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!
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.
Maybe it was the time change combined with the full moon combined with who knows what.
We're still waking up between 5:30 and 5:45 am. Not cool. I've gone running (up and down the hill with the stroller) at 5:45 am. I've spent partial nights on the floor outside Jayden's room. I've spent entire nights on that floor. Jayden also ended up with a rough stomachache all weekend, which resulted in a number of accidents and numerous trips to the bathroom.
We had some good moments. For instance, the naked piggy back/choo-choo train ride to the bathtub.
And we were smoothie making and drinking fools (a picture taken to cheer up Auntie after a bad dream - Ellen, seriously, time change, full moon, something is causing craziness!).
And swimming lessons Saturday was filled with giggles and shrieks. And a little bit of swimming.
We had a birthday party to go to Saturday afternoon. Jayden didn't sleep nearly as long as he should have Saturday afternoon, which was concerning, but we figured he'd rally for the party. And he did, for a bit. But then his stomachache really hit him hard, as did his exhaustion. We arrived around 4:30 and by 6 or 6:15 I'd run to the bathroom with him probably three or four times, with no results. And the last time he basically fell asleep on the toilet. Mickey even showed up, but that still did nothing for him. As soon as the cake was cut and I'd scarfed down more than my share, we got him in the car and got him home and to bed as fast as we could.
He literally went up the stairs and down the slide probably 25 times. Maybe more. He is obsessed with slides.
He wouldn't jump on, of course - just ran around in circles holding on to the swing.
Playing with the giant bouncy balls. He found a kid he wanted to be friends with and basically followed him everywhere he went. I don't know that the other kid shared his feelings, but he tolerated it for a while. I have a feeling the other kid is a little older than Jayden.
Mickey! Not the official Disney Mickey, but pretty darn close. Apparently the birthday boy is obsessed with Mickey, so everything was Mickey themed. The goodie bags were red with white dots. The other funny part about the party is Jayden never even interacted with the birthday boy. We don't really know the kid - the father is Carmen's co-worker. But the last time we saw the mom and the kid was in Hawaii last January. A lot has changed since then. It was a fun party, though; we just felt bad for Jayden since he was feeling so bad.
Sunday was soccer as normal, and that was pretty much it. He had a couple of accidents in the bathroom at soccer, which was not so much fun for me. And the poor kid at one point ran crying to the bathroom with all the other parents looking on with concern. Yup, that's our kid. There's not much we can do, except encourage him. We've tried pretty much everything else, with not much success.
Carmen left this morning for a two day trip; he'll be back late tomorrow night. I have tomorrow off in honor of Veterans Day, so Jayden and I will go to a swimming class and then to a fair for my work (I sold Jayden on it by telling him there'd be music and free hot dogs - gets 'em every time!). Then we'll spend the afternoon at home, hopefully with some napping and some good outside playing.
Tonight we had a good night; Jayden was in much better spirits and only dragged his feet for about 20 minutes at bedtime. He doesn't do it as much to Carmen, but when it's my turn to put him to bed he comes up with all kinds of reasons why he needs to go potty, why I need to sing him a song, why we need to rock some more, etc. I finally have to cut him off, and sometimes harshly so he doesn't throw a fit. It's tough. But he's getting old enough that he just knows how to get a little more out of me.
Hey! There's so many of me! He loves looking at himself in the mirror. When we're changing into his pajamas at bedtime he'll stare at himself in the full-length mirror in his room sometimes. It's so cute.
Juju told me today Jayden has been resisting drinking his milk. She asked him if he wanted to grow up to be big like Daddy, and if so, he needed to drink his milk. He said "no, I wanna be big like mommy!" and he's been drinking his milk ever since. I've explained to him he's pretty much guaranteed to be taller than me, but he gets such a kick out of it. It's very cute.
