Weekend adventures

And we have hit the beginning of our super hectic 4 weeks or so.

Yesterday we went to swimming, as usual, and had a great time.  Jayden is really trying to move underwater and Stacy showed us how we can basically push him or just direct him by poking him, but not actually support him, to get him to really start swimming.  It was pretty awesome to see.  And he's so comfortable in the water, it's just great.  I can't wait to see how he continues to progress.

After swimming Jayden and I went to a birthday party for a little girl we used to hang out with all the time.  I know her mom from work (she used to volunteer with me before we both went on maternity leave).  I haven't seen her much since I went back to full-time, but we've kept in touch on and off.  In any case, it was so fun to see Shreya (the little girl) and to see how much she has grown.

The birthday girl with her new car!  It was a really cool car, it can be controlled by remote control or locally.  So, until Shreya gets old enough to control it herself, she can just ride and think that she's steering and driving.  It's a toy for the kids and the parents!

The party was a lot of fun - but it did confirm my decision not to have a party for Jayden.  Shilpa had coordinated with the park, rented tables and chairs, decorated, made goodie bags for the kids, ordered pizzas, made rice, salad and mac n cheese, had cupcakes and cake, had a pinata, arranged a visit from Curious George and had all kinds of little kids activities.  I'm tired just thinking about it.  Jayden was his usual reserved self.  He was super interested in the car, but every time I tried to pick him up to let him ride he freaked out and started screaming "no."  And he spent a lot of time with me and making sure he could see me.

Jayden enjoyed the cupcake, although he mostly ate the icing and then handed me the cake part.

One of the few times he was outside of arms reach of me - he found a tunnel!

Typical Jayden: after the pinata was broken all the kids ran to the candy to gather what they could.  Not only had Jayden no interest in trying to break the pinata (he was playing with markers and stickers at the table with me), but instead of going after the candy he grabbed two little buckets of popcorn and sat in the grass about four feet from the pile of candy.  And looked thoughtful.  That's our son.

One of the most exciting parts of the day was finding the Nemo bubble-making machine.  We spent a good 15 minutes holding on to the trigger and waiting for the bubbles to appear.  It took us an extra half hour to get home because of his obsession with the Nemo bubbles.

After the party we came home (and Jayden passed out in the car of course).  Carmen grilled chicken and corn for dinner and Jayden was a big fan of the corn.  All I'd done was put butter and salt on it.  But he couldn't get enough. And he ate his first corn off the cob.  :)

Chowing down on the corn, with a little help from Mama.

Today Jayden and I went to the zoo for the morning while Carmen watched the football games.  We had a good time, but spent the majority of our time on the playground.  Thank goodness I joined the zoo.  It meant entry was free and it made me care a whole lot less that we saw very little of the zoo itself.  We did see some pretty cool monkeys though, including a couple of them who were swinging their way around their cages.  Jayden seemed particularly concerned about whether or not the monkeys could get out of the cages, but did manage to enjoy the swinging at least a little bit.

One of the monkeys.  His roommate was swinging, not him.  But it was easier to take a picture of him.

Checking out the pictures on mama's phone.

Crawling around on the playground.

Going down the slide on his stomach.  I was all for him experimenting until he went down on his back, slid right off the bottom and bumped his head on the slide.  To his credit he cried about 20 seconds and then climbed up the stairs and slid down again (this time on his bottom).  He's such a resilient kid, it makes me proud.

As expected, he fell asleep in the car ride home.  We ate lunch together at the zoo, and we ate approximately the same amount of food - a corn dog, some fries, and he had some orange slices as well.  In addition to the majority of his carton of milk.  It was pretty impressive.  It definitely helped with his nap later on.  He plays so hard during the day, constantly on the go, that I'm always amazed he makes it to 7:00 pm as easily as he does.

He did get some quiet time watching Nemo while I prepared dinner tonight.

We should all be so lucky to have this as our Sunday afternoon, even if for only 20 minutes.

Tonight he was relatively back to normal, falling asleep on his own, without getting up and wandering into the hallway.  Although that makes me think he's likely to wake up in the middle of the night.  I'm on my way to bed already, just in case I end up on the floor of his room at 3 am.

And tomorrow it's back to work.  I've been telling Jayden that Gigi (aka Grandma Enid) is coming for the past few days, to try to get him to understand what that means and to maybe be a little less reserved when she gets here.  Although I have a feeling no amount of preparation will save him - it's something he's just going to have to grow into.  Oh well.  I truly don't mind him being reserved; it is absolutely like me and Carmen and is endearing, in my mind.  At times like the party on Saturday I just feel bad because I think he misses out on fun stuff because he is so cautious.