Preparing for Launch

Robert woke us up at five this morning, which never makes for the happiest of mornings. I got up with him, and M slept in another hour and a half, then I got a bit of a nap  as well, till it was time for him to go to school. M brought Robert and his bottle into the bedroom and set him on the bed with me, where I put the bottle in his mouth and went back to sleep for three or four minutes at a stretch until he dropped the bottle and started whimpering. Then I'd put it back in his mouth and let him hold it and doze off again. I am bad, sleepy mommy. ;-)  Eventually he drank most of the bottle and fell asleep himself, but by then I had bigger fish to fry. 

The car gave us a bit of a scare this morning, which was what eventually drew me out of bed. The check engine light went on as soon as M turned it on, for all that it ran all right and everything else seemed pretty okay. We eventually determined that it was probably the gas cap (again), but we're going to take it in for summer maintenance first thing tomorrow morning, just to be sure. I got a Groupon coupon for the maintenance, so it's 40 dollars instead of 150. Not bad, and not much more than I'd pay for just an oil change, which is included. The last thing we need is car failure as we leave on vacation! 

Robert took a nap on the bed for awhile, which was really cute, even if I did constantly check on him to make sure he hadn't spontaneously learned to roll over or something. I had the maintenance guy over again for our wet carpet, and he finally determined that it was the toilet that was leaking. Not before he'd cut a pretty good sized slice into our wall looking for a leaky pipe, but luckily it was in the back of the cabinet under the sink. Who looks there? A quick twist with a screwdriver fixed the leak, and a powerful fan has taken care of the wetness, for real this time. I'm glad we won't have to hit the road worrying about that! M also found one of his friends to look after the pets part of the time when we are away, so I just need to find someone to visit maybe twice and feed the birds and the cat. Surely I can do that. 

We went real light on the grocery buying this week, in order to minimize fresh food wasting, but that has made it a bit harder to get actual meals on the table till go-time. For lunch today, we went out to Cici's pizza and used a coupon for BOGO pizza buffet, which gave us all the pizza and salad and pop we could eat for ten dollars for the pair of us, including tip. Not bad, though certainly not something to do often. Robert was an angel, sitting in his carrier on the table and laughing and smiling while we talked to him and played with him. Really, he was in a good mood all day today, and even his fussy times were short and mild. I like days like that! 

Tomorrow and Friday are going to be really busy days. I've got to get the laundry under control, and put all these packing lists into action. M's going to clean out the car so it's ready to pack, and Robert will hopefully behave himself so we can get all this stuff done. Vacationing with a baby will probably be a million hassles, but I can't wait. Imagine Robert at the ocean, and with all M's family! It's going to be so much fun!