Not Alex – mine.

Today I drove in the land of vices for the first time. I did not get lost. I did not cuss. I found the local co-op grocery store, I found THE most awesome Craftsman inspired furniture store where I mentally spent more than the balance left on my car, I found Scout’s office, I got rained on.

I found the first thing about the land of vices that I find endearing. While on a four lane street with a median, a firetruck came barrelling down on my ass. I was several cars back from the light when I realized what was happening and I didn’t know quite what to do – I’ve been in the suburbs long enough to know that people don’t tend to get out the way like they should.

Welcome to the land of vices folks – when they see emergency personnel they get OUT THE WAY (the word “of” has been purposely deleted). Cars actually bailed to the curb, the sidewalk and the median.

Sumbitch. : )

Here we go. We spent three days travelling to the land of vices. Two days looking for a house. Tonight we bid on an awesome house too expensive but we’ll figure it out. Tomorrow Scout starts at the office so we are now beginning the new normal. Alex still wakes up if not held/kept close while he sleeps. We keep trying to help this change, we just haven’t been able to yet – and the last week of course has a pantload of reasons why.

Anyway. Last night we went to Culvers and my custard came with a straw and Scout’s came with a spoon. Now this is some seriously thick stuff. I said “If I can suck this custard through a straw then you are a seriously lucky man”.

So tonight Scout seemed stressed and I asked him if was okay. He asked me to define okay. I said “Is there something I should be doing besides this (putting food away in the freezer) to help you?”

As soon as I asked… I just knew….

“Well how’s your peanut butter custard through a straw coming along?”

to which I responded with how pervy it would be to do that while trading off on who was in charge of holding the baby.

Last night my brother bought us dinner from Heaven on Seven. Generally known as the place Scout and I could eat every day until we die – and only available in Chicago. We planned dinner a week in advance.

I had left overs, which is a joy of HoS because you get the love twice.

So we got on the road today, leftovers sitting beside me, fresh from the fridge. Because of the spice you don’t really have to heat them up, and I’m pretty sure it’s impossible for a serving of food to go bad because the spice would cauterize any bacteria that would try to harm you. That and getting ptomaine from the food of the Gods just seems impossible.

Day two of traveling with Tiny Kaiser was better – still took pretty much as long even though we went half the distance of the day before, we just took longer breaks when he needed a break, rather than waiting for him to completely lose his shit like we did yesterday (live and learn).

We got the hotel and rather than being able to plop face down on the bed and do nothing, we had to be all “good baby!” “good kitty!” to the baby and kitty respectively. This made them happy, which in turn made them less angrily vocal, which in the end made us happy, even though we only saw results on the back end rather than the immediate gratification of total silence that we would have had 8 weeks and a couple of days ago.

Scout crashed on the bed with Baby Kaiser (b/c Baby Kaiser still will wake up if left to sleep “alone” (ie not being within TK arms length of a parent)) I set about eating my leftovers.

Now with our new time zone (We’re Eastern now) it was past ten pm and our food of the day consisted of breakfast/lunch at Cracker Barrel south of Gary, Indiana and shakes at a Steak and Shake somewhere in Indiana (both stops were for the Kaiser’s benefit – see above statement re: “shit losing, prevention”. Dinner never happened.

Neither did silverware. Now etouffe isn’t exactly finger food. But desperate times, measures etc. So I sat on the bed and ate every other bite off of my fingers – the bites I didn’t eat went to Scout – straight from my fingers to his mouth. Yes yes, we realize this is normally more of a strawberries and chocolate kind of vision – but this worked for us.

Our strange little family in a Marriott Courtyard, Kaiser sleeping on Scout, Scout and I eating cold left over cajun food from my fingers (with one mini fudge stripe cookie each for us for dessert), Kitty curled up in her kennel for the pretty much 23rd hour of today b/c when we try to put her in the bathroom so she can stretch out, she just cries for us – apparently being in the kennel near her people is better than lots of room all alone.

Love’s a funny little thing.

Traveling with tiny baby Alex is rough. He’s not fan of the long trip. He cried so much yesterday that he’s still hoarse today. Poor boy.

The good thing is that we all slept like rocks last night.