Aaand we're back!

We had a great trip to Delaware, but we are all grateful to be home.  As you might imagine, the kids do NOT sleep well away from home, which means I do not sleep well.  I am exhausted.  Not to mention I work my a** off to keep the kids as cheerful and well-behaved as possible.  It is incredibly hard work.  I am not complaining, just stating.

The flights (all four of them - about 11 hours of flying time, plus layovers, pre-flight waiting, etc. - were fine.  Both kids are pretty good on the plane.  Jayden is exceptional - he just gets a little too excited when watching Paw Patrol!  Both there and back, he slept on the Atlanta-Philly flight, which is the short one.  Dakota pretty much slept on those same two flights; she was a little more difficult on the way home, but not much.

This is what they looked like on the flight out: Dakota passed out in my lap, Jayden passed out with his head in my lap, using "aminal" as a pillow.  I was a little bored, but grateful for the peace.

This was Jayden sleeping clutching my arm on the flight from Philly to Atlanta.  He really wanted to play, and I told him I needed to wait until we were up in the air because I didn't like take-offs and wasn't feeling well.  This was partially true, but my plan worked: about two minutes after he asked if we could "play something," he was passed out.  He needed the sleep so badly.  And it made him such a better traveler for the rest of the trip, thank goodness.

On the long flight, Atlanta-Santa Ana, I let Jayden watch a DVD and just do what I can with Dakota. She actually is quite good.  On the flight from Santa Ana to Atlanta she was chattering away, happily, but loudly.  Nobody around us said anything, and luckily it was a daytime flight so nobody could really get mad anyway.  And I will say, our kids being cute helps us out quite a bit too.  On the flight home, one of the flight attendants spotted us in the waiting area and was all excited when she found out we were on the plane with her - all because of our cute kids.  I'll write later about my issue with the obsession over physical appearance, but when it comes to traveling, all rules are out the window and I'll take what I can get.

Kicking back with some Paw Patrol.  I surprised him with a new Paw Patrol DVD for this trip.  I was going to give it to him for his birthday, but decided I needed to save this for the first cross-country flight as a family of four.  And it totally worked, thank goodness.

Hanging out in Daddy's arms, being a happy cute baby.  

 It was great for Gigi, Grandpop (we're trying our best to call William "Grandpop" so that all grandfathers have a different "name" - it's hard to keep them all straight otherwise) and Pop-pop to see Jayden and meet Dakota.

Gigi meeting Dakota.
Wednesday, the day after we arrived, Carmen had his all-day meeting at his school.  I have since made a rule, which is useless because we won't need the rule in the future, that when traveling cross-country with a four year old and a three month old, Carmen cannot leave me the following day.  Both Dakota and Jayden were exhausted, and it took everything I had to hold them (and me) together on Wednesday.  I had to give in to Jayden a lot more than normal, to avoid catastrophes, and I had to break all kinds of rules because Gigi and Grandpop didn't know we had them (we don't drink juice all. day. long., we don't get up from the lunch table until we have finished eating, we are in bed, lights out, by 8 pm, etc.) and because that's what traveling is about - breaking rules so that everyone survives.  

Four generations of Wallaces - Mom-mom, Gigi, Carmen and Dakota.
This was at bedtime, and Jayden had reached his breaking point for the day.  He was already upstairs and told me he wouldn't come back downstairs.  Which was fine.  At that point he needed to be upstairs.  

 Sleeping was a challenge.  A three month old already doesn't sleep well, and then putting her in a different time zone, in a different bed, in a different room - it's pretty much a recipe for disaster.  Which is what it was.  I was up at least twice a night, and on Friday night three times, taking care of her.  I slept sitting up holding her at least two nights.  I am not complaining, because I realize that's just the cost of traveling, but it did make it difficult.  I cried at least once a day.  Funny enough, the three month old slept in a room by herself, and Jayden slept in our room.  Jayden would not have done well sleeping by himself; he also suffered from the different time zone, strange house, strange people issues.  He rarely fell asleep before 9 pm, sometimes not until 10 pm, which is just not something a four year old can handle.  In any case, if I needed more proof of their sleep deprivation, last night at home took care of that.  Jayden was asleep about a minute after his head hit the pillow, and Dakota slept 13 hours last night.  Proves to me that these kids DO know how to sleep, they just are comfortable in their own beds, in their own house.  And that pretty much makes sense to me.  I am more comfortable in my own bed, in my own house too.

