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Friday night was Stonecutter Insanity at Cyn's gorgeous house. Sal was there, all the way from England. Sarah was there, all the way from the other side of town. Beege was there from Minnesota with a slight side-trip to Wisconsin. We also had two Canadians and representatives from South Carolina, Texas, Minnesota, Motown, California. And, of course, Jess is from Oregon. And I'm from Missouri. But we've established that. Anyway, out of that hugely varied group, there were only three people I hadn't previously met. Told you the Stonecutters were different from your typical online group.

After the bruhaha died down, a handful of us spent some time visiting after the babies were in bed for the night. While Jess doesn't have kids, Beege has a daughter who's two weeks older than Clara Jane, and Cyn has a son ten months younger than her. Of course, most of the conversation, with much apologies to Jess, involved topics like contractions, vaginal rips and passing large blood clots. I'm sorry.

The other moms talked about how quickly and easily they took to motherhood. I didn't. Even though I wanted to have a baby, I felt like I had to be drug into motherhood kicking and screaming. Not that I didn't love Clara Jane from the moment she was born. Or the moment I found out I was pregnant. Or even before I got pregnant. I did. I just didn't adjust well. It's just now, after 20 months of parenthood, that it's starting to feel right and normal for me.

Until this trip, I had never spent more than 12 hours alone with my daughter. While I can't remember those few occasions we were together that long, I recall most of them ending with me meeting B. at the door when he arrived home and handing Clara Jane to him as I sprinted out the door. Does that make me feel like less of a mother? Hell yes.

Friday night Clara Jane and I both had some sleep issues, which led to some antisocial behavior on Saturday since she desperately needed to nap. We bailed on the outing to Cyn's shop and lunch in favor of having a well-rested child at the hog roast, instead of an exhausted child who, in a fit of rage, might start shoving people into the bonfire while growling, "Back off, Bitch!"

Speaking of hog roasts, what fun! You know, I'm from midwestern farm stock. For my birthday when I was a kid we used to set a big bonfire for roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, followed by a big creepy ride through the woods in a hay wagon. While I'm all city girl now, my country genes still managed to find their way to my daughter, who shoveled pork into her mouth by the fistfuls, had barbeque beans stuck to her sleeve all the way up to her armpit, and followed dinner by getting on the table (in the barn) and having a little country hoedown.

There was a ceremony after dinner. I'm not into ceremonies. My own wedding was barely a ceremony. It was just an excuse to hang out by the cornfield and eat barbeque in my bare feet with 120 family members and friends. Time spent in ceremonies is time I'd rather spend talking and laughing with my pals.

But we had a ceremony after dinner. And like the country gene, Clara Jane also got my anti-ceremony gene. While everyone else was solmenly contemplating the bond of our group, she was shrieking, "Let's go home! Ready skeady go go go! Let's go home!". Except when she was yelling, "It's funny! It's funny, Mama!" during the particularly serious passages.

And this is why we don't go to church.

Because of the sleep issues the previous night, we shared a hotel room with my local pal Stacey, who made the trip on Saturday with her 5-year-old daughter C. and Kara. Our girls adore each other, and I had fun snuggling in bed with both kiddos, trying to explain to C. why they were inflating a duck with an air compressor on Iron Chef America. I told her they were making duck balloons; I don't think she bought it.

We got a great night's sleep and were up and ready for breakfast bright and early. I used the last baby wipe in my pack with Clara Jane's morning diaper, so we took off a bit early to make a Wal-Mart run before meeting everyone else. We got our wipes and were on our way out when out of nowhere, Clara Jane coughed twice, looked at me with absolute horror, and launched roughly two cups of fetid milk vomit down her front and over the cart handle onto my shoe.

You know that pecorino cheese I was crowing about a few days ago? I am so over it, because all that puke? It smelled just like the cheese. I never understood why my mom has always wretched at the mere mention of parmesan cheese, uttering, "Oh God, no ... baby puke ... no." Now, I understand. I understand all to well. This house will be a Velveeta house from now on.

