Merry Christmas to all - and to all a good night!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas - or Hanukkah or whatever holiday you may or may not celebrate around this time of year.  We had a lovely couple of days off.  Lucky me I get to have another 10 days off.  Carmen will work over the next few days, but not too much.

I'm updating a day early since tomorrow Jayden and I fly up to Seattle for a few days.  I could do it up there, I just figured I'm less likely to have time to sit down and do it.

Last weekend was good.  He's doing well in swimming class, but also as he becomes more outgoing, he becomes less focused, and a little more difficult for Ms. Stacy.  Here he's practicing his froggy kicks after swim lessons.  He only wanted to do it if I would take a video of it and then show it to him.  Whatever works!

Sunday was soccer as usual.  Both classes are off this weekend.  Swimming is also closed the following weekend (January 3rd), but not soccer.
Saturday night was my friend's 40th birthday party.  It is next to impossible to find a babysitter the weekend before Christmas, and for us, actually impossible.  So Carmen and I put Jayden to bed and then I took off for the party.  It was a lot of fun, but I was home and in bed by 11 or 11:30 at the latest.  The birthday girl was also pregnant, so she and I were drinking lemonade and laughing at the drunk people.  Not really - mostly we just got to dance and have fun.  It was really nice to have a night out by myself - I think the last one that was not work-related was a year ago about this same time, when I got a babysitter for Carmen's holiday party, he ended up being out of town, and I just kept the babysitter and went to a movie by myself.  I should probably do it more often.

"Flexing" his muscles and turning side to side.  Somehow, in the last few weeks, he's gotten it in his head that flexing his muscles means holding his arms straight out in front of him.  That's how he shows me how strong he is.  Clearly.

I have no pictures because I'm terrible at remembering to take pictures when other people are around apparently, but Kelly, Mike and Ella came by for a visit on Sunday afternoon.  They were in town visiting family for Christmas and actually got away for a couple hours to come hang out with us.  Ella had all kinds of fun with Jayden's toys (Jayden unfortunately napped pretty much the whole time they were here), and was very cute.  She'd kept her parents up all hours the night before so both Kelly and Mike were zombies.  I sent them off with some cookies - I'm sure it didn't help the zombie-ness, but at least it gave them a brief sugar rush!

Sunday night we ordered Chinese food for dinner and got fortune cookies of course.  This was Jayden's:

So appropriate.

I worked Monday and Tuesday, but took Wednesday off.  Carmen worked all three days, but only for a couple hours on Wednesday.  There was a lot of excitement about Christmas every day, but also confusion.  Jayden sort of understood, but sort of not.  

Jayden managed to come down with a cold on Saturday, which was preceded by hives that appeared Thursday.  He had hives off and on pretty much until today.  I didn't call the doctor until Tuesday, because I'd read a lot about them and it seemed like they were viral, we couldn't think of anything he could have possibly eaten that was out of the ordinary and they didn't bother him one bit.  They were pretty sad, though.

When I did finally call the advice line, they told me not to worry, to take him to urgent care if they lasted more than a week and to give him benadryl every six hours.  So we've been dosing him with benadryl and they're pretty much completely gone.  If I see any more tomorrow, after we land in Seattle and get settled, we'll probably head to urgent care and hope that our insurance covers it!  His cold is much better - not completely cured, but better - so I'm hoping that means the virus is leaving his body too.  

Of course, as you'd expect, since Jayden is sick, I am also sick.  I've been nauseous, congested, had headaches and just generally tired.  I'm beginning to feel a little better, but not much.  And there's very little medicine I can (or want to) take, so that makes it even more difficult.  I'm going to rub my chest with Jayden's vapo-rub and hope that clears up some of my congestion too!

Because I'm sick and pregnant and just generally not paying good attention recently, I didn't plan anything for Christmas eve dinner.  We were going to order pizza, but it turns out there is not a single pizza place that is open on Christmas Eve.  Or at least none of the three we called.  So we scrounged around the house and found a mish-mash dinner.  It was not my proudest moment, but we all got fed.  And we ate outside under our lights, which was a lot of fun, so we made it festive in our own way.

