An overnighter with the girls- Palm Springs

When I take pictures of other people, I LIVE for genuine smiles and laughs and varying expressions. I love people who are naturally animated and not afraid of the camera-- people who raise their eyebrows a lot and laugh with their mouth open and don't stop what they're doing when they notice the camera pointed at them. I am not one of those people. I get frozen smile every time the camera's on me and can't remember what I was saying or thinking... I even forget to breath sometimes. Seriously. It kills me to look through pictures I'm in and see the same smile over and over again. I look at these pictures and think... these do NOT do it justice! We had so much fun! We should be laughing and telling stories and generally looking SUPER FUN. Ok so lots of our fun was laying half asleep in the sun or in bed, which might not have photographed well anyway-- such is life for a mom on break... but still.

I was terrified to take this trip originally. We planned it a few months ago--- sadly, Rachelle moved away from us a year ago and this was an excuse to have her come in from Arizona and make a girl's trip out of it. They stayed in town for me, since I'm nursing Finn. We didn't have him taking a bottle when we planned it, so I thought I might just be running back and forth and meeting up for just a couple of activities. But THEN, Lizzie and Shad got the dates for their timeshare in Hawaii and kindly reminded us that the offer for us to come with, was still on the table, if it were possible for us to get away, with such a young baby. Young baby was not invited. :) They don't get away often-- and quite frankly, I love my kids more than anything in the world, but I do NOT love traveling with kids. I'm just not sure it's worth it. So if it was going to happen, I would have to figure out if I could stomach leaving Finn, and he would have to finally agree to take a bottle (I've never succeed in this with my other babes), and some babysitting miracle would have to work out.

The Hawaii trip got me motivated to try harder with the bottle... even though I DESPISE pumping. Why?

- I feel like a cow.

-It hurts a little-- nursing doesn't.

-I feel like a cow.

-It takes up a good 15 minutes for me, nursing takes like 5.

-And then you still have to FEED the baby the bottle... which means it's just an extra chore in my eyes, no matter how you look at it.

-And I feel like a super gross cow.

BUT-- Hawaii was good motivation, and I'd always wanted to get him to take a bottle since a little more freedom could come in handy with two other kids.. etc.

After some persistence-- and working it in the first feeding of the day when he was HUN- gry. It WORKED! I couldn't believe it. I really didn't think it would. I didn't think I'd even have an option. And all of a sudden I did. I pumped every night to build up my supply "just in case" the rest worked out. THEN-- Ross's dad got hired with a new company in--- Palm Springs. Which means, he's living down the street- pretty much. After he got the job he let us know that all we'd need to do is fly out Ross' mom and then they could stay in our house and watch our kids if we wanted to do Hawaii. WHAT?! This was way too perfect.

Hmm... I've seriously digressed. This isn't the Hawaii post, this is PS girls trip. I think my point was that this was a very nice trial run. Since, as you can imagine, I'm still TERRIFIED to leave Finn this early. He'll be just about 8 months old. And luckily, for the two days I was gone, Ross handled it like a champ and said it was no big deal and that Finn was a super-baby. There may be a conflict of interest there since he's sick of me freaking out about it all. And really wants to do Hawaii. But he's generally honest. So I'm gonna go with it.

Anyway-- I left this trip remembering that getaways are fun. SO fun--- even though packing is not and leaving kids is emotional. And girls are special. The older I get, the more I CHERISH my friendships with women and truly think, regardless of our differences, we need each other.

By the way, some of the pictures above are from Norma's, for breakfast at the Parker. Holy cow. I decided to be good and shared an egg white fritatta with shrimp with Lizzie-- which was delicious. But I want to go back and do it right and get the chocolate pound cake waffle. Yes... a waffle, made out of CHOCOLATE pound cake.

sounds like heaveeeeeeennnnnnnnn.....