A good trip, a bad return

Since it has been a while since I've posted, I have a bunch of updates.  Nothing super exciting, but in the world of a two year old, everything is exciting.

Last Monday I had the day off for Cesar Chavez Day.  I had some work to do in the morning, so Jayden still went to Juju's, but then I picked him up after naptime and went to meet my co-worker and her son at the beach.  Her son is four, but he and Jayden had a good time running in circles, rolling their cars down the slide and dancing to some music.  We were so excited the boys got along, we're planning to have some more play dates!

Digging in the sand.  They actually did a good job of sharing their toys, not just with each other but with other kids too.

Listening to some jams outside the ice cream shop

It was a hectic few days getting ready to zip across country to Delaware and back.  It was a short trip, but it's almost more difficult on the short trips because you want to be so efficient.  In any case, we got ourselves together and were at the airport by 5:30 am on Thursday.  We ran into a few hiccups, but we got it figured out and on the airplane with plenty of time.  It was a quick hour trip to Phoenix, where we switched planes and got on the plane to Philly with only a short delay.  Jayden took a solid two hour nap on the plane, which is better than normal and for which I was very grateful.  We landed a little late, but got to Gramma Gigi's house in time for dinner.  Jayden was generally in good spirits, just maybe a little tired. 

Friday morning we got up, ate a boatload of yogurt and headed out to Carmen's elementary/middle/high school.  Jayden was great, sitting in my lap for the whole speech and only making a few inappropriate noises: first, when Carmen was showing a video he saw Carmen on the screen and said "hey!  that's daddy!!!" and second, towards the end of the speech Jayden yawned extra loudly during a particularly quiet moment.  Of course. 

During the speech.
(he did spill the beans; in case you were wondering, it is not actually Clay Matthews' mom in the Campbells commercials)

Mommy and Jayden, looking handsome as always, in the crowd.

After the speech Jayden ran down the stairs to Daddy to give him a big hug.  It was very sweet.  As an aside, Carmen's speech was great and everyone was very interested.  The high school students asked some great questions, as did the alumni in attendance.  There was a lunch reception afterwards and Jayden met one of his relatives/cousins who had just turned two in February.  They took turns copying what the other one was doing.  It was really cute, and they had a great time.  It was nice for Jayden to get some interaction with other kids. 

Headstands and somersaults at the lunch reception

On the floor playing cars.  Until Jahzid decided he was over it and tried to return the cars to Jayden, who said no.  It was awesome.

Racing through the halls of the alumni house at Tower Hill.

Jayden took a nice looong nap Friday afternoon, which meant I also took a nap since he sleeps on a regular bed and he rolls around waaay too much to trust him to not fall off.  We then went to Carmen's friend's (Mark and Jen) house for dinner.  They have two kids, a 9 or 10 year old girl (Alli) and a 7 year old boy (Ben).  Jayden found some trucks that were awesome; they'll be going on his Christmas list next year for sure!  Alli was really sweet with Jayden, letting him play downstairs with her while us grown ups were upstairs.  Towards the end of the night the kids all got a little wild, running in circles through the house.  Jayden was hopping everywhere and eventually hopped so much his pants fell down!

Despite his exhaustion, he remained in pretty good spirits.  When we got back to the house he goofed off with Gigi's pillows on the floor before bedtime.

King of his castle. Until Mama tells him otherwise.

Saturday we slept as long as possible (about 8 am, not too bad really!) and then eventually made it to brunch at Cracker Barrel.  Jayden was a bit fussy, but it was clear exhaustion was setting in by this point. A small victory is that during the meal he leaned over and said "Mommy, I need go potty."  I gathered everything and walked him to the toilet.  We got him on the toilet and a few minutes later he went potty.  And his pull-up was completely dry.  Which means he actually held in whatever he had and waited until he got to the bathroom.  Seriously amazing.  It's a back and forth process, we gain some ground, we lose some ground, but each little step forward is progress.

Playing with the classic Cracker Barrel game while we waited for our food to come.  He explained to Daddy how to play the game - you can't just take the puzzle apart piece by piece, you have to "hop" the pieces.  The little things he picks up on sometimes amazes us.

Rockin' out in the chairs outside Cracker Barrel.

We stopped by a park on the way back to Gramma Gigi's house to let Jayden run off some of his energy.  The park we picked had about 18 slides (really about 5, but that's still more than most parks), which was awesome.

Gramma Gigi, Grampa William and Great Grandmom stayed in the car while we ran all over the place, in circles and back and forth.  We also threw a whole bunch of leaves in the water.  It was a beautiful day, just a little windy. 

Saturday night we went to a local restaurant, had some chicken wings and watched a whole bunch of basketball.  A nice relaxed night, which is what we all needed.  Jayden seriously struggled with going to bed, screaming and crying and fighting me to the death.  I finally stood up and rocked him for a minute and he finally collapsed into me.  I then passed out for an hour and missed most of the first half of the Wisconsin-Kentucky game.  Oh well. 

Sunday morning we hung around the house for a few hours and then took off for the airport. 

Saying bye bye to Gramma Gigi.

