Man I have not been a good writer lately. We’re getting to the end of the semester and between the term project and getting ready for the exam that’s sucking up my “free” writing time. (I say “free” because in reality I have to sneak out of the living room and set up my laptop in the bedroom in order to do homework, and even then Kate’s whining at the door when she realizes I’m hiding!)

Den and I had a date last night, as it was his work Christmas party, and so she was with the babysitter for 5 hours. She loves her babysitter, but she is starting to make the connection now; when the babysitter arrived Kate looked from us to her and then grabbed my leg and whined “Up! Up!” But thankfully her unhappiness at us leaving is short-lived, from what we hear, and she is always just fine. That really makes me feel a ton better about going out, I have to say. When she was younger and I knew there was a very good chance she’d be hysterical while I was out I really couldn’t ever relax. So it’s quite a treat to leave knowing she’ll be playing and happy and maybe fall asleep. Our babysitter has not yet managed to get Kate into her crib to sleep – which is, I admit, a tricky thing that only I seem to accomplish without crying – but we aren’t strict about bedtimes here so I just tell her to do whatever works for her, if she falls asleep in the living room or stays awake, whatever. So unfortunately we came home at 11pm to a wide awake child who was totally thrilled to see us. But that had three very big benefits. First I got to cuddle her and hold her for a little bit before bed, which I admittedly almost always want to do when I’ve been out for more than an hour. And then there were very big bonuses in that she went to sleep very easily since it was so late, and she slept until 9:30 in the morning! That might just be ideal after a night out! I certainly appreciated sleeping in.

The evening wasn’t a full success, however. I still don’t know what triggered it, if it was simple overeating at dinner or if something at dinner or earlier in the day that was bad, but right after dinner at the party I got sick. Really, really sick. I kind of expected to overeat and throw up, that’s just how it goes when I eat too much, but this went way beyond that. I had stomach cramps from gas pain, I threw up a few times, and basically I couldn’t leave the bathroom for a long time – and when I did I had to go rushing back more than once. Clearly my body thought I had eaten something bad because it flushed my entire system out. After that I started feeling much better, it was only an hour or two long, but my stomach is still very sensitive and kind of sore to be honest. Not really how I wanted to spend my night. Thankfully it was all gastrointestinal, no uterus anything going on, and the little alien in there just gave me yet another good kick to let me know it’s alive in there.

I would love to write more but I think my sore belly and I need to lay down.