Discovering Fear

It has been a long while since I have posted, but we have been BUSY!  We made it to and from the east coast safely and with little side effects, thank goodness. 

Unfortunately, Jayden discovered his fear of strangers something like the day before we left.  It was great: off to visit friends and family - and clearly Jayden was the main attaction - and all Jayden wants is to be held by Mama and Daddy.  Awesome.  Hopefully everyone enjoyed meeting him, even if mostly what they did was look at him and admire his cuteness.  :)

The other thing Jayden discovered was actual fear - or maybe it was me discovering that he felt fear - but it was interesting.  On the flights home, both flights were quite bumpy and had rough landings - when we landed, we bounced in the air and rocked around a few times before we finally settled on the ground.  Both times that happened Jayden grabbed me so tight with both of his hands, as if he would never let go again.  And it dawned on me how aware he is of everything and how he learns things so quickly now.  Maybe this is my naivete, but it just didn't occur to me that he might be scared in the airplane.  I just thought he might be frustrated, bored, tired, etc. 

The trip was an adventure - it is EXHAUSTING traveling with a baby - adjusting to time changes, to new surroundings, to nursing in all kinds of different places and trying to balance "vacation" with a baby's schedule.  But it was a good trip.  Now we are just happy to be home and to be staying home for a while.  Luckily for us, the transition back so far has been relatively painless.  Jayden is still waking up early (5:30 am so far), but hopefully that slowly inches later over the next week or so. 

I have a gazillion pictures from the trip, so I'll start with a few here and keep sharing them over the next few days.

Happy birthday to me - my gift was a redeye with a 10-month-old!  The flights actually went quite well, and getting the incredible deal so that we could fly first class made all the difference in the world.  This picture was taken during the three hour layover in Phoenix, when Jayden was supposed to be sleeping.  Yeah, right.

The amazing thing was that, even though this was from 8:30-11:30 pm that Jayden was awake, he was in an amazingly good mood.  We played all kinds of games (he discovered his love of throwing everything) and did a lot of people watching.  Talk about fun.

...And the result was that both of my boys ended up passed out in the car ride from the Baltimore airport to the hotel.  In some ways I wish that ride had been longer so both of them could have gotten more sleep.

I was lucky enough to be in Annapolis for the last two days that one of my best friends, Carissa, was in Baltimore.  So we met at the beach near Annapolis on Friday for some fun in the ridiculously hot sunny weather.  Jayden was DEAD tired and really hot, so he spent most of his time under the umbrella with Grandma Barb.

We tried the sand and the water, but Jayden was not convinced.  Oh well - we'll try again.  He's cautious - he likes time to evaluate the situation and take things in, and then he'll slowly try something.  I don't mind at this point - I don't want him to be scared, but cautious is fine.

Still so tired, and seriously so hot.  Holding on to Daddy like nobody's business.

Reid and Jayden meet!  And for some reason both want to play with the orange and yellow/green rake.  Yes, Carissa had brought about 15 other toys, but the only one both of them wanted was this one.  It's okay - they'll be best friends in a year, bonding over the rake! 

Thanks for the set up Lizzle:  yes, we're in a boat on dry land pretending to see a whale.  Reid cooperated, but Jayden not so much.  I guess Jayden knew we weren't in the water and couldn't possibly be seeing whales!

Ellen, thanks for sharing your pictures - everyone else gets to benefit from your photographic talents!  So far I've only made it through Friday - I'll post more from Maryland and Delaware and Pennsylvania later.  For now, it's 10 pm on a Saturday and I'm exhausted so I'm signing off.