Handsome little man

For some reason it's always easier for me to post when Carmen's out of town.  Maybe it's because dinner when I'm alone consists of whatever is in the microwave or the freezer that I can heat up in the microwave or the toaster oven.  Luckily tonight I had some good soup.

Jayden has been incredibly clingy to me recently.  To Carmen too, but particularly to me.  Carmen and I switch off for bedtime - one night he reads the books and sets him in his crib and the next night I do it.  Well, on the nights that I do it, Jayden sits up and screams as soon as I make a movement towards the door.  So now, when it's my turn, bedtime goes like this:
Bath, put on his PJs, brush his teeth and have hugs and kisses
Read a book or two and talk about trucks for five minutes or so
Turn off the lights, turn on the stars and cuddle for a few minutes
Set him down in his crib
Leave; he starts screaming
Go downstairs, work on preparing dinner for 10-15 minutes (Jayden cries the whole time)
Go upstairs, soothe him to calm him down but not to put him to sleep, maybe 3-5 minutes
Take two steps away from the crib, Jayden starts screaming
Go downstairs, continue to work on dinner
After 10 minutes (9 tonight - yay!) Jayden lays down and finally falls asleep.

In the mornings when I drop him off he has a full on tantrum.  He kicks and screams and cries and grabs at me.  I have to hand him to Maria, tell him I love him, blow him a kiss and basically run out the door.  There's no point in looking back.  I just wish he didn't get so stressed out about separation.  I try to tell him over and over again that I'm just downstairs, I'll be back in a few hours, etc.  And I know he can understand more than I think - but whether or not he understands the concept that I'm literally thirty feet away while he sleeps, I don't know.  My guess is no.  In any case, we took one minute off our screaming time tonight.  I really hope we can continue making progress so that eventually we can get down to no minutes of screaming.  Someday!

In the meantime, he was looking pretty handsome this morning and I just had to share:

Brushing our teeth after breakfast this morning.  We love ourselves some agua.

I took this picture and then showed it to him.  He goes "mama!" and then "daga!" when he saw Jasmine in the background.  I also showed him a bunch of pictures that I have on my camera of him when he was a baby.  And he kept exclaiming "baby!"  I kept saying "baby Jayden" or "Jayden baby" but who knows if he had any understanding of what that meant.

Checking out Mama's car.  Turns out everything was good to go and it was safe to drive to Juju's.  Thank goodness for Jayden the mechanic.

Oh! And in two weeks Jayden, Carmen and I are walking in AIDS Walk again.  There's no pressure, but if anyone is interested in donating, here's a message from Jayden
"My Mama's organization provides free legal services to people with HIV and AIDS in Orange County.  She often helps these people fight debt collection suits and sometimes file bankruptcies when they have to.  My Mama and her organization are walking in AIDS Walk to raise money for this project.  Every dollar they raise through AIDS Walk goes back to PLC to help my Mama and her co-workers help even more people.  To help her out, I am going to "walk" in AIDS Walk this year with my Mama and Daddy.  It's just a coincidence that they also said I could go to Disneyland after.  Follow This Link to visit my personal web page and help me in my efforts to support AIDS Services Foundation Orange County (and PLC!)."