The nitty gritty, because I know you're dying to read it....

So all the past week, we were cleaning and de-clutteirng, and re-organizing, and the biggest thought running through my mind wasn't "Oh, I'm making this space so comfortable for our guests," but in fact, it was: "Damn! They won't see it the way it is on a normal basis." Silly, vain, me.

On Friday, I was en route to pick up MP3 from daycare, and I got the call that Kristen, Trista and Julia had landed. I gave them directions, and hurried up to get the muffin butt. We had a bit of time at home for last minute preparations, including starting dinner, and the doorbell rang. It was the ladies, and Trista's hair was just fabulous! Julia was all snuggly, due to her ear infection, poor boo. They settled in, and we began our chats and the girls played together. Well, more or less played with the same things, but not really together. Julia has this adorable thing that most 15 month olds have - the "I touched it, therefore it is mine" mentality. And Malka was like, "OK, but this one here, it's mine." And Julia was instantly bored with the object she was originally playing with, favoring Malka's newly acquired object. This went on for a while, and they finally settled in playing with separate toys that sang and beeped and whirred.

Dinner was being prepared, Kristen was filling us in on playing Killer Bunnies (a faboo game, I highly recommend it!), and Narda came home. We all chatted some more, dinner was ready, we fed the girls, except Julia wasn't too keen on eating, and we then shared the Shabbat experience with our visitors. We had a yummy dinner, followed by wine and Killer Bunnies. Jen, Cait and Natalie arrived mid-way through our game, and they made up for the lack of items that Trista and Kristen brought. A few trips to the car, and smiley, giggly Natalie won everyone over. We all talked about being nervous about the weekend, about ear infections, germs, plane rides and the like. We all pooped out around 11pm or so.

Saturday morning, coffee was made, and made again, and Hope, Megan and Quinn came over. ON TIME. At 9:30am. New Yorker's don't DO "on time," so I was still in my jammies. But hey, we were moms, so what's a bit of bra-less jammie time in front of friends? After MP3 woke up from her short morning nap, we all went off to a NY diner experience, walking past the beautiful changing leaves of Central Park. The diner folks didn't blink an eye at our caravan invading their space, and they were right on the money with highchairs, on time service and gracious accomodations. Malka was happy to share her Oat-e-o's with Natalie, and Natalie was VERY grateful and excited to have the experience. Malka also shared her rice cakes with Julia, who found them to be rather fun to eat as well. After we all felt a little more roley-poley, we walked back the mile or so to our place, and began our preparations for blog-a-palooza. Everyone was most helpful in terms of bringing stuff downstairs, and I was, truth be told, happy to have to run upstairs to "prep stuff" and check on the sleeping MP3.

I, like almost everyone who was there, suffer from a small social anxiety thing. I may be all bubbly and perky and self assured (or self-absorbed, depending on how you look at it), but even though I DESPERATELY want the spotlight on me? I FREAK THE FUCK OUT when it gets there. That's why my therapist is making a lot of money off of me. I'm one big contradiction.

But I digress. It was SO great to see people I already knew, and wonderful to meet those I've known for a while - like Jennifer said, there were those of us who knew one another from "way back," aka, the FF days, back when I was a smoker. And decided to quit in order to get knocked up. And that was about 4 years ago. People like Cat, who has become more than a sister in the trenches, she's become a friend. A genuine, bonafied, friend. And there were the bloggers, women I'd only read, and didn't have that previous connection with (aka, they didn't know the inner workings {or lack of workings} of my who-ha) But each and every one of you were gracious, inviting, kind, friendly, and fun to hug.

My one regret was that I didn't get more time to talk to the mommies to be - the bitter baddies, as I lovingly call them. I did get to go hang out with them in the smoking section for a bit, but then Narda got called into Lion King to sub, and well, I was on MP3 duty.

I really wanted more time with Jennifer, Bri, J and S, and Cali. I, like everyone I've read so far, can honestly share that I hope you liked me as much as I liked you guys, but if you didn't, that's OK too, because I have a therapy on Wednesdays at 5pm. It was really great hosting Jen and Cait and Natalie, because I already knew them, and got to bond even more with them, which was just wonderful. I'm also thrilled that we got to host Kristen and Trista and Julia, because, well, they're just as cool in person as I imagined, and I'm so glad that we got to know them in a more personal way. And Julia is even MORE adorable "IRL" (in real life) than she is in pictures.

Sunday was an easy, kick back day, we went to go have brunch and watch my friends Bobby and Janette kick butt in the marathon, except, they didn't stop to re-fuel and get water from us like they had planned to. They just kept running. Later, I found out that they wanted to make good time, and they both came in under four hours and 30 minutes. That's 4:30! Kristen and I were joking that we'd be the people the news cameras were following at midnight, cheering them on, crawling to the finish line. Yup, that'd be me.

I never know how to end these long posts, as I'm not the best writer, I tend to just write the way I speak, which is rather chatty and rambling. So forgive the randomness of some of this, and just revel in the fact that you are all awesome women, and it was an honor to meet each and every one of you.

PS - I SO wanted to mention everyone, and if you weren't mentioned here, just wait - you WILL be "name dropped" in the near future! That being said, I also wanted more time with Art Sweet, and her AWESOME Nikon D-70. SWOON.