Lil' Monkey's first big trip

The day after Christmas, we travelled to my MIL's house which is about 5 hours away (that's with one bathroom break and no traffic). Prior to this trip, I have been making a conscious effort to put Monkey in the car everyday for a ride (or two) since he HATES being confined in the car seat. Sometimes he'll cry the whole way to the store, to the mall, to my office, etc. So DH and I were prepared for the most miserable ride of our lives to DH mother's house.

We devised a plan to leave at his bedtime -- equiped with new diaper and warm sleeper and after pumping him full of milk. But as anyone knows, even the perfect plan sometimes strays when executed. And for anyone who knows DH and I, they know we ALWAYS leave late. So the 6:30 departure turned into a 7:15 departure and for the first 15 minutes, Monkey was very fussy. However, he suddenly just fell asleep and stayed asleep for 2 hours! And for each stop we made (2 each on the way down and the way back), he would wake up, get a new diaper and pretty much go back to sleep within a half hour! And during that half hour of wakefulness, he would just sit in his car seat making cute little noises! Such a GOOD BOY!

Pictured to the right is a photo of him getting an impromptu bath in Grandmom's kitchen sink. We had a little difficulty getting him to sleep in the playpen while at Grandmom's house, however, he did well considering. I'm just so proud of him and majorly relieved that this trip wasn't the complete nightmare I expected.

Apple Customer Service -- FANTASTIC!

Just before the Holidays, I had the unfortunate incident of my trackpad acting up and the button locking on my MacBook Pro. After some personal investigation of the computer and finding a post about battery "swelling" causing odd issues on MacBooks, I realized that I too had an ailing Mac suffering from just this problem (my battery pictured below ... sorry photo is a little blurry).

I performed a search within the support section of Apple's web site and found a knowledge base record with the suggestion to make a reservation at an Apple Store "Genius Bar". There were plenty of reservation spots and I made the reservation for the next afternoon.

So the next day, Mom and I packed up Monkey and headed to the Apple Store (which is in a very popular mall near here, so I prepared mentally for the crowded stores and general stress-making nature of this adventure). We went into the store and as I approached the Genius Bar, I noticed that it truly was a "bar", complete with stools for customers to sit on while waiting. When I got there, all of the stools were taken but within 3 minutes, a person's iPod issue was resolved and I had a stool!

At the Genius Bar, they place the first name and last initial of each person with a reservation onto a screen behind the bar showing who is next. When I arrived, I was third in line with a Tony S. behind me. Okay here the story goes into a tangent ... the Tony S. was Tony Snow! When I first came up to the bar, I saw him and said to myself, "Is that ...?" but after reading the screen I realized I was correct! Now the folks at the Genius Bar DID take Tony S. prior to me but I figured that's okay, since he's a bit of celebrity for those who have ever paid attention to White House press conferences.

Anyway, back to the real story ... shortly after they had worked on Tony S.'s laptop, they called my name. The lady who helped me (I wish I remembered her name) was very nice, knowledgeable and didn't give me any sales pitch or anything! She simply tried out the laptop for herself, immediately recognized the issue, found a new battery in their stock supply and popped it in (that took approximately 4 minutes total)! No fooling around! She even tested the new battery to make sure that it was indeed charging correctly. All of this wonderfull service and the new battery was free! Nevermind that the battery should have been free since this was a known issue. I've just had such BAD customer service elsewhere recently that I figured this might go horribly as well. However, I'm so happy with the experience that 9 days later I just had to post about it!