"Amy" and "Seth" weekends. Respectively.

Having survived Chancellorsville (literally, it felt like), the rest of the week should have been smooth sailing. Unfortunately, horrific karma seemed to have struck my outlook calendar at work, and I found myself racing between the commander's cup swim meet (a major annual event at which I did not even have the pleasure of doing a cannonball this year) and a two-day joint appellate training (which could easily have been squeezed into a lunch conference call, and required my entire office to close up shop and relocate to Ft. Myer in our uncomfortable and ugly class B uniforms.) So I spent a lot of time fighting traffic and cursing at panty hose, which really should not be required of women who are eight months pregnant.

 Seth's week was not quite so miserable, but he did have to figure out how to juggle pack and play assembly with Thursday night football. (When did football take over Thursday too, by the way?) With the help of a couple Coronas, he managed, and the pack and play seems none the worse for it.

Friday we made our way into the city, a rare occasion for us, for dinner with Doug, Seth's old JTAC, and his fiancé. We felt very cosmopolitan- particularly me, since I arrived early and got to pop into the Grant & Lee exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. Stuff like that always reminds me that we need to take more advantage of our proximity to "city perks" like museums and great restaurants (which terrific intention I inevitably forget by the time post-awful-commute evenings and weekends roll around.) I'm hoping to get in some Smithsonian time this winter when the baby is little, figuring that it'll be a great way to get in some walking with her when the weather is bad, but it remains to be seen how well babies and art galleries mix. I have a hunch.

Speaking of babies, this was the weekend of my NC baby shower, which I had been dreading. To my estimation, 10+ hours round trip was a lot of solo driving for a carload of stuff we didn't really need. (I had let Seth off the hook on this one, since bowhunting season had rolled around and I feel- inexplicably- like I owe him for the fact that newborns go about as well with hunting as they do museums.) Of course, I had forgotten the fact that the shower hosts and attendees were my friends who know me, so we had a lovely, funny, shower games-free get-together in the beer cellar room of my favorite gastropub, and laughed about the gifts I didn't understand over cupcakes. Takeout Thai afterwards followed by a Sunday morning stroll and gossipy brunch with girlfriends combined for a terrific, if too-short, weekend of much-needed "girl time." Admittedly the drive home- with 95 traffic, natch!- convinced me that I was done with long road trips for awhile, but it was well worth it.

Not to mention that I came home to "I missed you" flowers and a husband who had apparently missed me enough to fold laundry and ordered my favorite pizza for dinner. Seth had had a great weekend too, hunting and fishing on the Eastern Shore, and seemed way less concerned about having been viciously attacked by mosquitoes and chiggers than I would have been. He had also knocked off a big chunk of the "honey do" list, and I was beyond thrilled that he had gotten the car seat base installed in his truck (with a minimum of cursing, it sounded like.) It must have been exhausting, since he was asleep before I got halfway through my demonstration of the baby first aid kit. (At least I think he was asleep, although now that I mention it...)

The photo of the week doesn't do the hilarious event justice, but is of Heather showing me how to wrap the complicated Moby wrap in the parking lot after my shower. So wish us luck with that.