A long overdue update

Well Jayden is growing more every day - sometimes it seems like every minute something changes.  The last couple of weeks have been hectic with Carmen out of town most of the time - and even when he is in town he's often on his phone with work stuff.  My mom came to visit slash give me a little break last weekend, which was very helpful.  Especially considering I was getting sick and supposed to run a half marathon.

Grandma Barb and Jayden clearly had more fun than might normally be possible in four days.  I have a bunch of pictures from her camera which I'll post after this.  But here are a few, with stories/descriptions from my camera.

Running around in the grass in Huntington Beach after I picked up by bib and other gear for the half marathon.  

More fun in the grass.  There was a hill that led down to the sidewalk and he'd have one of us help him up the hill, then he'd go running twenty feet, turn around, run back and have one of us help him down the hill.   

Being silly, drinking milk and water.  I just missed the moment, but a second or two before he had both of these in his mouth and was trying to drink both at the same time.

On Monday night I got a call from Julia, our daycare provider, telling me that she had pneumonia and would be closed the rest of the night.  I freaked out, a little, and called our babysitter and tried to figure out when I had to be at work over the next few days.  She called back an hour later and said her niece also runs a daycare and that she could probably take Jayden.  So I called Julia's niece (Dorkis) and got no call back.  The next morning I called again and still no answer and no call back.  Finally, around 9 am she answered when I called and said Jayden would be welcome to come to her daycare.  I dropped him off a little later and he was fine.  Another boy, Andrew, from Julia's was there.  Andrew was crying when I got there but as soon as he saw Jayden he was fine.  The two of them have a little bit of a love-hate relationship in that Andrew terrorizes Jayden, but I think they both appreciated the familiar face.  The challenging part was that I had to pick Jayden up by 4 pm every day, so I did get to leave work early, but I definitely got behind in my work also.  On both Thursday and Friday Jayden was not happy when I dropped him off - on Friday he was sobbing and grabbing and clutching at me which nearly broke my heart.  I had to disentangle myself and practically run out the door; otherwise I would have just taken him with me, I think.

Because I was getting home earlier, I actually got to play with Jayden and dinnertime wasn't such a frustration either.  On Tuesday I was going to make him a little pizza so I got everything out and sat him on the counter with me while I put it all together.  Apparently he was starving because faster than I expected, he grabbed the piece of bread and started eating it:

Without a second thought the bread went straight to Jayden's mouth.

So then I just put some grated cheese and some lunchmeat out and he basically ate his deconstructed pizza off of the cutting board.  Whatever works, you know?

Dorkis did fun projects with the kids; This is Jayden's first painting!

Jayden loves airplanes.  Whenever he hears one, he points at the sky until he sees it.  And makes sure I know about it too.  Sometimes his arm is up a little higher and it looks like he's saying "we're #1!"

Thanks to Grandma Barb, all we want to do these days is go outside.  It's great except for when it's rainy and cold and muddy.  Luckily this week the weather was okay, so when Jayden and I got home, we went outside with Jasmine for at least 20 minutes.  

Devouring macaroni and cheese and bread at dinner last night.  We're definitely going to have to start ordering him adult meals in like a year.  Last night the meal we ordered was for 12 and under.  There is no way that will be enough food for him a year from now.  Carmen decided that means he's going to be a seven footer.  We'll see.

Jayden, where's your nose?  That's right!  Again, I think thanks to Grandma Barb, he now knows where his nose is.  He sometimes knows his mouth and his ears too.  And if you tell him to wiggle his toes, he can usually do that too.  

I haven't been able to get a video, but he also says "hi," which is so cute.  He moves his mouth in a very deliberate way to get the sound out.  He also says "uh-oh," usually when he drops something but other times too.  We're working on getting more words in his vocabulary, but so far nothing else is really understandable.

More pictures to come!