We're alive

And that's what matters.  That post of pictures I promised never materialized, clearly.  It was partly due to me just not getting it together to do a post and partly due to me still not getting a ton of pictures taken.  BUT.  Jayden, Jasmine and I are alive. We're not incredibly well rested (except maybe Jasmine), but we were fed, reasonably healthily all week, we have some clean clothes and clean sheets and we're generally happy.  That is a successful two weeks without a husband.

As one of my friends has discussed, I have nothing on full-time single moms, military wives, or anyone else who goes long periods (or all of the time) without anyone around to support them.  And I'm not trying to pretend I do.  But as far as my life is concerned, being without a husband for two weeks is hard.  Part of the problem is the lack of support system, I think - it's not just the doing it all by myself, but the fact that if something happens or falls apart, there is nobody to call to be back-up.  Even though it's from a few years a go, I recently read an article about mommy loneliness.  The article sort of hits the nail on the head.  I talk to my mommy friends at work and I run into parents at daycare with whom I exchange small talk.  And I adore my non-parent friends who have been so incredibly supportive despite my inability to stay in touch or drop everything and run off to do something fun (and those in the bay area who understand exactly what I need when I do get a weekend off by myself - love you guys!).  But there's something about coming home with your kid, by yourself, every single night, and spending every single night by yourself, not talking to anyone, not interacting with anyone, not hashing your day out with anyone.  It's just different.

In any case, I won't go on forever about it.  The important news is Carmen is home.  Woo-hoooo!  Clearly he'll be more attached to his phone than anything else, especially since he's been alone for two weeks, but at least there will be another body in the house.  And Jayden is so super excited to have his daddy back, it's adorable.

Jayden and I went to the airport to watch Carmen's plane land tonight.  We parked on the roof of the parking garage and camped out in a blanket on the hood of my car.  It was a lot of fun!  And Jayden raised his arms in victory when we saw Carmen's plane land and then park at the gate too.  He was suuuuper excited to see Daddy and to get to do "family hugs" again tonight.
Oh, and this is what Jayden looks like when I say "smile" apparently.  Awesome.  I can't wait for school pictures.

Despite the stress of the week, it was a decent week.  Here goes.

Jayden's face when he opened his present from Gramma and realized the video is the same as the puzzles he has (Paw Patrol)!
Funny story is that he's never actually seen the show, so he has no idea what it's about.  Carmen just bought him the puzzles for Christmas out of the blue.  We haven't found time to watch the video yet, but next time we sit down together to have a movie night that's what we'll be watching!

Swimming across the pool by himself.  I mean, clearly he has flippers and a noodle, but he did a pretty good job of breathing without going vertical.  Today was a totally different story - he spent half the lesson with his head tilting backwards or staring at other kids in the pool.  Oh well.

Playing with the car wash from Gigi.  We played with it non-stop from Saturday morning when we got it until probably Wednesday or Thursday.  He still plays with it quite a bit, but at least now we get a little variety.  Today we threw in some books and some puzzles too.  :)

My valentine's day kiss.  He's quite passionate about it.  

Being serious on the playground, aka staring at other kids and getting ready to follow them around but not actually play with them and then ask about his "friends" three days later.
(Seriously, yesterday he asked me where his "friends," the one in the black shirt and the one in the red shirt, were and if he could see them again.  I had to explain I have no idea who those kids are, when they'll be at the park next or even what their names were.)

Slide!

Sliding down a hill at the park on a piece of cardboard.  

Running back up the hill after a particularly good slide down.  I had to give him a boost to get him started.
As an aside, Jayden totally won this trip to the park.  Monday morning (a holiday), I had to go to my office to reconnect 14 computers, since we'd had to move the prior week and our office manager had so much forethought that she didn't even consider that our IT and phone people should be notified that everything was being disconnected.  It took me THREE hours to do it, because of how things were haphazardly packed and how our systems are set up.  Poor Jayden was so patient and such a good kid, I owed him this trip to the park and probably a whole lot more too.  But please please please don't tell him that. He'll make me buy him the "cop" cars he wants.  And by "cop" cars, clearly he means Hot Wheels cars.  They're in my Amazon cart.  They'll be purchased, just not actually gifted, someday soon.

I hosted a meeting at our house on Thursday. When Jayden came home all the chairs were in the wrong place, and as we were moving them back to the right places, he rediscovered the highchair. He immediately moved it next to his chair because he wanted the baby to sit next to him.
Two things: (1) this poor kid is going to be so traumatized when he realizes how useless the kid is for at least the first six months; and (2) it only took him maybe 15 minutes the next morning to yell at me about wanting to sit next to the baby not next to me after he realized I'd moved the highchair back to its storage location while he was asleep.  

A beautiful sunset on the way home Friday evening.  

Spinning on our (really long) walk this morning.  Of course Jayden was ambitious and I chose not to fight, but ultimately I suffered since I had to give him a piggy back ride for the last half mile or so.  Oh well.

Smiles in the swimming pool.

We're still working on a few letters (clearly "E" is not "key" and "L-M-N-O-P" needs some work, but he's so proud of himself that he can sing the whole song by himself.  And he's learning the sounds the letters make, which is pretty cool to see too.  

And now for the baby.  She's the size of a large mango, weighing in at just over a pound.  She's at least 11 inches long now.  

She can feel movement now, so the app suggests I dance.  I figure I do that, along with walk, jog, laugh, spin, yoga, be a choo-choo train, be a human jungle gym and other activities, enough that I'm not so worried.  She's been kicking me a whole lot more.  I'm carrying her really low, which is interesting (and a little upsetting to me - one thing I read said you carry low when your abs are weak - not something I like to think about myself!).  Carrying her low means I feel the kicks in entirely different places.  She definitely loooves to move.  Blood vessels in her lungs are developing, preparing her for breathing, and her hearing is improving.  She can hear what I hear, but it's muffled by all the stuff (muscles, tissue, placenta, amniotic fluid, etc.) surrounding her.  I can't imagine what she thinks, based off of what she hears from me and Jayden.  She's going to know the song "Uptown Funk" by heart for sure, since Jayden and I have listened to it 187 times in the last eight days.

I'm still feeling pretty good, but people are starting to tell me I've "popped."  I think there are some clothes were I look more pregnant, but for the most part I still feel like I just look big.  I'm still not feeling cute and pregnant, but I don't know that I ever will really.

In case anyone is wondering, no discussions about names yet.  Apparently we're not allowed to discuss names yet - Carmen told me with Jayden we didn't discuss names until we had our naming afternoon at the beach.  So apparently that's the rule this time too.  I've had lots of suggestions from lots of people, and honestly I haven't come up with one name yet that actually sounds appealing to me.  At least we've got some time, sort of (118 days to go, assuming this little girl is on time!).