weekend update tuesday

During election season SNL occasionally airs a Thursday edition of their "Weekend Update." Well, I'm here with my weekend update a whole two days ahead of them. So take that, Seth Meyers!

Friday, morning
We, along with the rest of our playgroup friends, were invited over to Lyndzee's house to dip caramel apples. It was a lot sticky, gooey fun. I need to remember that topping the caramel with crushed pretzels and mini chocolate chips is definitely the way to do it. By the time the caramel ran out, the long week that preceded this activity finally smacked Caleb in the face good and hard, and on our way out the door he collapsed in a glorious meltdown. It was no surprise to either of us that, for the first time in weeks, he took an afternoon nap.

Friday, evening
The day may have started with caramel, but it ended with chocolate. Our good friends, Adam and Deborah, invited Blake and I to join them on what they termed a "chocolate crawl" of various chocolate shops in SoHo. My awesome visiting teacher had been begging me for weeks for the opportunity to babysit my kids, so with that hurdle out of the way, we all met up in the city to spend the evening sampling high quality chocolates. We went to three places, at two of which my tastes leaned to flower-flavored truffles. At the first I tried lavender, and while it was really good, my pick from the second shop -- milk chocolate infused with candied violet -- was incredible. It turns out that flowers and chocolate really are an inspired combination! At our final stop, I tried the raspberry hazelnut, a flavor I've learned you just can't go wrong with.

Saturday
Confession: For the last several weeks, I've been telling half-truths to lots of people, but particularly to my friend, Whitney, who will soon be welcoming her second baby boy. The subterfuge revolved around her baby shower, which I'd led her to believe I was the one planning when in fact it was all the doing of her mom and sister who live in Virginia; I was just the middleman. Everything was planned long distance and communicated to me by facebook, emails, phone calls, and texts. Initially the entire shower was going to be surprise, but when that proved too complicated, the appearance of her mom and sister was decided to be surprise enough. And oh was it ever! I got the shower started, then "noticed" a few more guests coming in. The joyful scream and streams of tears that came from Whitney when her mom and sister walked into the room were more than worth every tiny lie I had to tell to help make this come about. It was fantastic. As was the shower itself. Those girls know how to plan a party!

Saturday, evening and Sunday, morning
Garrett lost his second tooth late Saturday. That wiggly neighbor to his budding first adult tooth popped right out with a few good twists by yours truly. (Turns out that Blake is the wimp when it comes to pulling baby teeth, something that, given my own scarred history of getting teeth pulled, has taken me quite by surprise.) After admiring it for a few hours, he tucked it away under his pillow for the tooth fairy. In the morning I was awakened by a giddy little boy who announced at my bedside, "Mom! The tooth fairy came! And she brought me two quarters! Now I can buy a Cadillac!" I'm still not sure why he's so eager to be the owner of a Cadillac or when along the way he concluded that they're luxury vehicles, but with that sort of overwhelmingly positive attitude, if not the meager fifty cents, he certainly is well on his way.