I hate that I don't have time to write. There will be no quality control here. Just quick writing to get something on the blog.

We went to Texas for eight days for Christmas. The trip there consisted of a four hour drive to Staten Island to visit some of Steve's family, then 45 minutes to Long Island and then up at 4am 2 days later to catch a US Airways flight to Philadelphia and then Dallas where we rented a car and drove 2 1/2 hours to my mom's house. I was dreading the trip, but it went very smoothly.

The most interesting part was our 4AM cab ride to the airport was late. The driver proceeded to go 35 MPH on the parkway. It WAS snowing, but not that bad. A song came on the radio about how the singer was going to take his relationship slow. "Gonna take it Slooooooowwwwwwwwwwww", he sang over and over and over and over again. I snickered in the back seat wondering if Steve was aware of the total sensory situation.

The day after we got there, Aidan got the chicken pox. Finding a homeopathic remedy in Waco, TX was very challenging and I finally found Rhus Tox in a grocery store of all places. One health food store proprietor told me that there simply wasn't a market for homeopathics in Waco.

The chicken pox went smoothly. Aidan was his usual stubborn self and refused to take an oatmeal bath, but the Rhus Tox helped. I actually switched his remedy in the first night because he suddenly seemed anxious and pancky so I slipped him some Chamomilla. A few doses later he was still freaking out and waking every five minutes so I switched back to the Rhus Tox and he fell fast asleep. I was amazed.

Will got it two days later. He smiled through the whole thing. He is incredible. I never even gave him the homeopathics. He didn't seem to suffer even though he had a full blown case. He is 10 months old now.

Will was still contagious on our return date so Steve flew back with Aidan and I rescheduled my flight for two days later. I called US Airways and after being on hold for an hour they told me that I needed a note from a doctor that said that he had chicken pox but no longer is contagious to fly on the new date and not be charged a change fee.

Just to keep things exciting, I lost my wallet. There was no money in it, but you know, you can't fly without a photo ID. I was sure I'd be trapped in Texas.

But really it's hard to get too upset when you know that over a hundred thousand people including a whole bunch of children have died in a tsunami. It's good to keep things in perspective.

As it turns out, you can fly without an ID. They have a special stamp that says, "no ID" and they checked me especially carefully but I made it home. The worst thing was that one of my bags arrived four days later. I met all of these really nice people in the airport because Will is so engaging. We sat next to a nice man on our first flight named William John - and when he sat down I thought about how much he reminded me of my father-in-law.

My wallet came back to me. I knew it would. It was in the rental car. I can't imagine where, Steve and I each looked in it a half dozen times.