Merry and Bright, addendum and exhibits

My day of bouncy happiness came to a screeching halt at 5 pm when I got a call from daycare saying that Landon had a 102 fever and needed to be picked up. JP was coaching a swim lesson up North up until our champagne party (he was planning to meet me there), so I wrapped my work up as quickly as possible and hit the highway just in time for rush hour traffic. I know I'm spoiled when I feel road rage levels of frustration any time my commute takes longer than 15 minutes. By the time I picked up my little boy, he was flushed and snuggled in the lap of the front desk lady while she read him books. "He's just the sweetest thing," she said, as she handed him over to me. Landon immediately wrapped himself around my body like a monkey and asked to go home and go to bed. That was rather alarming. He never fights bedtime, but he doesn't request it either. I set him down in the hall to pick up Clairebear and found out that she had been fussy much of the day and had thrown up ALL over her teacher and play area an hour earlier. My post Nordstrom glow suddenly felt very weak and far away. I debated attending the champagne party at all, but my sister was going to be the sitter, and since JP and I were arriving in separate cars, one of us could come home right away if needed.

As it turns out, it didn't matter. Landon fell asleep on the couch 20 minutes before I left and stayed that way until 7:30 a.m. this morning. He didn't even wake up when JP moved him upstairs to his bed. Claire fell asleep 15 minutes after I left and stayed that way until 2 a.m. when she woke up crying out for some snuggles. My sister got to watch TV and we got to attend our party without feeling too guilty for abandoning our sick children.

In all the sick kid, solo parenting, pre-party craziness, I almost chickened out on the red dress and lipstick. I was already wearing a cute work outfit and didn't feel like changing, but then I thought about my blog post and both kids were quiet and/or asleep, so I went for it. Here are the results:

(standing up straight while holding a camera straight while angling it properly towards a mirror
is decidedly NOT a talent that I possess)

My lips are brought to you by Clinique's High Impact Lipstick in Red-y to Wear and Quickliner for Lips in Deep Red. I was talking to a co-worker during the cocktail hour of the party when she suddenly leaned in to me and said, "your eyes are really blue! did you get color contacts?" I still don't understand why red lips would make my eyes bright blue, but they definitely did - it was the first thing JP said when he saw me too. (Well, the first thing was something like, "um, wow, that's a different look for you." I probably should have warned him ahead of time about the red.)

It was a fun night of delicious food and rare and expensive champagne. I was sad I had to drive myself home because I had to limit myself to only one sampling size of each of the three varieties. They were all from our managing partner's personal wine collection (the partners pay for this event, not the firm or office) and wow, he has great taste. JP started feeling sick by the end of the evening, so I was up with Claire much of the night so he could rest. In exchange, I left him this morning with both kiddos- everyone was in pj's, snuggled on the couch watching Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer. I'm really hoping there is a miraculous recovery in the Lag Liv house because we're supposed to host my mom and grandparents on Sunday for the baking and decorating of the Christmas sugar cookies.

In other unrelated, but still very exciting news, my dad got to ring the opening bell for the New York Stock Exchange this morning! Landon and I watched it on TV and did lots of clapping for him. He's worked so hard for this company and it's so wonderful to see him recognized for everything he's done - he was the only non-VP and non-chief executive type employee invited to come and stand on the podium with the CEO! There's a big party tonight to celebrate the occasion, so my parents get to stay in NYC (in the Plaza Hotel! at Christmastime!) for another night. I'm not sure when it happens along the way of growing up, but at some point I started feeling a bit like my parents' parent and I get to feel so proud and happy for their successes. Yay dad!