He also understands his daddy being gone more than he used to. Tonight when we talked to Carmen briefly Jayden kept asking "are you on your way Daddy?" - in between "showing" him the pinwheel and top he was playing with. I have to give Carmen a play-by-play so he can understand what Jayden is "showing" him at any particular time. One day he'll understand the difference between FaceTime/Skype and regular phone calls. But I think it's more likely that phone calls will become video calls so that Jayden doesn't have to adjust. :)
Except that I just googled it to be sure and realized that we're actually on regular time. Okay, so my new theory is that it should be Daylight Savings Time year round. There is absolutely no reason why it should be light when I get up to run at 5:30 am and pitch black when I get home with my son at 5:30 pm. So lame.
In any case, it was rough on us. Jayden has never really been affected by the time change before, but yesterday was a different story. First, he decided he should be awake at 5:20 am because his slipper came off. Well, clearly if your slipper comes off you can't sleep. And clearly you can't put it back on yourself. So I got the slipper back on the foot and got him back in his bed. And then about an hour later (I don't really know because I was laying outside his door wrapped in my blanket pretending not to be awake), he pokes his head out and says "Mommy! Mommy, I saw light outside. It's time to be awake." I said "No, not true," and mumbled something about time changes, told him it was too early for Mommy and Daddy to be awake and told him if he needed to play he could turn his light on and play for a while. I didn't really sleep but I did everything I could to lay there with my eyes closed as long as possible. We made it until almost 7.
Carmen was leaving at about 9:00 am to fly to San Francisco and we had agreed to a later soccer class that day (12:30 pm), so I knew the morning was going to be a little rough. And add to that a pretty big spill on the concrete during our "looooooong" walk, and we barely made it off the couch and spent a whole lot of time crying. Because of the late soccer class, I wanted to get him to the facility earlier so he didn't pass out in the car. I packed us lunches and we had a "picnic" in the car in the parking lot. He sat in the passenger seat and explored all the speakers and nooks and crannies of the front seat. In any case, it was fun and totally worked out as I planned, thank goodness.
The soccer coaches suggested Jayden move up to the next class, which is technically for 4 and 5 year olds. I was hesitant, not so much for his physical skill but for his overall maturity. They reassured me it would be fine. We tried yesterday, and it was okay. Of course afterwards the main coach said the kids in the 4-5 year old class were particularly crazy yesterday so it wasn't a good representation. So we'll keep going for now and see how it goes. He still had fun, which is what matters.
Over the past week we've also painted pumpkins:
And some pretty strict instructions on how to paint pumpkins, sit in a chair and other random items.
The rest of the week was nothing special, just a regular week in our world. Except Friday was HALLOWEEN DAY! We decided to go to the same place as last year, an outdoor shopping mall, to trick or treat. Jayden and I got there first and picked up a few pieces of candy and then played in the fountain until Carmen arrived.
We had a good time running around, getting a balloon sword made (yellow!) and eating dinner. Jayden was much more social this year, went up to the stores by himself to get candy and was generally charming. He was also very recognizable - everyone knew he was Michael Jackson and many people commented on how charming he was (obviously!).
He also got his groove on at the end of the night:
The weekend was business as usual, swimming on Saturday and soccer on Sunday, with a few errands thrown in here and there.
One of the most beautiful rainbows we've ever seen. We saw it from all different angles as Jayden and I went for a run in the rain and Carmen and Jasmine went for a walk in the rain. Carmen and Jasmine got home about 10 minutes after us and got caught in straight sheets of rain. A bit unfortunate, except that we needed the rain so badly that we'll take anything.
An airplane flying into the rainbow.
Swimming with the kickboard and his flippers.
Peek-a-boo in the next aisle at Lowes.
Luckily for everyone, Carmen's trip was a short one and he was back this morning. He was home late, though, after dinner, because of another project he's working on, so there has been a lot of Jayden-Mommy time. It actually has been fine, up until a few minutes after Carmen got home tonight. Jayden made it through the grocery store with me today, very cheerfully, and even explored his candy bin (without eating a thing) while I put dinner together. And then ate his whole dinner without complaining. Really, a successful evening all things considered. He also wanted this picture and video taken:
He's just so full of character. I'll leave you with that for the evening. Happy Monday y'all.
