Weekend

Last night during one of Hunter's feedings, I spent 45 minutes writing a blog about last week's happenings. When I hit "Publish" an error message popped up and my whole blog was deleted. I guess it didn't autosave for some reason that whole time. That is SO frustrating! And now I have no clue what I wrote about exactly so you will get an extremely condensed version as a rewrite. Sorry about that.

Tuesday morning, Brianna, Hunter and I ventured to CFA for the first time to meet up with Jenn and Claire. As soon as we walked in, the girls behind the counter ran over to see Hunter. The first thing most of them said was, "Has your sister had hers yet??" Nope. It turned out to be the most civilized date we've ever had there, in my opinion. Neither girl stood up in her seat, neither girl screamed bloody murder, Hunter slept the whole time, Jenn and I actually got to eat, it was all good! After about an hour we headed off to the play area. Claire immediately toddled off to play with the other kids while Brianna was content to sit in Jenn's lap and "bask in the warm glow" from the sun shining in the window.

Wednesday we went to mom's for lunch as usual. Dad was in Georgia visiting family, so Hunter and Kitty Cat were the men of the house. In other words it was a good thing we didn't end up needing a man for anything! Mom was going to watch Bri so I could go to work but Stephen thought she had an ear infection. I didn't think she did but all I could think was I didn't want to be the mom who refused to take her to the doctor only to find out weeks later she had a terrible infection. (She ended up being perfectly healthy by the way.) Better safe than sorry.

Friday, Leila, Lauren and Josh came into town. Stephen took a couple of hours off work and took Josh hunting. Lauren told me that she wanted to take Brianna to the park. I had planned on working on stuff for Fed By Faith but I had also been telling Stephen for weeks before Hunter was born that I wanted to take Bri to the park. Every day we had a chance to go was either too hot, too cold or too rainy. Then after Hunter was born it just became too difficult because it's a 20 minute drive to a nice park, 20 minute drive home, so after about 20 minutes of play time Hunter is ready to eat. I don't think it's smart to try to feed him and let Brianna run around a playground unattended, so it just hadn't happened. I really wanted to be there when she went to the park so I decided to put off the FBF stuff for another day and go with them. I got lots of pictures and she had a very nice time!

Saturday everyone else was going to play softball with our church so I took the opportunity to go to the church to finish packing for FBF for this month. Within about three hours I had finished up and done some shopping for FBF too. I love getting things done and not having to worry about them anymore. We ate out at Hickory Tavern that evening and also went to Belk to get Brianna a winter jacket.

In the middle of the night I came down with mastitis. I had it with Bri, so I knew exactly what was happening. By the time morning rolled around I had gotten about three hours of sleep and the fever was starting to come on so I knew I definitely wasn't going to make it to church. The problem was getting a prescription on a Sunday! After everyone left the house I started making phone calls. I called Labor & Delivery and it turned out that one of the doctors from my office was there. She kindly believed my self-diagnosis and called in a prescription. I was able to get it just a couple of hours later, fortunately, because within a few hours my fever was up to 101. After just a couple of doses of medication though, it was back down to normal.

Also on Sunday I went back to Belk because when I bought Brianna's winter jackets I didn't use my two 20% off coupons! I know! Leila said she couldn't believe I forgot to use a coupon but my excuse was I'm not used to retail coupons. :) So I took them back to return them and re-purchase them with the coupon. Hey, it was almost $10 I got back! While I was there, though, I had the worst customer experience ever.

There were about five of us in line. I was talking to the woman in front of me in line (Hunter is a hot topic of conversation in stores) when we were suddenly distracted by the customer at the counter raising her voice to the girl behind the counter, Casey. I guess she was trying to ship something and didn't have the zip code. Casey was trying to explain to her that she didn't have any way to look up the zip code and that the woman needed to have that information when she came into the store. The woman started yelling about "customer service" and why didn't she just call "zip code directory". Well, I'm not even sure there is such a thing as zip code directory. Casey said, "Sure, I'll call zip code directory. What's the number for that?" The customer said, "Well, I don't know - that's YOUR job!!!" After lots more yelling the customer said, "Why don't we just call 411. Just do that!" Casey called 411 but of course, they only do phone numbers, not zip codes. The customer finally said, "Look, why don't we just call your manager up here!" Casey said, "I would be HAPPY to do that!" She called the manager who said exactly the same thing Casey had been saying all along but the customer kept yelling so finally Casey just asked the manager to come up front. Once the manager got there the customer continued complaining in a very rude tone with lots of finger pointing at Casey. Finally the manager offered to call 411 to see if they could find the zip code that way (she didn't know Casey had already tried that). The woman said, "FINALLY I am getting some help. That's ALL I have wanted this whole time! SHE was so rude!" Well at this point I had had it with this woman. There is no reason to speak that way to someone, so I said, "Excuse me, but the girl behind the counter DID call 411 and they don't do zip codes." Then the woman in front of me said, "That girl has been NOTHING but polite to this customer" and the woman behind me stepped up and said something as well! The manager smiled at all of us and offered the customer to go to another register so they could try to figure something out. Casey profusely thanked all of us for speaking up. I just felt like if I didn't say something it would be condoning that kind of behavior. Later the manager came back over and Casey said she was glad that we spoke up so the manager wouldn't think she was actually rude to the customer. The manager said she knew Casey and she knew customers like that and she knew who to believe. It's nice to have a boss who believes in you! Anyway, that whole episode just exhausted me and made me so angry! I can't believe some people.

Okay, believe it or not that was the short version of the blog I wrote yesterday. And here are some pictures I wanted to put up - I should be putting more up soon!

Brianna loves to practice good hygiene:

Stephen has taught Brianna to give him five and then "pound" fists or do "knuckles". Here she is trying to do knuckles with Hunter - he just happened to have his fist balled up already!

Giving daddy high five:

Teaching Hunter to do high fives:

This is when she pats him and says, "Awwwww, baby!"

Brianna's beautiful dress from her Nenah!

More pictures coming!