Blogging from away

I'm away in a quaint New England town, at a departmental retreat (Hubby's dept, that is), and since he's at talks, and it was baby's bedtime, I'm sitting alone in our room, in the dark, with a laptop monitor turned as dim as humanly possible, trying not to twiddle my thumbs.

(I couldn't anyway; can't see the damn things)

While people don't often bring spouses to this particular annual event, Hubby encouraged me to come because a) it's a change of scenery, b) it's sciency, which I like, and c) he could tell I wasn't ready to be left alone all weekend with Baby N. The problem is that I can't actually expose myself to much of the sciency stuff, since N. isn't overly social this past little while.

It's still a welcome change, though. We had a nice, albeit rainy, drive here, and it took pretty much exactly the amount of time the map said it should. We stopped quickly for food for us grown-ups, but fed N. in the car by bottle so as to make good time, and it worked like a charm.

Luckily, there's wireless here, and while Hubby was at the afternoon presentations, I was able to catch up on some TV online while N. napped. We had a social supper, and now I'm waiting for Hub to come back from the evening sessions.

I put N. down to sleep for the first time all by myself, which leads to the conclusion that I likely would've been just fine alone for the weekend, but it's nicer to be here. Hopefully he'll sleep well tonight, and be his charming little self tomorrow.

I'm not entirely convinced that the charming part will happen, because it seems like our little overachiever is hitting more milestones early, namely the "strangers r bad, m'kay" phase. He flipped out when the pediatrician talked to him yesterday, and he usually loves her; there weren't even any needles involved this time, so that's not the reason. He's also crying at about 50% of the "strangers" that come to say hello, and that includes some of Hubby's labmates. It really makes me feel bad, because he seems to get upset at the ones that are sweet and kind and love babies, and he laughs for the ones that are standoffish. Our ped said that because he's hitting this stage early (by about two months), he should get out of it early and quickly (hopefully).

We also had a 5-month weigh-in, and my little bruiser is 17lb, 11oz. He's still following his growth curves nicely, completely back on track for his birthweight and percentile. He's starting to show interest in what I eat and drink, so I think we'll be trying some rice cereal with him soon. I'm not sure when I'll do that; it might be after his 6-month birthday, or maybe a little before, since that's when we'll be home at my parent's place for a wedding (more on that later).

But, since he's sleeping, maybe I should catch some shut-eye. I don't dare put a lamp on to knit, and the computer screen doesn't provide enough light for my tastes. I just hope Hubby doesn't come storming in ;)