Jayden also had a message for everyone that I forgot to post last night:

We then wrote a letter to Santa and set out cookies, carrots and milk for Santa.  It was a lot of fun. 

It says: "Dear Santa, Happy Christmas Year! I'd really like some cars for Christmas.  Reindeer, have a piece of carrot.  Love, Jayden W."  He then drew a picture of himself (with Daddy's help), in case there was any confusion.  It was amazingly cute.

This was also really cute.  Jayden is usually not one to wear hats, glasses, etc.  But he's really growing up a lot and tends to have a lot more fun doing these things now.  Poor Jasmine has not matured quite the same way.

Santa then came, of course.  This is what it looked like before the tornado hit it in the morning:

And today, of course, was Christmas.  Jayden has definitely learned how to tear wrapping paper, so we were done with presents in a matter of minutes, which is significantly faster than last year when we opened one present and would sit there for twenty minutes.  

Santa brought us these awesome glasses.  Mine are snowflakes, Carmen's are Christmas trees and Jayden's are reindeer antlers.  We had a lot of fun with them.

Loving the truck with eight motorcycles on it (from Juju).  He wants to bring the whole thing to Seattle to show Gramma.  I think it's probably not going to fit in the suitcase, but at least Gramma can see a picture!

The last present in his advent calendar was probably Jasmine's least favorite - a recorder!  He actually figured out how to play it pretty well, or at least to sort of pretend to play it.

He also got new "shiny" shoes from Mommy and Daddy, and mini soccer goals so he can practice scoring a goal.  And here's his first one!  He was a big fan of that.  He and Daddy played soccer for a while before it was time to start cooking.

AND the biggest present of all, a new BIKE!  He actually took to it immediately.  It's hard for him to get his feet over the top and push it forward, but after practicing for a while he had it down pretty well.  He hasn't quite figured out how to stop, but Carmen and his dad can tell you a story about that too, so it's a little bit of payback.  I almost hate that we're leaving tomorrow, because there are so many good toys he has to play with.  But it'll give him something to look forward to when we get home, especially since I have another four or five days off once we get back.

And a really quick update on baby #2.  The baby will be 15 weeks tomorrow.  It's about 4 inches long, and weighs about 2-1/2 ounces - it's about the same weight as an apple.  

The baby's legs are longer than its arms, and it is using all of its joints.  The baby's eyelids are still fused shut, but it can sense light.  If I were to shine a flashlight at by abdomen, the baby might move away from the light.  I won't do it because it sounds mean, but it is interesting.  The baby's taste buds are also forming, even though there's not much for the baby to taste at this point.  

Besides the cold, I'm actually feeling better.  I'm still at the stage where I just feel like I have a gut - I don't have a cute pregnant belly yet.  I'm also in a lot worse shape than I was with Jayden and that makes me a little sad.  But I'm not doing too badly, and I'm still eating healthy, so I'm trying to console myself with that.  My next appointment to see the doctor is January 5th, but it's just a regular appointment.  I think I wrote this last time, but hopefully I'll get to schedule an ultrasound in the couple of weeks after that so we can see the kid again.  That's by far my favorite part.  :)

I'm looking forward to going home tomorrow, and am mostly packed.  Jayden is suuuper excited, which is also good.  He'll be sleeping in an inflatable toddler bed in my room, which I think will be much better than in a crib since he's so big.  But I don't know how it'll go, so I'm a little nervous about that.  He slept in one at Kelly and Mike's house and really enjoyed it, so I'm hoping he remembers that and is just as excited!  

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, and if I don't make it back here before 2015, Happy New Year too!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I cannot believe that Christmas is less than a week away.  I'm prepared, but not prepared.  We'll see how it goes.  I have four presents under the tree, which I think is plenty since I've got another four or five to wrap and then I should be done.

I managed to not take too many pictures this week, or really none at all.  I have a video from soccer class last week, to show you all how much progress Jayden has made:

In other news, as most people who read this now have learned, baby #2 is coming June 2015.  The first trimester ended today - which means I am officially 14 weeks.  I've told everyone at work (or at least my supervisors, and word is slowly traveling to everyone else), and everyone else who needs to know so now the knowledge can go public.  The first trimester has been rough this time - I've been extremely tired and nauseous most of the day, which is not so fun.  I'm starting to feel better, but I still have bouts of nausea throughout the day, get bad headaches and generally am tired.  As the ultrasound tech pointed out, I wasn't chasing a three year old last time, which greatly adds to my exhaustion.  I'm really hoping that second trimester boost of energy kicks in soon, because oh my goodness.

