Can you have a great weekend and a really bad one all at the same time?

Apparently so, because as I look back on this one, it was equal parts fun and suck. My mom came in this weekend and that was the really good part. She hasn't gotten to see Bean in about three months (since she pulled babysitting duty so I could go to Stitches) and she was amazed at how much my little darling has grown. Bean is now holding real conversations and has quite a vocabulary, I didn't know until Saturday that she even knew what binoculars were, let alone that she could pronounce the word correctly.

On Friday, we left the house early to catch a quick breakfast at McD's before taking the munchkin to camp for the day. Mom really enjoyed getting to see the school and meeting her counselor (who it turns out will also be her teacher in the fall). Then we headed off to run some errands. Pretty mundane stuff for the most part. We hit Target to swap out a cabinet component that was dinged up, a store to buy a new part for my mom's CPAP machine (it helps with sleep apnea) and the Sephora to buy some face wash for me. Lilly decided on Thursday afternoon that my old tube of it was actually shampoo and dumped the whole thing over her head! Thank goodness it a) did not get in her eyes and b) was only a small tube, so the mess was limited.

I did, however, decide on two really fun stops for the day. The first, I wanted to go down to the Quarter Stitch and show off my progress on the Spiral Sweater. I had purchased my yarn there and she had asked me to keep her posted on my progress. Well, when we got down to the store, we were about 30 minutes early for their opening. So, we hit the little bar next door to grab a couple of bottles of water and use the "facilities". After chatting with the very friendly, and bored bartender, we were convinced to try her specialty Orange-cicle Martinis (yes, I know, martinis before 11:00 in the morning!), but they were so yummy! So, with a light buzz and lots of giggles, we returned to the knit shop. Oh, not a good idea! I left the store with heaps of praise from the owner on the sweater and also enough blue koigu to make another one and some black alpaca to boot! Oops, didn't quite mean to spend that much money, but hey, I'm helping the economy....right? C'mon though, could you have resisted this color? (The picture doesn't totally do it justice, the color is a little deeper in "real life")


After our stop at the Quarter Stitch, we headed uptown to one of my new favorite spots, the St. James Cheese Company, in the Garden District. Oh my god, is it every yummy. We got a seven cheese plate, BLT (made with crispy Serrano ham and goat cheese instead of mayo) and a bottle of sparkling lemonade with grapefruit essence. I'm always so happy when I leave that place! It's probably good that it's so far from my house though (we live about 30 minutes from New Orleans), because otherwise I would soon be the size of a house!

To wrap up our very good day, we picked up Bean from school and headed home so Mom could take a nap. Bean watched a few cartoons and I started working on the first sleeve for my sweater. Great afternoon! Unfortunately, this is where the weekend starts to take its downturn.

Around 3:00am Saturday morning, I opened my eyes to see my darling little girl standing in front of me. I would usually make her go back to her own bed, but didn't really feel like fighting with her since she was sleeping in a room right next to my mom's and since Hubby was out of town this weekend, there was plenty of room for her in my bed. Unfortunately, she just wasn't really in the mood for sleep and I spent the next three and a half hours trying to convince her that she really did want to. Needless to say, we were both tired and cranky the next morning. Fortunately for me though, my mom was more than content to just hang out around the house with us and have a quiet day. At first, I chalked up the little one's crotchety-ness to lack of sleep, but realized after a little while that she was also running a bit of a fever. Now you know how fevers scare me after the kidney troubles we've had with the poor kid, but she seemed to respond well to Tylenol, was drinking plenty of fluids and didn't seem to be in any pain when she used the bathroom, so I decided not to freak out. She was crying a lot, but again, that's pretty normal when she doesn't feel well.

That night, I was again blessed with a middle of the night visitor. I checked her temperature (102.3), gave her some more Tylenol and a sippy cup of water and let her curl up in the bed with me again. Fortunately, she went right back to sleep and we both slept in until around 8:00 the next morning. And that's when the gastro-intestinal portion of the weekend kicked in. I will spare you the details, but carpet cleaner was involved. By noon though, all seemed to be on the upswing. Mom headed back to Florida. Bean took a long nap and I got to watch the Brickyard 400. Hubby made it home right after the race and the little one was feeling a lot better. We played for the rest of the afternoon around the living room and all-in-all had a really fun night.

So, now I'm sitting here in my lovely, quiet house. I have housework I need to do, but I think I'm just going to sit for a minute and enjoy the quiet.....