Weekend dash across the Mason Dixon

So, we had a very quick weekend trip to NJ. Tom took Friday off and we left after we got up and dressed and fed. We were thinking of stopping at the Zoo in DC to let Ronan run around, but I was approaching the I-66/495 interchange around 1pm and told Tom that I wasn't terribly keen on staying in DC past two. Half an hour at the Zoo isn't much fun when you're paying for parking (and if we didn't park right there, we'd lose all of our time walking). I proposed Ft. McHenry in Baltimore.

Turns out Ft. McHenry was the perfect stop. Lots of grassy grounds for running around. Kites. Dogs. Bikes. Ships. A helicopter refueling depot across the river. We have an Interagency Pass, so we flashed that and entered the Fort itself. I last saw it when I was somewhere in the 10-12 range, so that was fun. We spent an hour and a half there, which landed us smack in the middle of Friday rush hour + lane construction doom. And he skipped his nap, which we didn't quite expect. I nursed him a lot at the Fort and then he said he wanted Daddy to sit in back with him, so we shrugged our shoulders and I drove again. We figured I'd be pulling over somewhere around White Marsh while he screamed in the back seat, but he was fine. So, from halfway through the tunnel up to Raphel road, we were pretty much in a logjam. Once we made it past there, traffic was fine (just heavy in volume, as usual) and we got to Mt. Laurel around 6pm.

Ronan was great. He was occasionally antsy, but I drove while Tom entertained him. It's hard (painful) for me to nurse him in his seat now that he's taller, so I drive and provide less temptation.

We went to Tim (twilight_spirit) & Meghann's wedding in PA on Saturday. New Hope for the wedding, Doylestown for the reception. Happy times, good friends, love all around. Ronan really liked talking about the ducks (and snake!) in the Delaware River. Between the two events, we took Ronan to the Kid's Castle at Central Park in Doylestown. Holy hell. I wish I'd taken my camera. That was an amazing playground. Imagine a wooden kid's structure that has eight levels of maze and big twisty slides. And that's just the castle. There were numerous other parts to it (pirate ship, toddler sandpit downtown, tire ramps, all sorts of twisty things to climb and hide). It was like Charlottesville's Tonsler park, but several more stories. Ronan loved it. (You can imagine how appropriately Tom and I were dressed.) He then slept through most of the reception in my arms.

I spent Mother's Day shopping with my MiL. FiL made dinner (rice & beans, broccoli, salad, grilled chicken) and then we said goodbye. Ronan was napless, like Friday, but this time he slept. That's a rarity. He was asleep from the time we got on the turnpike all the way to just north of Baltimore. Then I nursed him and he slept again, all the way to Silver Spring. We stopped in Silver Spring for WFM and Starbucks. I was glad to see that the downtown Starbucks was open til 9:30. The barista heard me say I had a long drive and she offered me extra shots. Ronan fell asleep for Tom somewhere on I-66 and slept all the way home.

I hope our long, hellish car rides have turned into something new. It may just be an anomaly, though. Still, Ronan managed to happily spend the hour-long rides to and from PA and the two five-hour rides (split up) from VA/NJ and back. For a kid who starts screaming if I try to drive more than 20 minutes, this is pretty cool.

I do, however, need to figure out how to safely install the portable DVD monitor for our Indiana trip this summer. Ronan's rearfacing and the back seat has no headrests. I was going to try to do a pocket that would anchor behind the seat, but realized that it's a major projectile risk. I might see if there's a way to get a webbing tie-down strap behind/around the seat and thread the monitor brackets through that. I'll have to floor-tether the Boulevard, too.

Egg transference into ye olde boobies

I spent a bit over a month egg-freef or Ronan.

His eczema totally cleared up. Of course, he was also egg-free. So with a nice, clear baseline, I introduced eggs into my diet. Not even eggy eggs, but baked goods containing egg. I just wanted to see if we had a transfer situation with breastmilk. And, y'know, eggs were an integral part of my diet pre-Ronan's reaction.

You see, Starbucks now has individually wrapped gluten-free orange almond cakes. And they're soy-free.

So I bought one on Friday. It was a lovely novelty, but I really don't care for orange-flavored cakes. Still, kudos to Starbucks for delivering a product with excellent texture.

When I saw no evidence of a reaction on his skin by Sunday, I had a second one. (He did scratch some Saturday, but it might've been sweat. Or sand. Or anything.).

And this evening, I saw his skin flushing. Unmistakable signs of early eczema rash. Plus he was scratching like mad all evening.

So I guess there's no orange cakes in my future (which is okay, again, I just don't care for them). Sadder still, no mayo.