It also means I'll have to change the name of the blog - because it most certainly will not be Jayden's world anymore.  He is now excited to be a big brother, sort of, but he has no idea how his world will be rocked come June 2015.  He has decided he wants a "Molly," or essentially the same baby Molly who is at his daycare.  I've told him that might not work out (we don't know yet if it's a boy or a girl), and that no matter what, the name probably won't be Molly.  He's not happy about that, and has had almost tantrums when I try to explain that, but he's going to have to get over it.

I have been sending out a weekly update to my family up until now, but unless someone objects I'm just going to combine the blog with the updates, because that's easier for me.  At 14 weeks, the baby is 3-1/2 inches long, which is about the size of a lemon:

The kid can squint, frown and grimace, because its facial muscles are stretching and working themselves out.  The kidneys are producing urine, which he pees out into the amniotic fluid surrounding him.  It sounds super gross that the kid is floating in its own pee.  I hope nobody is eating right before or after reading this.  If so, sorry.  The baby can grasp, which means the kid could be sucking its thumb.  I had an ultrasound on Monday as part of some genetic testing we had done, and it looked like the kid might have been sucking its thumb.  Preliminarily all tests look normal, which is a relief.  I won't know complete results until next week.  Carmen got to come with me on Monday, and it was his first time seeing the baby, so that was fun.

The body is growing faster than the head, and its arms are almost proportional to the body - the legs not so much yet.  The hair that covers the fetus is also beginning to grow.  I remember with Jayden thinking this was so weird - kind of like a baby duck or something.  The kid is moving like crazy each time I've had an ultrasound, including one time where they couldn't find a heartbeat because the kid was doing flips.  It's pretty cool.

And I'm sort of starting to show.  People who know can tell I'm showing - anyone who doesn't really know me probably couldn't really tell:

The mini bump.

Jayden managed to break out into hives yesterday morning/afternoon.  Not awesome.  We couldn't think of a single thing that would have caused them, and we didn't get the chance to grill Julia about it.  They moved around his body, covering his legs last night, his legs and stomach this morning, his arms after breakfast and he had a small one on his back when he went to bed tonight.

They're mostly gone, so I'm hoping they continue to fade away and are gone by tomorrow.  I went out after he went to bed last night to buy children's benadryl, but then it turns out you're not supposed to give kids under 5 benadryl without a doctor's permission.  So that was a wasted trip.  If things haven't cleared up completely by Monday/Tuesday, I'll call the doctor to be safe.  But he isn't sick, he isn't short of breath, and he isn't even itching, so those are all good signs.

I've got all kinds of good quotes from Jayden that I'll try to put up, particularly regarding the baby.  It's so hard to capture everything when it's being said, but I'll try to get better!

Daily Surprises

Last year we did an advent calendar for Jayden, and I'm going to continue that tradition this year.  He understands it much better this year, and often wants to check his calendar two or three times a day!  It's very hard to explain to him that he really truly honestly only gets one little treat a day.  He's been getting very little things - and I'm going to try to keep it that way.  One of my friends posted a picture of a present from her daughter's advent calendar and it was a Barbie electric toothbrush and a bag of goodies from a surf store in SoCal.  He never needs that many toys, so I'm going to have to get creative as he gets older.  He also has a much better understanding of Santa Claus, so we talk about how Santa comes to the houses where kids are and fills stockings and leaves presents for people.  His stocking is also going to be hopefully not too huge - so far Carmen and I have been pretty good!

The week itself was decent.  Carmen's tire wasn't fixed until Thursday, so I was on drop off and pick up duty pretty much all week long.  That was a little frustrating to me, but not the end of the world.

