Sleepcation and Belly Buttons

Sleepcation [sleep-kay-shun] -noun

1. a period of time in which a person chooses only to sleep2. a trip or vacation that's sole purpose is to sleep3. sleep for extended times away from home Eliot and I were discussing the fact that I need a sleepcation. We had one once in Amsterdam. We ate and slept and explored the entire week we were there. We also realized that we would never have another sleepcation like that trip and it is unlikely to have a sleepcation at all again in our lives. At least not until we retire. Surely we will attempt to have one once Lydia is in high school, thinking she is ready to spend the weekend alone but we get home on Sunday we will discover that she and her hooligan friends, Eva and Holland, threw a party and Eli bought them beer. A drunk guy broke a window and cut one of their noses...sigh. Right. No more sleepcations for us. 

Lydia's belly button still has not fallen off. It's been almost 3 weeks. Most all of my resources say that babies will lose their belly buttons between 2-3 weeks. Last time we were in the pediatrician's office, the doctor said that the belly button was too clean and that we needed to let it be a little dirtier. There is a fine line between it being too clean and not infected and it being dirty enough for the body to reject it. We have backed off the uberclean belly but now I keep having moments where I think it's going to be on there forever. I have already advised Lydia that she should avoid the temptation of getting it pierced just because I get more conservative in my old age. But other than that, I got nothing. I imagine apologizing to her when she is 15 as she is heading to the beach about that the yucky black cord being still there and assuring her that her real friends won't care.