Day 17 NaBloPoMo

No NaBloPoMo prompt today, so I am once again on my own for post ideas.  Think I'll take the bullet points approach:

• I have had some level of migraine or garden variety headache every day but one this week.  What the heck?  It has been really awful and made getting through the workdays hard. . . not to mention caring for the boys in the evenings between when our nanny leaves and when MM arrives home.  And I've been popping Ad.vil, aspirin and Ex.ce.drin like candy.  I hate it!
• I was lucky enough to get two mostly uninterrupted nights of sleep this week: one night from 9:15 p.m. to 5:45 a.m., the other from 10:30-ish to 4:45.  Yea! You just don't realize how important sleep is to your health and your mood until/unless you aren't getting enough.
• MJ has just cut his third tooth (top left) while AJ still has no visible teeth.  That's one of the fun parts of having twins: seeing how your two children develop at different rates.  (I suppose you could have this same experience by having two children separately, but the contrast is more stark with twins.)
• Both boys are "cruising" regularly these days, and AJ likes to climb on things.  G-d help us.  :-)
• MM and I are leaving our sons with a babysitter tonight for the first time since they were born.  Well, let me clarify: a babysitter who is not a grandparent, close friend or our regular nanny.  G is a 17-year-old high school senior who appears to be very responsible and was referred to me by a member of my MOMs group who teaches G at her dance studio and has used her as a babysitter for her year-old twin boys.
• We are using G to babysit because we are going out for only our second nighttime date since the boys were born.  Wish us luck!
• Apart from our dinner out, we have nothing planned this weekend, and I'm glad.  I need to spend some time planning and packing for our road trip to my father's for Thanksgiving next week.
• I am dreading the 6-hour-plus drive to my father's for the holiday.  I love my father, and I even like the city where he lives and normally would not mind visiting.  But I hate that drive even without children--it's all freeway and mostly through super boring, sparsely populated country--and with the boys along?  Yeah, I'm not sure how this is going to go.
• (Oh, and also?  MM hates road trips.  Yeah.)
• In addition to dreading the drive, I am apprehensive about staying at my dad's house.  It is small, it is not babyproofed, and the boys have never slept for more than a short nap anywhere but their own nursery.  So I'm not sure how this visit is going to go.
• To top it off, my dad and his wife are both thin-skinned and easily offended.  Sigh.
•  I am beginning to feel stressed about the fact that I have yet to really Christmas shop in earnest. . . even though I have over a month left.

OK, so something for which I am grateful. . . I am grateful to still have my father around to spend the holiday with.  From childhood, I've been told that he might not last much longer--he has had a number of health problems over the years--but he's 70 years old and still alive and kickin'.