Last Sunday we went to soccer, which was the start of the new session.  Jayden was one of two kids in the class!  There was supposed to be a third kid there, but s/he didn't show up.  It turned out to be okay, although the other kid is 5 and much more coordinated than Jayden, with fewer kids Jayden gets less distracted and can actually participate better.
Above he is kicking the ball with small kicks through all those cones from one goal to the other goal.

Doing an obstacle course.  Hopefully you can see how his coordination has improved!

Clearly an outfit is not complete until you have your super fast shoes, your Jordan shorts, your running shirt and your sparkly jacket.  A-1 style.

Swim class today.  Surfing in from the deep end to the shallow end.

Getting a cannon ball toss from Ms. Stacy.
He had a hard time focusing today, and he's really got to work on breathing just with his head, not with his whole body.  Every time he picks his head up to breathe, everything else below his shoulders drops.  I have a feeling it's one of those things that suddenly he'll just figure it out and we'll forget he one say struggled with it.

 

We also ran some errands at the mall quickly before lunch.  We saw the GIANT Christmas tree.  Jayden was mesmerized.  And there was a woman singing on our way out and so we sat and listed to some Christmas music for a bit.  It was a lot of fun, especially since she sang some songs that we all knew.

 It was a rainy week in Southern California, but it was much needed and pretty much just made me happy.  We don't live anywhere near any mudslides or flooding, so our only negative consequences are having to turn our heater on at nighttime and having to avoid some flooded streets on the way to work.  Oh, and getting drenched when we (read: Carmen) walk(s) Jasmine in the mornings.  We're supposedly getting more rain this week, which although bad for mudslide areas, will be really good for California and the drought problems.

And now for some random photos:

One of the best dishes I've made with leftover turkey: stacked enchiladas!  With refried beans with chipotle peppers (for me and Carmen only, not Jayden), cotija cheese, cheddar cheese, mild enchilada sauce (also for Jayden - Carmen and I added Tapatio) and a fried egg on top of course!  Except for the mildness, channeling my Granddad!
In years where you have six cups of leftover turkey like I did this year, I highly recommend stacked enchiladas as a way to use up leftovers.

The wonderful part of rain is that we get beautiful sky scapes during and after.

The sky on our drive down to San Diego today to see Von and his family.  The Broncos play the Chargers tomorrow, so we made the long trek to SD and back for dinner.  Maybe not totally worth it, but the 1,800 churros we brought home made it allllll better!

Adventures in Santa Pictures

Last week was hard.  It was just a long week.  Carmen was only gone 2-1/2 days, which really is nothing, but I had a work event one of those nights, and of course, shortly after I left, the sink overflowed in the downstairs bathroom and there was water everywhere.  I was up until rather late cleaning and washing towels.  And then Jayden decided last week would be a good week to wake up between 4:00 am and 5:30 am every. single. day.  Except for Friday, the morning after Carmen got home.  Of course.  Needless to say, I was exhausted by the end of it.

Jayden was very excited to see his Daddy, and wanted to wear matching outfits on Friday.  It was Superman Friday in our household, complete with gray pants and green shoes, and blue jackets when they were necessary.  Carmen did forgo the trucks underwear, but wait until he sees what shows up in his stocking this year!!!  In any case, the matching outfits were very cute.

Today was a good day too, although it involved a lot of errands.  Swimming was exciting - missing class last week was a bummer for Jayden, and he was suuuper excited to be in the pool today.  I had to take five pictures of him kicking, which means you all have to look at five pictures of him kicking.

He was awesome today.  He did the butterfly all on his own.  He still goes vertical when he tries to breathe, which makes him sink even more, but he's getting better.  And his froggy kicks are getting a lot better too.

After swim class we made the decision to brave Santa Claus.  I didn't go back to Ana this year because she is so expensive.  But I may go back next year  He just needs more than two minutes to get acclimated, and he can't get that at a department store/mall Santa.  As is obvious from the picture:

This is Santa "helping" Jayden smile.  Still nothing.  

For some reason, the picture made me kind of sad.  I think I felt like I was forcing him to do something he really didn't want to do, everyone was looking at us as if they felt sorry for us, and then we picked this sort of embarrassing picture to show.  I realize it'll be funny looking back on it, but I wonder if we should have left this as a story and just picked one of the other pictures where he was looking down and not smiling, rather than this rather comical one.  I don't know.  Maybe I'm just overly tired.  But for something that's supposed to be fun and exciting became sad and stressful, and I didn't like that.  Being a parent is hard.

