This weekend was quite the adventure. I had agreed to take care of an 8 month old little boy named Tanner while his mom volunteered in the MS150 all day long, and I mean ALL day long. Here’s a little snippet of my Saturday…

5:00 am: My alarm rings telling me I have to get up and rush to get ready. I have to leave by 5 30 to go to the Embassy Suites and pick up Tanner (oh and Tanner’s family is form out of town, that explains why I went to the hotel). Anyways, I hit the snooze button a few times so now it was 5:20. I leapt out of bed and put on some comfortable sweats and then made my way to the hotel.

5:42 am: I pull up to the hotel driveway, well actually to the twenty car line that was in front. Remember, it was the MS 150 (I don’t know what that stands for), so there were a ton of people with their professional looking bikes getting unloaded. So I left my car there and walked up to the valet guy. I tried giving him my keys and explaining that he needed to just put it on The Alexander bill because they would be paying for it. He looked at me like I was crazy. “Um, you want valet?” Well duh! Why else would I be handing you my keys and explaining what room to put it on!? “Uh, yes. I need to get upstairs right now, I have work.” He still looked at me like I was crazy. “You do know that it is $14, right?” “Yes I do! I need to go now, so please take my car.” “Ok.” Gosh, I know I was in sweats and didn’t look like I was the valet type, but seriously? Gah, he irked me.

5:45 am: I finally get up to room 826 where Tammy was still getting ready. The boys, Tanner, 8 weeks, and Reed, four years old, were just waking up. Now remember, the sun still hasn’t come up, what are these boys doing awake so early!!? So Tammy leaves me with the boys and I get them ready for the day. Changed out of jammies and got the stroller all saddled up. You should have seen us, I was pushing an overloaded stroller and poor little Reed had to drag his booster seat behind him. Oh it was a sight.

7:10 am: We are finally in the lobby of the hotel and it is swarming with people and bikes. I get out to the driveway and expect to get my car easily and get out of there as soon as possible. Boy was I wrong. The driveway was full of people and the valet guys were nowhere to be found. After searching the crowd a few minutes I finally found the guy and he went to get my car. As he came around the drive, he honked and bikers moved out the way. It was like the parting of the Red Sea! Except now all the million eyes there were on me and the boys. So now I’m frantically loading up the car, putting the baby carrier in the car, and trying to get Reed’s seat belt on. Ok everyone’s in the car and now I just had to fold up the stroller. Ha, I say it like it’s supposed to be an easy task. WRONG! That stroller was a nightmare! It wouldn’t fold up for the life of me! After seeing me struggle with it for a few minutes, one of the valet guys came over and tried helping me out. So now he’s trying to fix the stroller and Tanner starts crying. I told Reed to help him out, and he, God love him, unbuckles himself, dumps the diaper bag out all over the back seat, and finds a pacifier for his little brother. Thankfully that made Tanner happy, but now the back seat was flying. So I got Reed buckled in again, and the stroller was still an issue. I had given up on it and just told the nice valet to just keep it there. But this time, yet another valet dude came to help out. Oh and remember, a million eyes were still on me, and it felt like they were burning right through me. Finally, that possessed stroller decided to cooperate and managed to fold down and fit in the car. After thanking the nice man at the valet for all of his help- oh and it wasn’t the same one from earlier who thought I was nuts for wanting him to take my car- I drove off into the sunrise to take Reed to his friend’s house.

8:00 am: Dropped Reed off at Jackson’s house and drove home. Phewf, got the baby and all of his gear unloaded in the house. I plopped down for a bit to just get myself together and catch my breath. The rest of the day was not too bad. I had a lot of help from my aunt, Valery, and parents, so I even got a chance to shower and actually get ready for the day. But wow, all this happened and it was only 8:30. Lucky for me, Andrew came over a little later and we chilled.

By 5:30 we were dropping Tanner back off with his mom and brother, and Andrew and I went to dinner, even topped of the night with a Cheesecake Factory slice of Godiva cheesecake. Oh it was heavenly, especially after a long day taking care of a baby. We usually don’t splurge on dessert or dinner, but it was our ninth month-aversary and we had a mini celebration. The rest of the night was spent talking and catching up on Lost. Yay! I’m on my sixth episode of the first season! Lol. Ya, it’ll be a while until I actually catch up.