So there we are, standing in the meat department of the Pekin, Illinois Wal-Mart Supercenter. One of us has a lapful of vomit. The other, a shoeful. And I'm frozen. I have absolutely no idea which way to go while Clara Jane cries and the other shoppers dodge us, apparently hard-of-smelling and unaware of the vomit bomb that has detonated. Do I abandon my cart and get my kid to the bathroom and clean her up? No, because then I'll have to carry her outside naked and it's a little too chilly to be outside naked. Do I abandon the cart and take her to the truck to change her clothes? No, because I need the wipes - that's the whole reason why we're spewing all over Wal-Mart in the first place.

Ultimately, I decided screw it. We need wipes to remedy this situation. And since I'm not willing - and wasn't carrying a big enough purse - to steal the wipes, we were just going to have to brave the check-out and hope that a vomit chain-reaction didn't start from the stench.

By this time the puking had stopped and Clara Jane was her usual self. A little listless and tired, but not upset. I changed her clothes and cleaned her, and we headed to breakfast. And again my brain raced, clueless on what to do. I should just start the three-hour drive home. But I don't want to be on the road in the middle of nowhere with a sick baby. Kara's coming with us. Should I feed the kid? What if there's a second, Nagasaki-style vomit bomb in the bombay, just waiting to unleash it's terror at Bob Evans? I decided the time at the restaurant might be a good idea, as it would give me a chance to make sure she wasn't seriously ill before we were in the middle of nowhere and unable to find a hospital.

She refused to sit in a seat at the restaurant. She refused to sit on my lap. I could only hold her. So we sat at the end of the table against the wall, and she lay against my chest, unfevered but exhausted. She'd perk up, then press her face back into my skin. And when Jess came to the table, Clara Jane found the strength to genuflect and chant her words of worship and praise. When breakfast came, she refused the bland pancakes and lunged straight for the bacon. I conceded her one piece, along with sips of apple juice, knowing that I was probably making a big mistake.

I was making a big mistake. An hour into the drive, Clara Jane had just woken up from a nap and was playing with her Leap Pad when Little Man hit Nagasaki.

"Dude, did she eat onions?" Kara asked, holding a transluscent white regurgitated former food item up for me to inspect. We were at a truck stop and she was cleaning the puke out of the carseat while I put Clara Jane into the only clean clothes she had left - a pair of fleece Teletubbies jammies.

"She didn't have onions, and she picks onions out of her food. I think that's bacon fat," I said, mentally adding all the cured pork products to my list of foods whose smells now activate my gag reflex.

Cleaned, we got back on the road. The third, much smaller bomb arrived half an hour later. Since we were out of clean clothes, we kept driving. She dozed the final hour and we arrived home. Once there, she was her usual self. Happy and excited, but tired. She dozed most of the afternoon. Threw up one more time, but eventually ate some crackers and Cheerios, washed down with Pedialyte.

Generally after these gatherings I'm filled with stories of the people I met and the hijinx. But not this time. While it was great to see everyone and I had fun, the weekend was really about Clara Jane and me. I did it. I was her only available parent for three days, and we went through something incredibly unfun with the lack of sleep and exhaustion. But we survived and even had a great time despite the problems.

I also found myself able to make sacrifices - and I hate to even use that word, but I can't think of a better one - for my daughter. Yes, it would have been nice to go shopping and have lunch with the rest of the group, but bowing out for my daughter's sake felt right and good. When people would lunge to take her from my arms, shrieking, "Oh! Let me hold her!", it felt good and right to take the step back and politely refuse.

It felt good and right to snuggle in a hotel bed with my sleeping girl. To change every diaper. To feed her every meal. All without help. Because now I know I can do it. I've questioned and doubted my parenting ability since her disasterously bad birth. For the first time, I'm not questioning anymore.

If that means spending my weekend bonding with my daughter and identifying vomited food particles with Kara, well, that's not a bad life. Not bad at all. Anything else that comes along is cake.

Although I'll miss the bacon and cheese, though. I'll miss it a lot.