After pictures we stopped at home for a nap and then went back out to a mall to shop for Christmas presents for our families.  Poor Jayden didn't get to have a lot of fun today, but the mall does have ride on toys, so that made him happy.

THIS would be the smile we were looking for earlier in the day.  Oh well.  

One of the cars he got into shook, which did not make him happy.  That was the last one we went on at that time.  And when we found another group of ride on toys later in the day, before he got on any of them he would ask me "does this move?"  He also saw some other kids actually enjoying the cars shaking (because their parents put money in the toys so that they would shake on purpose) and then became worried that any toy he got in would shake.  He's exactly the opposite of what other parents worry about - most parents would be thinking how am I going to pretend I don't have quarters, or explain how he is limited to how many times he can ride, etc.  But no.  With our kid we're having to explain how we promise we won't put coins in the machines to make them move.  I guess we should be grateful.

Tomorrow should be an easier today.  We'll have soccer class as normal and hopefully make it to the grocery store, since I haven't been in a rather long time and we've been eating way too much take-out recently.  Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Aaannnd it's December.

I mean, really?!?  December?  I am not ready for December.  Except for that we sort of are, since we did all our Christmas decorating this weekend.  But I was thinking today - there is so much to do in the next two weeks, I just don't know if it's all going to get done!  Of course I'll make a list, and then another list, and probably another list after that.  And this is on top of the list I've already made.  And it'll all work out in the end, because that's the rule - it always all works out.  But man is it a lot of work to get there!

So I can't even remember the last time I posted.  It was at least a week ago, I'm pretty sure, and I think actually two weeks ago.  I was by myself last weekend and pretty much went to bed as soon as I possibly could once I got Jayden down and cleaned up the tornado that hit our house each day in the form of a wild three year old.

We had a good weekend.  As I say all the time, we are very lucky that Jayden is such a good, funny, enjoyable kid.  That's not to say that he doesn't push my buttons and drive me up a wall on a regular basis, but it's not all day every day so it's generally bearable.

Thursday night (Nov. 20th), I had a work event in L.A., so Carmen was on his own with Jayden.  Then he took off Friday morning for NYC.  Allegedly he was going for work, but he needs to be more careful about going to nationally televised events, because Jayden and I definitely spotted him at the Barclays Center watching the Duke game Friday and Saturday nights.  On Friday night we got a pretty good shot of him, and Jayden was SO excited to have seen his daddy on TV.

About six rows up, in the bright blue sweater and red pants.  I would like to mention that I do not pick out Carmen's clothes; he does that alllll on his own.

Jayden jumping up and down and shouting "daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy."  Very cute.

Our weekend was pretty normal, swimming on Saturday and soccer on Sunday.

You might think Auntie bought this for him, but nope.  I did.  Because Auntie is just that awesome.  

He's doing a "froggy" kick with his legs.  He can't seem to figure out how to breathe without going vertical, but Ms. Stacy is working on it with him.  He'll get there.

(I'm having trouble with this video.  I know it plays, so hopefully it comes up on the blog.  If not, I'll re-post later)

Checking out the 3D glasses that came with a 3D animal book.  I have no clue if he understood what he was looking at or not.  But we had a good time.
This was also us downstairs in our pajamas watching Daddy and Auntie on TV at the Duke game.  It gave Auntie a momentary rise in popularity, and when I sang the "sleepy song" at night, Auntie made a cameo.  Pretty special!

Rolling the ball sideways.  He did so much better at soccer this time.  He's starting to pick up on the new skills and he's participating in warm up and stretching and everything a little more.  He gets distracted so easily, but he's even getting better at that.  

Running an obstacle course at soccer.  Not the best videographer, but you can see how he even picked up the rather complicated footwork through the ladder.  He was very proud of himself.  

We also played a little basketball on Saturday:

It was a short week, and Carmen got home Monday, so things were back to normal by Tuesday.  Jayden came to work with me on Wednesday; I thought I didn't have much to do, but turns out I had more to do than I thought.  At one point Wednesday morning Jayden looks at me and says "Mommy, I shouldn't have come with you."  We actually had quite a bit of fun, but I think he was frustrated, bored and hungry at the time.  Oh well.  Lesson learned.

