Shine bright like a diamond!

I'm home sick today and finally, finally, after sleeping most of the day, I have a little time to myself to put down in words the amazingness that was Girls' Weekend.

Some of you might recall I was less than enthusiastic about the trip in the very beginning. Not because I didn't very much want to see and catch up with this bright, hilarious, wonderful group of women, but because I worried about being away from my kids for three days and leaving Lester alone all that time with two 3-year-olds and a 2-year-old (can you imagine?)

But I am SO glad I went.

The obvious reasons need little explaining. I had three days of free time - truly free. No demands whatsoever from anyone. This was unspeakably glorious! I also ate amazing meals (it's NOLA, hello!) and drank delicious cocktails and then could sleep in the next morning. People without children have no idea the luxury of being able to wake up naturally after a night of healthy drankin'...
I got to laugh and talk with women I like and admire and missed. And I met C. Thomas Howell on the way home!!! What's not to love, right?

But the real boon of the weekend came entirely unexpectedly.

I anticipated all the laughter. I anticipated all the great conversation. I did not anticipate all the crying. Or all the encouragement. All the building-up. All the intense, but loving, scrutiny and accountability -- the kind that can only lead to self-improvement down the road. I had no idea all that was coming. Or how much I needed it.

But from the first moment we all sat down for a meal, there were confessions, tears and support (all before dessert). Apparently, before I arrived, the same thing had happened at dinner with another woman. And before I left New Orleans, it would happen again  -- and again. Each one of us had things we needed to say, to reveal or to lament -- about marriage and parenting, careers and friendship, love and ambition, transgressions and regrets, loneliness and self-doubt. And when one of us would venture out into the water of vulnerability, all the rest of us would swarm around her like bouys, arms outstretched. Sometimes to pull her in for a hug; many times to push her on to truth.

It was, in a word, DEEP.

I knew I'd missed having girlfriends around, but even I was stunned by how needy we all seemed for sister-love.

Back at home, we all marveled at how emotionally naked we'd gotten -- after not being in the same place all at the same time for more than 10 years.

One of my girls sent us this message afterward, which I've edited a bit, to protect identities.

Was talking to my good friend, XXXX, this morning. She just got back from a long girls' weekend of her own - a birthday celebration at a Miami spa. I think her group had six gals, all of whom are friends from high school.

Anyway, she mentioned that the weekend had been insanely intense: in-jokes, crying, liquor, sleep, laughing, confessions, etc. She said it felt like an exorcism or maybe a rebirth. That beyond the ties of love, husbands, kids and friendship, there was the specter of their shared mid-40s. And that, my friends, is a scary place to be.

That must be what we tapped into in New Orleans. That this time in a woman's life opens her up to much intense emotion and self-reflection. Because how else to explain how quickly we reached that amazing place where we showed ourselves to each other after so many years apart? It definitely could have gone another way, but by the time we all got to [the house in New Orleans], it was ON.

I'm turning 45 on Sunday, and can I tell you how excited I am about it?! And I wasn't, really, before our NOLA retreat. These past couple of years have been especially tiring and scary. I've been lower than I've ever been in my entire life ....But New Orleans brought me back to life in a surprising way. I can face my new life with renewed passion and energy.
 
She is so right, y'all! Reading that again, I get all goosebumpy. My life is not on hold (remember that post from just a few days before I left for my trip?) I just need to approach my life with renewed passion and energy!

Since coming back from NOLA, I started Sugar-Free February, determined not to let sugar continue its chokehold on me. I'm not saying I'll never eat another sugary thing, that's ridiculous. But I want to be in control of what I eat, not the other way around. My girls helped me to get to this point -- they made me KNOW that I can do it. They also encouraged me (as many of you have as well) to take the time to get to the gym or to yoga and believe that my children will be just fine for a few hours a week without me -- even if I work all day long. I'm mulling that one over, but I'm much closer to pulling the trigger on at least ONE night of yoga a week than I was before my trip.

And maybe most importantly, we have all started talking about writing a book together -- and have a conference call planned for tomorrow night to talk about what that book might be, what it might look like, what do we regular gals -- wives, mothers, friends, writers -- have to say that hasn't already been said a million times.

But we know that whatever it is, it will somehow tap into the unofficial theme we adopted over the weekend, a running inside joke about a comically-sung Rihanna tune that somehow turned into our mantra: Shine Bright Like a Diamond.

Because whatever we do, wherever life has taken us or will take us, we know we all have the ability, the capacity, the responsibility to shine bright in our respective worlds (whatever that means to us individually), like the diamonds we are.

Food!

Friends!

Faraway friends who crashed the weekend! (So glad she did!)

Fuel!!

The French Quarter!

And the Fountain Lounge, where a five-hour sweat lodge, over never-ending cocktails, went down. I will never forget this night. EPIC.

I highly encourage you all to take a girls' trip, if you haven't done one already. You'll be so glad you did.

Rat skulls, cocktails and Murphy's Law strikes again

In my quest to find more science-y things to do with the kids, I happened upon the most awesome thing. Every Saturday, Masonville Cove Environmental Education Center has free activities for pre-K kids! Every Saturday. FREE!

