The loveliness

I've met millions of people from the Internet, but I've never been to any sort of Bloggy Gathering before. BlogHer is too... official for me. The Blathering is more my speed, but I've never been able to make it there (and I still regret not getting there the first year, when it was a little more intimate, which is totally up my alley).

So when Kelly decided to host PJs@TJ's, I was determined that this time I was going to make it happen. Add to that the fact that I have an aunt and uncle in Arizona who haven't met Callum yet, and I realllllly wanted to go. It took some planning and finagling (and one meltdown to Noemi via gchat), but I actually ended up going.

A lot of the other attendees had babies, but most left the kids at home. There were just two other babies in attendance: Penny, of course, and then Erin's Lorelai. Penny and Lorelai were just SO PRECIOUS, you guys. I mean seriously, the CUTENESS overload of those babies together was just too much. Sadly, we did not get any photos of the three babies together (it seemed like one of them was always asleep), and in fact now that I think about it, even though Erin and I shared a rental car and Callum and Lorelai rode around side by side all weekend, we didn't get a picture of the two of them together at all.

I did, however, get photos of Callum and Penny together. They were even wearing coordinated pajamas, which was a total accident. And they're not the highest quality photos because they were taken with the iPhone. But oh, the cuteness:

I mean, can you even deal? LOOK AT THEM TOGETHER. It's an Internet Baby meetup! I DIE.

Everyone who attended was just so, so lovely. The vibe was so relaxed and we all just hung out and chatted and ate and cooed over babies. With so many moms and only three babies, it was like having 18 adoring aunties in the room. When we got there on Friday night, I set Callum down on the floor and he stood up and started to walk and I swear to god the entire room SHRIEKED. It was like "Oh my god look! He's walking! HE'S WALKING!" Everyone was SO into it, you'd think they'd known him his whole life instead of having met him five minutes prior. (Though I guess some of them have been reading my blog since before he was born, so it might FEEL like they've known him their whole lives.)

Anyway, everyone was just fantastic. I was especially looking forward to meeting the people I'd been reading or following for awhile (Kelly, Noemi, Diane, Erin, Laura, Lara) and they did not disappoint. Every last one of them was exactly like I would have expected based on their blogs, except MORE awesome. And all the people that I hadn't been following for long, some of whom I never would have discovered if it hadn't been for this weekend, were fabulous as well. The whole weekend was just exactly what I was hoping for, and then some.

Here's Callum bonding with Noemi:



And with Diane:



And then I pretty much stopped taking pictures, because I had more important business to attend to. Like stuffing my face with an ice cream sundae. Yum.

Oh, and Phil was lovely too. And I just can't get over how accommodating he and Kelly and Penny were. There was a bed in the living room! Like, a full size bed with a frame! For the pajama party! And approximately eight women crammed themselves on it to chat and play with babies! And it was lovely! And Callum napped on Penny's floor bed! And everyone was just so relaxed and flexible and it all worked out so beautifully. Even traveling solo with a baby was fine. Callum conked out for half the flight there and the entire flight back, and was happy and easy when he was awake. I got tons of compliments from strangers on his fantastic in-flight behavior. Those compliments are easier to accumulate when your baby looks like this for most of the flight:



It was also great to see my aunt and uncle on Sunday. We spent a lovely day together in Tempe (such a nice town!) and Callum showed off his new walking skills. And now he's met all my aunts and uncles. This makes me happy.

And seriously, with the walking. He honed his skills so much this weekend. People were commenting on how much of a difference they saw just from Friday to Saturday. Look at this:



And, OK, while we're sharing videos, here's one of Callum and Penny hanging out. And by "hanging out" I mean "first one of them cries, then the other." Oh, babies.



So, in sum: Internet Ladies are awesome and I can only hope and pray that Kelly decides to host this shindig again next year. Because I miss everyone already.