It was 87 degrees at 8:30 am

Yep.  And that's not an exaggeration.  When Jayden, Jasmine and I went on a walk at 8:30 am, the thermometer that is one block a way said 87 degrees.  And when we went on a walk at 4:45 pm, it was 98 degrees.  I know, some people are in 40 degree weather and it's cold.  But 98 degrees in May is just too hot.  98 degrees any time is just too hot.  I am not made for this kind of weather.  I guess I've adjusted, but I don't like it.

And despite this ridiculous heat wave, we've actually spent a decent amount of time outdoors recently.  Mother's Day was good.  I got to go for a long run and then we went out to lunch at Fashion Island, a nearby outdoor mall.  We had a great lunch and then wandered around the mall. Carmen and Jayden played outside while I went in to a store and did a little shopping.  It was funny - I should have been relaxed and relieved because I got to be in a store by myself without worrying about a 20 month old having a meltdown, pulling a shoe off a shelf, etc.  But instead I was lonely.  Lizzle, Stacy, Kelly - I wish you guys lived closer!  I definitely miss my girlfriends.  In any case, we went home afterwards and just relaxed the rest of the day.  All in all it was a good day - just not much different from any other Sunday!  Like my favorite blogging toddler says, Mother's Day is from 7:00 to 7:15 am and after that moms resume their regularly scheduled duties.  In my case I had until 7:40 because Jayden super slept in.

Here are some Mother's Day pictures:

Jayden's pickle face.  Apparently he does not like pickles, sweet, dill or otherwise.

Mmm, gelato.  We let him have gelato after lunch.  We paid for it later.

Post-gelato Jayden.

Family photo!  Watching the water fountain at Fashion Island.  p.s., isn't Carmen looking rather Miami chic?!?

Playing in the grass.  Jayden ran back and forth on this patch of grass probably 8600 times while I was in the store.  And then another 74 after I found him.  Needless to say he was dead tired later that afternoon/night.

Jayden has also started dancing a little more, but only at home and mostly with me and Carmen.  His "dancing" is amazing:

Today I had a flex day so Jayden and I went to one of my friend's houses to have lunch.  She has a beautiful house, but more importantly they had a water table!  Jayden spent the entire time there - about an hour or so - outside in his diaper playing in the water table.  He was so quiet and content, except for when my friend's 11-month-old decided to use Jayden to stand up and he screamed for a half a second before resuming whatever he was doing.  It was wonderful to visit with some girlfriends and to see Jayden playing next to other kids.  I really had a great day.

The workers were in our backyard today with a "ma-chee" so we watched them quite a bit this morning and this afternoon.  Thanks goodness Jayden is so tall that he can see out the windows.

The result of a looong day of playing outside in super warm weather.  We had to really force him awake at about 6:15 to feed him dinner, bathe him and put him back to bed at 7:45.  Poor kid was exhausted again.

Tomorrow it's back to work as usual.  And as usual, another busy week for both Carmen and me.  We'll make it through these four days and live for the weekend, as always!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas out there - it really should be celebrated once a month, in my opinion. So if us kids don't say thank you often enough, try to remember we thank our mothers every day of every week of every month of every year for the lessons you taught us.  And those of us that are now mothers ourselves are just trying to keep up with everything you taught us.