Thursday was of course Thanksgiving.  Jayden decided it would be fun to be awake at 6 am, so I was awake too.  We ate yogurt, then I took him and Jasmine for a run since Carmen was still asleep.  We got back and I started cooking at about 7:30 am.  We watched the Macy's parade, which Jayden was really into. He loved the Thomas the Train balloon, and the singing and dancing too.  We ate around 4 pm, which was only a little bit later than I planned.  I managed to do everything pretty well this time - the only thing I wasn't so happy with was the deviled eggs I made for the lunch/snack, but I know the problem with those so I'm not so upset.  We had so much food - way more than necessary for 2-1/2 people, but it's fed us with leftovers for the past three days, so it wasn't terrible.  My husband and son don't eat pie (or really any sweets at all), so if anyone wants a slice of pumpkin pie, come on over!

Before the feast.  

Homemade whipped cream on the nose!

We wear our sun-glasses at night, so we can, so we can... (I have no idea the rest of the words or even if I got the few words I think I know right, but hopefully you all get the reference.)

Friday we went to see the Penguins of Madagascar.  I think I have finally convinced Carmen that Jayden is just too young for most movies.  There was a "bad" Octopus in this movie which scared the bejeezus out of Jayden.  I spent the majority of the movie standing up holding Jayden and telling him not to look at the screen.  And we've spent the entire weekend talking about the bad octopus from the pinguino movie, why the octopus was bad and where he is now.  Oof.  Seriously not worth it.  We also ran some other errands, and we got our Christmas tree!

A little blurry, but still cute.  He's taken to running all over the place when we're out places.  I think we're going to have to start requiring that he hold our hands or hold a cart or something.  He'll take off running and he's not tall enough that we can see him.  And in a store on Saturday he peeled out of an aisle and almost got run over by a cart.  And it would have been entirely his fault.  As Carmen pointed out, it's as if he doesn't really realize that he's a giant and he tries to do the same things he did when he was six months or a year younger.

Saturday was more chores and errands.  We built a shed in our backyard for some additional storage and we did some other general clean up.  In the afternoon we bought some plants to replace some in our backyard and we bought some more Christmas decorations.  We maybe went a little overboard, but we decided this won't be an annual thing - we're just slowly building our arsenal of decorations for this house that is much larger than we're used to.  And now that Jayden is excited about the holidays, it's a lot more fun to go overboard decorating.

Pushing the cart at the garden center.  It's amazing how dangerous this was.  We saved multiple plants from certain death, or at least crushing.

Relaxing on the couch after a long day.

The outside of our house.  It's a little disco decorated, with the blue and green lights by the front door and the flashing tree near the front.  But we like it.  And it works for us.  :)

The black and white version of our front porch.  I love the wreath on the front door.  It's fake, but I wanted it to last more than a year and a live wreath would die so quickly with the direct sunlight our front door gets.

And then today.  Jayden slept until EIGHT IN THE MORNING.  It was the best Christmas gift we've ever had.  And it came 26 days early!  I made fancy breakfast (nutella french toast, scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon), then we went for a long walk.  It started sprinkling slightly, we came back and I went for a run in the sprinkling rain, which was really just lovely.  And then Stacy, Kamal and her sister and her husband came over to watch the Packers-Patriots game.  We didn't do anything but sit on the couch and hang out, but it was lovely.  Stacy, Jayden and I played with bubbles on the front porch and Jayden ran in and out of the rain for twenty minutes.  And then we decorated the tree with the ornaments this evening more dinner (our last dinner of Thanksgiving leftovers, not including the multiple dishes involving turkey that I will soon be making).

An example of things Jayden does that he's probably a little too big to do.  Jasmine is very patient, but probably doesn't love a 38 pound 3-year-old sitting on her 9-1/2 year old spine.

This week is a regular week.  Carmen will be gone Tuesday to Thursday.  I have a work event Wednesday evening and Katrina wasn't available so we'll be using one of her friends.  I spoke to her on the phone and she sounds lovely, but I know Jayden will have a moment.  We'll see how it goes.

