We made it!

And by that I mean, we are all alive, and actually pretty happy.  :)

The trip to Delaware was fun.  Tiring, as expected, but fun.

First, prior to the trip, I took Jayden to a park Wednesday afternoon, because I had been promising him that.  My co-worker mentioned a park near Juju's that is a "castle" park.  I had no idea what that meant, but decided I'd check it out.  It was pretty fun, except, to Jayden's disappointment, there were no slides off of the castle.  Life is hard sometimes.

The castle park.

Jayden following his "friend," a little boy who first asked Jayden to play with him and then minutes later, yelled at Jayden for following him around.  I think the boy thought Jayden was older than he is and expected more from him.  All Jayden could really do was chase him, which was fun for Jayden but not so much for the other boy.
Thank goodness Jayden is too young to completely understand what was going on. 

It was difficult to leave (it always is, especially when there are tons of kids around whose much much nicer parents are not making them leave), but we made it home finally.

We had to get up at 4 something the next morning to get to our airplane.  It was brutal, but Jayden was a complete trooper, especially once we explained we were heading for an airplane.  Thank goodness he loves cars and airplanes.

And thank goodness take off is his kryptonite.  He doesn't like the bumps, and since he can't watch paw patrol until we're up in the sky, he usually just lays down and closes his eyes for the first few minutes.  He actually slept for the first hour or so, which I was very grateful for since our first flight was to Atlanta and was therefore a rather long flight.  

And even more thank goodness, he loves paw patrol.  :)  He got to watch the paw patrol shows, and then I had some coloring/activity books and a couple other toys for him to play with.  He really was sweet.  He didn't sleep on the second flight, but passed out about ten minutes after we got in Gigi's car in Philadelphia.  He slept the whole ride to the house (about an hour) and then for another hour or so afterwards.  It was good for him, even if it threw off his schedule a bit.

As expected, he was pretty reserved and clingy in the beginning.  He's better with Gigi, but took some time getting used to everyone else.

Friday we had nothing to do other than relax and watch basketball.  Since Carmen of course forgot a belt and Delaware has no sales tax, we headed to the mall in the late morning, once Gigi got back from work.  It was pretty cold, in the 20s, and by the time we went to lunch it was snowing!  For us it was exciting.  Clearly everyone back east was over it, but for us Californians, since it wasn't sticking and didn't impact driving or anything, it was lovely.

Snowy scene from the car window.

Daddy and Jayden making tracks in the snow.  It was fun for a minute and then Jayden decided it was "too cold Mommy."

Saturday morning was the motivation for the timing of the trip - Carmen was inducted into the Delaware Basketball Hall of Fame!

Playing around with Daddy before the ceremony.  Check out the shirt with helicopters - thanks Aunt Gwen!

Daddy accepting his award.  I recorded his whole speech if anyone is interested.  But it takes up a lot of space, so I'm not going to post it here.  Happy to share if you're interested.  :)

Carmen with two of his fellow inductees: Ralph Blalock and Coach Bix Bush.

Family photo.  Turns out the trick to getting Jayden to smile is to tell him not to smile.  Works pretty much every time, even though sometimes the smile is a little goofy.  

Saturday afternoon/evening, Enid and William had a big gathering - in honor of Carmen's induction and Enid's birthday, which was March 25th.  It was a lot of fun, with lots of friends and family, and lots of basketball, of course.  And for some of us (really, one of us) there was a lot of drinking!

Sunday was recovery day, even for those of us who weren't drinking.  We took it easy, relaxed and hung around the house.

Giving Gigi her birthday present and card.
Sorry for the bathrobe picture, Gigi - but it's too cute!

Talking on Gigi's telephone.  I can't remember who he was talking to, but probably something related to the Paw Patrol.  

Jayden was a bit grouchy.  We finally convinced him to get out of the house in the fresh air.  We didn't get too far, but I do think it helped.

Gigi and William's house.  So pretty, and so big!

