Daddy Went to Frog

According to Maddy, anyway.

Daddy actually went to Prague, as in the Czech Republic, but whatever, she insists despite repeated clarification that he went to "Frog" - and really, in terms of the effect on my life, it doesn't actually matter much where he went.

And that was going to be my excuse for failing as miserably at blogging regularly as I had been at emailing individually - until I realized that, uh, that would be fairly transparent, at least for those of you who live around here, as you know that he just left on Wednesday. In my defense, however, I will say that I honestly didn't think anyone was actually reading this! After I posted my father's eulogy, I figured a few of you would skim it and that would be that. But I've been completely surprised and flattered by the number of friends who have actually complained that there hasn't been anything new of my fascinating life here in a more than a week!

So here's what's new: I am a mere 2 days into nearly 2 weeks of single motherhood, and I'm going nuts already!

At least Steve's departure was less dramatic than last year at this time, when he left for the Prague conference (having already skipped the pre-conference and delayed his arrival more than was probably prudent, knowing his boss) aware that he was going to miss his son's birth (I was 40 weeks, 5 days pregnant - that's approaching a week overdue for my as-yet-childless-friends). And, this time, we have some fun planned: tomorrow, my mother and grandmother are coming out here to stay with the kids and me. Mom is staying one night and heading back on Sunday since she has some things to do back at her house; Grandma's staying until Monday, when I'll drive her back to NJ and then we'll meet up with Mom again and celebrate Andrew's 1st birthday (!!!) together.

Next weekend, we're heading to NJ to see Mom again and take her to the new Disney-Pixar movie Ratatouille, which I think is going to be FANTASTIC! After months of counting down to its premiere, I am sooooo psyched that it's finally here! Ever since I heard about this movie, I've been dying to see it. I can't wait - only one more week! I have to say though, how sad is it that the powers that be felt the need to phoneticize the pronunciation of the title as part of the title design itself? It's like, "OK, stupid Americans, we know that the vast majority of you will have no clue how to pronounce the name of this very common French dish, and since we also know that the vast majority of you are way too lazy to actually look it up and learn something, we'll just sound it out for you - and not even with proper phonetic symbols, either - really, we know that in this culture, anything that might tax your poor brains ever-so-slightly, like having to think back to your high-school French class, could cost us money at the box office!" Nice. The sad thing is, it was probably a smart move on their part. Anyway, I hope the movie is as good as it looks - and as good as the last few have been!