Hopefully you all had a good Thanksgiving and didn't eat as much as we did!

Visiting our fwends

According to Jayden we had "a really lot of fun" on our trip to Texas.  And we'll go back soon, maybe in a week.  For anyone who might have forgotten (and that might be everyone - I don't expect all of you to keep track of my travel schedule), we flew to Dallas for the weekend to visit one of my best friends Kelly, her husband Mike and their daughter Ella.  I haven't seen Kelly since she was just barely pregnant with Ella, and Ella is now 19 months old so clearly it has been a while.

We had a great trip.  The travel part of it was rough, but the visit itself was lovely.

It was super cold!  Jayden willingly wore his hood and his puffy coat.  We tried going outside to play soccer a couple times and every time we went outside or thought about it, he'd say "no, iss too cold."

Coloring together.  Ella taught Jayden "new page!" every time they were ready for us to flip to a new page.

Playing on the giant purple bean bag chair.  Jayden was a little wild for Ella, but they had fun.  It was a chore getting Jayden to leave the play area for anything, but particularly for bathroom breaks.  During one of them, he had to go and didn't want to wait for me because "I wan' go pway with Ella, she's my favo-wit girl!"  It was adorable.

Snacking by the window.  

On the way there our plane was delayed 3-1/2 hours and we missed Ella entirely on Friday evening.  On the way home, it was starting to snow and we got delayed on the runway since they were de-icing one of the runways in Dallas.  And Jayden and I were flying home alone, since Carmen had flown out to Indianapolis earlier Sunday for work.  Jayden was great, I just never should have picked the 7:30 pm flight home from Dallas.  Jayden stayed awake the entire flight home, until we were about 20 minutes from landing at which point he passed out so hard I had a giant drool spot on my pants.  So then I had to carry a 35 pound dead weight toddler, two backpacks, my rolling suitcase and the relatively heavy carseat in a backpack carrier bag.  I must have looked a mess getting from baggage claim to the car, but I was telling myself I was Superwoman the whole way and we made it.  Of course Jayden stayed awake the whole way home too, and I had to do real bed time at 10:15 pm that night.  Frustrating, but thank goodness I had taken Monday off.

Last week Carmen traveled Monday and Tuesday, and since Tuesday was Veterans Day, I stayed home with Jayden.  We went to swim lessons (a make up since we missed this past Saturday) and then to a fair for work.

Ms. Stacy has been teaching Jayden the butterfly stroke, and he really did an amazing job on Tuesday.  He was moving his arms and moving his rear and his legs the way he was supposed to.  Of course as soon as I started taping it wasn't as good as it had been.  But hopefully you can still sort of see.  It's pretty awesome.  The little girl with Jayden in the lesson was also great; it's too bad he can't switch to Tuesdays at 10:40 am regularly, but that just doesn't quite fit with the work schedule.  Maybe one day.

Bouncy obstacle course and slide at the fair I went to for Veterans Day.  It was great until we had to leave and Jayden threw a fit, crying, yelling and hitting me.  Aaaand then he passed out in the car on the way home, as I expected.

Making funny faces imitating Daddy.

Jayden has also become a little more daring.  He actually spoke to the check out lady at the grocery store today, telling her he likes yogurt and saying "thank you."  And he's said things to other "strangers" too.  Not consistently, and not without some prompting, but he's opening up a bit.

And even more daring by jumping off things and generally throwing himself everywhere.  Kelly, Mike and Ella got a good taste of that when he ransacked their play room and nearly ran over everyone and everything chasing after a big yellow bouncy ball.  And he loves jumping off our bed and he always makes me take a video.  Check out the arm movements:

Carmen gets home tomorrow, I have an evening event Thursday and then he takes off first thing Friday morning until Monday.  At least he's home for Thanksgiving weekend.  I think it's harder on Jayden now than it ever has been before - he understands more when one of his "families" is not home and it bothers him.  His sleep has been disrupted, but he has been actually quite cheerful, which helps me quite a bit.

He misses all his grandparents and is excited to see them (and his Auntie) whenever the time comes next.