I woke up because Nathan had burned some popcorn.
That's what I thought, anyway, as I lay there in the dark, gagging on the stench. I peered bleerily at my phone- not quite midnight. I'd been asleep for about three hours. And the reek was getting worse.
It's nothing. It's just popcorn, I thought to myself, trying not to be That Paranoid Woman. But then-
That's not nothing- the smell is too strong... and... chemical? Oh shit what if Nathan is passed out! Thus did I come flying out of the bed and down the stairs, to a living room hung with greasy gray tendrils of smoke.
Why isn't the fire alarm going off? I thought, rushing into the kitchen to find the source of the smell. There on the stove, on a burner that was theoretically turned off, were the charred remnants of what had once been chicken and vegetable soup, and a heavy plastic ladle that was melting and burning in the thoroughly ruined pot.
By this point Nathan emerged from his office to see why I was stampeding around the house: the closed door had cut him off completely from the odor (not dead from smoke inhalation- yay!).
We got it taken care of, of course, but the house... the smell is literally nauseating. Even now, after a full day of open windows, it still smells like an ashtray. It's horrific. ::sigh:: Tomorrow's activities will likely include me washing walls...
After that adventure I had a hard time getting back to sleep- my brain wouldn't shut up with the "But what if I hadn't woken up?!" scenarios. And then of course Neeps woke up for his night-feed, which kept me up even longer.
All of this to say, I did not get a lot of sleep last night, which perhaps explains the events of this morning.
I was scheduled to be part of a photo-shoot for a feature on working moms today (a joint effort by the dynamic women behind A Well Crafted Party and Momma Bear Magazine), something I was very, very excited about. Since the shoot was taking place a good half hour from where I live, I had Neeps packed up and ready to go early enough that we wouldn't just be on time, we'd be a little early. We'd been instructed to wear what we'd normally wear for work, but I, in my Motherly Wisdom, was bringing it with me rather than wearing it, because we all know that wrangling infants whilst wearing Office Apparel is a recipe for disaster.
Except (I realized just in time to miss the last exit on our side of the river) I forgot the damn outfit. (also the damn makeup, jewelry, shoes, and hairbrush, all of which were neatly assembled in a bag so that I could grab it on my way out the door.) And so I had to cross the river, exit, turn around, get back on the interstate to recross the river to get back home and retrieve the bag, and then start out again. Normally this wouldn't have been so terrible- an extra 15 minutes, max- but traffic had been really heavy and slow on the way south the first time, and on the way south the second time it was at a literal standstill because of course they raised the bridge.
In the end it took me over an hour from the time I left the house (the first time) to the time I actually made it to the photo shoot. Not my finest hour. Although to tell the truth I couldn't help but laugh that me having a child didn't actually have anything whatsoever to do with my tardiness to the "working moms" event.
The day went a great deal more smoothly from that point onward- I loved hanging out and chatting with other working mothers- those ladies were inspiring as hell! And of course I never get tired of hearing people admire my baby. I'm really excited to see the results of the shoot, and you can be certain I'll link you guys to the feature when it comes out!
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