three events one day, three coffees the next

In the life of a work-from-home mama, social contact comes as feast or famine.  Thursdays are Phil's class nights so he is gone from 6am to 9pm.  Many of those nights Liam and I are literally pressing our faces against the front window for the last hours waiting for him to get home, sick of only seeing each other all day long.  Today was the exception.  As I was preparing for a lunch meeting at my house with cousin Susanna, her fiance Kyle, and both of their moms to discuss wedding plans, Phil surprised us by coming home for lunch, AnneMarie stopped by to borrow something, and my dad called to say he would be by later for a quick visit.  Between all of this Liam only managed a short nap and I had time for only part of my lunch and two cups of coffee.  By the time I finished the lunch dishes it was time for me to pack him up and drop him off with Tim and AnneMarie while I went to meet some of my fellow working-wife gal pals for (yet more) coffee, which ended up being my dinner, to discuss the wonders and woes of starting one's own business.  So, here it is 12:17am and I am bursting with creative inspiration (or is that caffeine?) and I finally have the energy to write about the crazy/fun Saturday I had last weekend.

It was a three-event-day that began at 4:30am.  Luckily I was only in charge of the first one, a fundraising breakfast for Puget Sound Christian Clinic  that I had been working on all summer.  It went really well, everyone was very friendly and helpful and we had a great turnout.  

After that, it was home to get dressed for event number two, a costume party with about ten thousand toddlers and lots of candy...good thing there was also sangria for the grown ups.  It's also a good thing that my own toddler doesn't like candy (or at least doesn't know any better) and still prefers mini tomatoes.  With the amount of energy he has inherited from his father he needs no artificial stimulation so we're trying to keep him in the dark about the wonders of sugar.  

What tomatoes?

We returned home in time to make another quick costume change and leave the napless, partied-out kiddo with his Auntie and Uncle for (drumroll...) our first night apart from him ever!  This involved us transforming from halloween-costumed to formal-event-presentable in just a matter of minutes and I think the time constraint was the only thing that saved me from changing my mind.  By the time I realized how much I would miss him we were already half way to Bellevue for the Tierras de Vida banquet benefitting Agros International.  This is a really amazing organization that Phil and I have both been interested in and a colleague of mine invited us to be part of her table.  Because our table hosts were coordinators of the event, we also received a complimentary room at the Bellevue Hyatt that night.  The event was wonderful with a very moving testimony from a woman who is part of one of their villages in Honduras.  You can read her story here.  It was so relaxing to have a night away.  In the morning we enjoyed a fabulous breakfast at Twisted Cork and by then I was ready to get back to my little boy.  I burst through the door calling "Hi Liam!" and bent down to greet him as he ran down the hallway... only to have him shoe me away with his hand so he could lean around me to smile at Phil.  I guess it's clear he's his daddy's boy.