The fateful trip to the airport...it all began at about 11:30 AM eastern or 8:30 AM pacific when we left Gramma Gigi's house to drive to the Philadelphia airport.  We got our bags checked with a little trouble, but made it, got through security no problem and made it to the gate.  We got on the plane, settled in and took off.  Jayden had the iPad and was happily playing the Wheels on the Bus game (he can solve the match game quicker than a lot of grown ups - his ability to remember where the matches are is really impressive). 

Once we got up in the air, the pilot comes over the loudspeaker and says "wellll, if you look outside you'll notice we are now returning to the Philadelphia airport.  It turns out we hit a bird on takeoff.  We're running through our checks and everything appears to be okay, and this should be an uneventful landing, but we're returning to the airport just in case."  So, at that point I'm scared.  Not cool.  Not cool at all.  I am forever grateful for our pilots though.  We returned to the airport and landed without incident, thank goodness.  When a bird hits a plane, they have to do a full inspection of the plane to ensure no damage.  That can take at least an hour, so they took us off the plane.  About 45 minutes later they announced that the crazy little bird had cracked the nose of the airplane, the plane was not able to fly and would be going straight to the hangar.  So we had to get back onboard and collect our bags and hike to another gate where an airplane was supposedly heading to take us to Phoenix.  By this point, Jayden was so tired he had passed out in my arms.  We got back on, collected our bags and then began the hike.  Carmen was carrying a bunch of carry-ons and I was carrying my carry-on and 35 pounds of dead weight in my arms.  My arms were shaking halfway through but I'm stubborn and it made more sense to just keep going and get to the gate. 

We had clearly missed our connection at this point but there was nothing we could do except get to Phoenix and hope for the best.  So we got food and let Jayden run off some more energy outside the new gate.  The plane finally shows up and we get on.  I then realize I've somehow lost Baba, which is only Jayden's comfort stuffed animal.  It's somewhere either on the first airplane or in the lobby area outside of the new gate.  Such a bummer.  And definitely was the straw that broke the camel's back for me at the time.  It's so often the little things that create Mama guilt, and for me, all I felt was that I had "failed" Jayden by losing his most prized stuffed animal.  Luckily I had "aminal" with us, so that served as a substitute and Jayden didn't freak out at all (AND I had an extra Baba at home so once we got home everything was fine).

We landed in Phoenix and tried to get on the next (and last) plane to Santa Ana that night - amazingly the gate was right next door to where we landed.  Carmen did what he could, but there was no way all three of us were getting on the plane and it made no sense for one of us to go without the other two.  So at customer service we had the chance to get on a flight to LAX, but they wouldn't separate us from our luggage and they didn't think our luggage would make the plane.  So they booked us on the first flight out Monday morning and told us where we could stay.  We told them we needed our luggage since I had a total of two diapers left and very few snacks for Jayden. They told us it would be an hour but to go wait by baggage claim.  We did, and we waited for over an hour.  Finally I took our bag tags up to the luggage agent and had him look them up.  He said, "oh, you called for these bags?  because they were just offloaded in Santa Ana."  So.  Yeah.  That happened.  They're not allowed to purposely separate us from our luggage by putting us on a flight, but they are allowed to purposely separate use from our luggage by putting our luggage on a flight.  Whatever.  So we caught the shuttle to the hotel, and passed out. 

I am grateful that Jayden passed out in my arms again while Carmen was dealing with customer service, and he slept through everything, even the various transfers from arms to floor to car seat to shuttle to car seat to bed to crib and back to bed when the crib clearly wasn't going to cut it.  I wish I could sleep that heavily.

Asleep on the floor of the Phoenix airport while Carmen was dealing with customer service and I was setting up his carseat.

Back in his carseat.  Thank goodness he loves his carseat.

Monday morning we woke up just before 6 am to catch the shuttle back to the airport.  Carmen and I got up first, putting on the same clothes we'd been wearing for the last 24 hours - gross! - and then woke Jayden up at the last minute.  He woke up and said, "no, I tie-yewd. stiww dahk ow-side, I stiww sweep."  He fought us for a few minutes, saying he didn't want to be awake, he should still be sleeping, etc.  Finally he sort of woke up, rolled over, sat up, looked down and said "hey!  I have no pants!"  It was hilarious.  I had luckily brought a change of clothes on the flight, but had put him in just a t-shirt and diaper to sleep in so that his pants for the next day were somewhat clean.  The fact that he had no pants on was distressing that he did allow us to dress him and he eventually climbed into his carseat.  We made it the airport with plenty of time (the one benefit to not having our luggage was not having to re-check it Monday morning), made it on the plane, took off and landed in Santa Ana by 9:30 am.  And saw our luggage inside the locked luggage office.  Luckily we found someone to help us, we got our bags, and we were on our way.  Jayden, of course, passed out in the car on the way home.  I ended up waking him and getting him to Juju's to try to get him back on his regular schedule (and because I had a dentist appointment Monday afternoon).  But that was the longest east coast to west coast trip.  I am eternally grateful for Jayden and how much he loves traveling and airplanes and carts and trucks and anything else with wings or on wheels.  And how I honestly now believe all airports should be surrounded by scarecrows or other (gentle) anti-bird mechanisms.  But thank goodness we're home and sort of almost maybe back to normal.