Monday morning was the beginning of the most exciting day (for me): a 12 hour cross-country trip, six months pregnant, on my own, with a three year old.  It was awesome.  Luckily Carmen and I really do have an awesome kid, and luckily he is used to traveling and is very patient, even with me.  We flew through Houston, an airport where I had not spent much (if any) time.  I won't really be going back if I can help it.  We landed in C terminal, and our second flight was out of C terminal, so I thought we were good to go.  Turns out C terminal is basically the entire airport.  And of course, our second gate was basically at the opposite side of the airport.  We had landed early, thank goodness, so we stopped at the play area for a few minutes where Jayden immediately found a friend, and found a place to sit and eat lunch.

As we were getting up to go to our gate, I did one last check of the gate, and of course, it had changed.  And of course it changed to a terminal to which there were no moving walkways and no trains or other transportation with which I could bribe the toddler.  Considering the state of my pregnancy and the amount of bags I was carrying, there was no way I could carry Jayden.  Amazingly, he made it.   Then our plane didn't show up.  Then we switched gates again (luckily it was only one gate over).  Then our plane was coming from Mexico and had to be extra-cleared for security reasons.  We left an hour or more late, but ended up only landing about 20 minutes late, thank goodness.  It meant we couldn't pick up Jasmine that evening, but I had boarded her until the following day to be safe, so it actually made my life a little easier.

Carmen was heading to North Carolina the following day, so it made sense for him to stay in Delaware rather than flying back to the West Coast, but man I could have used parent #2 for those few days after we got back.  Jayden was great, actually, it's just being the sole parent and being responsible for anything and everything that comes up.  It was a short trip for Carmen, though; he was home Thursday.

I had scheduled a make-up swim class for Jayden on Thursday since we missed the prior Saturday while we were in Delaware.  He had a different teacher, because Ms. Stacy was busy during the times that would be best.  It didn't really phase Jayden, though, since he loves swimming just that much.

Hanging out in the corner of the sunny swimming pool before his lesson.

Showing me how he can touch the bottom of the pool all by himself.  He's awesome.
Proud Mama moment: When I called to schedule the make-up, the scheduler mentioned how impressed she was with the level Jayden was at.  I think the teacher's update the student's levels and I guess maybe Jayden is at an advanced level for his age.  I love how much he loves swimming; I'd totally be happy spending time at swim meets.  :)

I think Jayden might have missed his Daddy, because Friday morning when we were getting ready for work and Juju's, Jayden told Carmen he wanted him to drop him off and pick him up.  Because Daddy was gone for such a long time and Mommy had been doing drop-off and pick-up for a long time so Daddy could do it today.  Luckily it worked with Carmen's schedule, so he got to do drop-off and pick-up.  Very cute.

The weekend was filled with more basketball.  As you might have guessed, there was a lot of Duke cheering going on in this house.  In particular, Carmen brought home some Duke gear for everyone (including baby girl).  Jayden had to wear his the next day and he looked ridiculously cute.  By the way, for anyone wondering, these clothes are Youth Small's or 5/6.  And it is big, but it fits.  Yes, our child is huge.

As Carmen said, the Duke game face began at swim class.  Luckily it held through Sunday's game.

The basketball shorts, according to Jayden, also helped him jump higher so he could play basketball better.  While this not might be exactly true, it is clear Jayden is really taking to basketball, along with every other sport.  Clearly Carmen and I are overly excited.  We still need to work on the dribbling, but we're really trying to not push.

It's just so hard - look at that touch!

Sunday we made it back to soccer class, after missing it for two weeks.  Jayden was pretty excited, and because a new session had started, there were a whole bunch of new kids.  Soccer is not my favorite class, maybe because it's in the middle of the day, who knows.  But Jayden still enjoys it, so for now I'm going to deal with it.  His coaches are really sweet too - always celebrating holidays with them.  This time he got a lollipop:

And now it's Monday again.  I have tomorrow off for Cesar Chavez Day, which will be very nice.  I have a doctor appointment in the morning and errands to run, but other than that nothing planned.  I am grateful.  And then even more grateful that after tomorrow there are only three more days until the weekend again!

Also, thank goodness Duke won.  That's made the entire house a whole lot happier for this week.  :)