Tomorrow evening, the family Tea is heading off to China for a fortnight. We'll be staying with WB's parents. No great sightseeing plans, this is more about a family catch-up, and a chance for Ryan to meet more of his rellies on his mother's side of the family.

Currently I'm worrying about how Ryan will cope with the flight. It's a long time in the air. It's overnight, so with luck he'll spend most of it asleep, but it's uncharted territory.

BT - how old is Ryan and has he flown before?

BT - how old is Ryan and has he flown before?

He'll be turning three in China. He's flown to Sydney and Canberra before, with mixed results (most notably when he threw up over himself and his daddy just after they put the seatbelt light on for the descent into Canberra).

Most recent trip was Sydney last year, which went smoothly enough but he freaked out when they started the engines.

So you know the tricks about drinking something on takeoff and landing. ... Lessee. When HPF was 2 1/2, we flew 8 hours with an overnight and she woke up in the middle. I'd packed a bag with some "presents" - smallish (not swallowable), individually wrapped things - like bath toys that don't make noise, things to draw with, a new book, a book of photographs - and used about half a roll of tape and a nutty quantity of wrapping paper on each. The upshot was it took her about 20-30 minutes to open each present, another 20 to play with it, then on to the next "present." Eventually, she stuck with the book and then fell back to sleep. We re-wrapped the presents for the return trip and did the whole thing again. Also, if you can get your hands on a kiddie etch-a-sketch, those are gold on a flight.

Oh, I like the wrapping paper trick. We may have to try that.

Math joke of the day: If a pizza has a radius 'z' and a depth 'a' that pizza's volume can be defined Pi*z*z*a.

via undernews: [link]

my stepsister is queen of the collections agents. In her case, I believe you literally don't want her calling twice.

Jesus. Things you do not want to see in a text message: “I see smoke coming out of your house.”

It’s all good, false alarm. But shit. Nearly had a heart attack trying to get home.

Holy crap, Pix! That would totally scare the shit out of me. I always worry that something like that (or an earthquake, or whatever) will happen while I'm out of town.

Yeah. It has kind of been that kind of a week. One crisis after another, real or imagined.

Oh! But yay for Laura’s mom’s procedure going well.

And also yay (in much less important news) because I just realized I have the makings for grilled cheese and tomato soup! WIN.