close to sticking a fork in my ear.

And, as far as sleep goes, Thanksgiving week wasn't all that great, either. It was like having a newborn again, I swear. The Child just decided that sleep was optional, and we were going to have to deal with it. Thank you, Child.

(I do think much of that had to do with teething. Two molars have just broken through, and when I stick a finger in her mouth, it feels like at least three more teeth are on the way. I think this is terribly unfair.)

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Anyway, we had a blast even in the midst of bone-crushing weariness. The weather in Denver was perfect for most of the week (at least it was to this Wisconsinite), getting up into the sixties on our last two days there. My sister and I spent a lot of time laughing, too, though I don't think I could have been laughing a whole lot if I had 423 relatives and five small children under my roof for a whole week. I think it helps that they have a hot tub and plenty of wine. That and she runs a ridiculous number of miles every day.

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I wish I could tell you more, but I don't really remember much in the way of events. I remember having fun, and I remember going shopping a few times.

I do remember packing. My goodness, people, never let a pregnant woman do all the packing. The day before we left, I spent hours in the kitchen putting together a gazillion chicken wraps for the trip out there (it took that long because my attention was constantly divided between that and keeping The Child alive). They sounded mouth-wateringly delicious at the time, and it was Very Important that we have good food for the drive.

I ate two. And then they were horrible to me.

So, thirteen hours of off-and-on cooking/child wrangling and one hour of frantic packing. In the two days leading up to the trip, I got a total of seven hours' sleep. And then we drove for 18.5 hours. Stupidity, thy name is Naomi.

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Speaking of stupid, I cut a finger open for the millionth time on my mandolin slicer. See, it's only a time saver and a convenience if you don't use the stupid food holder. That food holder makes me insane, and it doesn't work unless the food I am slicing is exactly the right size and shape (it's good for potatoes and onions, and that's about it). So I keep not using the food holder, and I keep cutting myself. Yesterday I hate to slice up a bunch of carrots real fast, and it's not even possible to use the food holder for carrots. So instead of just using a knife and cutting board like a person with a brain would do, I started running carrots through the mandolin.

And then I yelled, "Oh s***!" at the top of my lungs (sorry, Mom, and whoever else may be reading this; I do have very CLEAR recollections of you and Dad using bad words at certain urgent times, though, so you can't be too hard on me). And then I stared stupidly at the blood pooling around my thumb and thumb nail for about thirty seconds. And then I yelled for bandaids. I cut deep enough into the side of my thumb that it even got my nail bed, which I'm sure will be super awesome fun as it heals. I think it stopped bleeding about two hours later. Thankfully, I cut a flap instead of a gouge (which, the thing is sharp enough that I could have done just that if it hadn't run into my thumb nail), so it didn't gush like it could have.

So, now that you are all thoroughly grossed out, I will leave now. Twenty minutes until The Child gets up from her nap. I need to go do something productive. Like play a video game or nap or something.

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Edited to add:

The food! How did I forget about the food?

Best Thanksgiving meal ever. My sister and her friend did almost all of it. We pretty much just ate all day. Which actually works out well. If you start with some appetizers in the early afternoon, you don't gorge yourself to the point of illness when you sit down, starving, to the evening meal.

There is a picture on Facebook of my gnawing on a turkey leg, but I actually didn't eat much at all. I eat constantly, but since my stomach is now the size of a walnut, I can only eat three bites at a time. The turkey, which my brother-in-law grilled, was amazing. Best turkey ever. He brined it overnight in some kind of concoction, and then it cooked all day and made us all very happy.

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Also, we have settled on the first name Emeline (pronounced "emma-lean") for 2.0. And I like Emma for short instead of Emily. Emily's very pretty, but I like Emma better.

I know, totally not what I had in mind, right? But it's so feminine and pretty and old-school and unusual, yet still normal. I like the names Emma and Emily a lot, always have, but they've become much more common over the last few years. So Emeline works. We think we like Adele for the middle name, but that's still up in the air. I had in mind a name that would mean something, either definition-wise or as a family name, or something, and this doesn't at all. I don't even know what Emeline Adele means. But it's just... pretty. And my grandma's name is Emma Adelaide, so it's kind of family-ish.

We can FINALLY ditch "2.0" and "The New One" and "This One" when we're talking about her. I mean, calling a baby 2.0 is amusing and all, but giving her a name makes her more real, more of a person in my mind. It's nice.

*or Emmeline. I am trying to figure out which spelling is more normal. I like weird names, but not weird spelling. Makes sense, right? Actually, there are about 40 different ways to spell Adele, too, so we have that to work on also. Goody!