The one trick is that they can only fill 20 slots, including adults, and so you have to sign up fast for the weekends you want to go. I learned this the hard way, as I have been trying to go to one of their programs since October!

But this weekend, we finally made it -- and the lesson was on "noc-turtle" animals. (That's how the boys say it.)

We learned about owls and bats and other animals that do most of their living at night. The programs are awesome because they combine toys and stuffed animals with music (the teacher sang a song about nocturnal animals - seriously, who makes a song about nocturnal animals?), a little science experiment, outdoor playtime, arts and crafts AND snack. Did I mention this was all for FREE?

Playing with all the stuffed animals.

The science experiment involved dissecting "owl pellets," which owls cough up after eating mice and other small animals. Because their stomachs can only digest the fleshy parts of animals, the pellets contain all the fur and bones. So we pulled apart the pellets and looked under magnifying glasses at little mice skulls and leg bones and teeth and tails.

The boys were only mildly interested in this -- especially because they had discovered binoculars earlier in the program and really only wanted to look at everything they could find with those. So checking out mice bones was a road bump in their binocular play. I suspect slightly older children, who really understand digestion and anatomy a little bit more would find this supremely exciting.

For my part, I found it pretty cool, but also a little bit gross. But I did a really great job of hiding my  grossed-out-ness because when one is trying to nurture the inner brain surgeon in one's children, one cannot make faces and go "Ewwwww!" when checking out mice skulls. (As much as one might want to.)

Come on. Look at that and tell me you don't want to give me a high-five for suppressing my "ewwww!"

Making a craft.

Owl puppets, with "real" feathers.

It was a little chilly for the outdoor play part of the program -- pretending to be bats and trying to find your friends (or Mommy) using echolocation. But the boys thought it was a lot of fun running around with their eyes closed shouting.

All in all, the morning was really awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I know that going to this program will be a big part of our lives from now on. In fact, I think I've just found the place that will get our end-of-the-year donation in 2014: Masonville Cove.

Lester took Clair with him to a political event that morning, so while the boys and I were sciencing (just coined a word! Holla!), the two of them were politicking.  The Mayor was there and the Lt. Governor (who is running for governor), but Lester said Clair stole the show. I'm not surprised.

Later Saturday afternoon, we all went to my parents' house. We dropped the kids off with Mom and Dad and went to a holiday dinner party at the home of my friend Wes' girlfriend Danielle.

Danielle and Wes.

The fancy Davises (pre-cocktails).

The evening was VERY elegant. There were all sorts of stinky cheeses, and appetizers with brie and caviar, and super fancy place settings and a beef tenderloin so damn good I wanted to sing halleluiah to the cow who gave it to us. There was a signature cocktail (with cranberries that had been soaking in vodka for two YEARS) and dinner served with both a red and a white wine.  And the conversation was really hilarious and substantial and satisfying.

Grown-up night out. Good friends. GREAT food. Excellent conversation. Kids safe and happy (and asleep) with my parents: When we left Danielle's house, we were on quite a high!

It was quarter to 1 when we walked in -- and the high ended there.

Every light was on in the house. Mom was up washing linens and pajamas and Cary and Dean were awake and wired. Clair was crying and looking pitiful.

Apparently, poor Clair had vomited THREE times while we were gone. Once, she spit up all over Cary. And in the middle of all of that, Dean got ahold of a stapler in my parents' office and stapled his thumb. Dad had to pry it out with pliers. 

I thought for a half a second: Boy, so glad we missed all this excitement! But remember how we always say that no good date goes unpunished? Well, just know that Mom happily handed her shift over to me when we came in, so the fourth time Clair vomited (this time mostly liquids), it was our turn to change her pajamas, put new sheets on the boys' bed (how she managed to aim and hit the boys' bed every time is beyond me) and try to get her back to sleep.

At 3 a.m., she and I were still awake on my parents' living room sofa.  Her tummy was upset and she was "hunggy" and "firsty" but I wouldn't dare put another thing on her stomach, so she just whined and complained and fidgeted until finally, around 3:40, she collapsed from exhaustion.

Of course I was sorry as can be for my poor sweetie (and my poor parents!) but I was also thinking how it is SO Murphy's Law that the one night I have two or three (or four, but who's counting) cocktails, plus two glasses of wine, is the night my poor, sick child won't sleep until nearly 4 a.m.!!

And of course C and D were up at 7:30 a.m. --  bright-eyed and ready to eat breakfast and play in the snow that started falling later in the morning.

Lester and I were both so tired, we missed church and didn't get to go buy our Christmas tree like we wanted to. We mostly just sat around the next day, drinking coffee and falling asleep mid-sentence.

Lucky for us, the bug was pretty much over and done with by morning, so Clair feels much better and we are making plans to go get our tree sometime this week. So there are no regrets, people. I'm dragging still a little bit this morning, but I still have the memory of that fabulous tenderloin. And boy was it worth it.