The rest of the visit was relaxed, without much planning or activity.  One of Enid's best friends has a grandson who plays college football, so Carmen met with the grandson's parents to discuss possible representation.  And Enid and William had a bunch of people over for dinner on Friday night - for fun, but also to see Jayden and meet Dakota.  Jayden was loving it because he got a bunch of birthday presents he wasn't expecting to get.  I don't know how Enid and William do it - they always have someone over at their house.  I am someone who needs my space, and who would go crazy if I had that much company!  But their friends are lovely, and it was nice to see many of them who I have gotten to know over the years.

Pop-pop and Jayden played catch in the yard, and Pop-pop got to "coach" Jayden a bit, which made both of them happy.  Jayden is pretty good at throwing, and even got a little better at catching.  Pop-pop taught Jayden how to throw overhand successfully, how to step forward when throwing, and how to be a little more accurate.  It was pretty awesome.  They also played a game sitting down (since Pop-pop does have to be a little careful about overdoing it!), and Jayden managed to "win" $5 from him.

I love how Carmen just got down in the grass with Jayden.  He was confused at first, but quickly took to him and this was just adorable.  

Jayden has never had paper money before (just coins), so he didn't really know what to do with it, or what the value is.  But he did come up to me later to tell me he needs to put the money in his bank account.  So at least he's fiscally responsible!!!

I am quickly losing steam (it's about 10 pm here), so I'm going to finish with a few pictures and captions.  I'll write the thoughtful posts I have in my head later on - something for you to look forward to  :)

This is how Jayden thinks he needs to talk to his sister - about one inch from her face.  She puts up with it most of the time, but sometimes it's just too much for her.  He means it in the most loving way possible, so I try not to discourage it, except to tell him that there is absolutely no head butting allowed.
Speaking of me saying "absolutely no head butting allowed," one of the best parts of parenthood are the things you say that you never thought you'd say.  There's this great book about it, "Things I've Said to My Children."  I may have to buy it, or see if I can make my own homemade version.  I love all of it.

Jayden spent a lot of time going backwards off the bed.  In case you're worried, his inflatable toddler bed is below there, so he was not landing on his head on the floor.  

Being cute on the bed.  Clearly.

In one of those vehicles that move when you put quarters in at the mall.  Funny enough, Jayden doesn't like it when they move, he just likes to sit in them.  Works for us!  Since Delaware has no sales tax, we spent a couple hours at the mall on Friday.  I got an awesome dress and Jayden got some cool new shoes.  It kills me that the shoes are $50, but they are velcro shoes in a size 13, so we went for it.  And I'm learning that, for quality kid shoes that Jayden will actually wear, first, I have to let Jayden pick them out and second, I have to pay $30 to $50 a pair.  Good thing I'm going back to work on Thursday and will start getting a real paycheck again...

Nothing much to report, just a sweet picture.  We were driving to the Philly airport on Saturday and Jayden was exhausted.  This was a quiet moment, in between stories about when he was "older" and drove cars on to the trains, etc.  He told me an elaborate story about that, because we saw a bunch of trains on the drive up, many of which were carrying cars.

Jayden said "Mommy, let's take a picture of us!" and Dakota was shocked.  Or something.  But this is us hanging out on the airplane.  Daddy was either asleep or watching football.
When we landed and were getting off the plane, the Captain asked Jayden if he was home.  Jayden nodded, and I must have sounded desperate when I said "THANK GOODNESS."  The Captain and flight attendants just laughed and the Captain said something about "go home! get off my plane!  EVERYBODY go home!!!"  It was awesome.
Even more awesome was when the Captain went to get our car seat for us because Carmen had been waiting for it for probably 10 minutes in the jetway, and the ground crew was claiming they didn't have any "pink-tagged" items.  If I knew who that Captain was, I'd try to always fly with him.  Maybe I'll write Delta and let them know - the whole crew from Atlanta to Santa Ana yesterday was wonderful.

And today we were finally back at soccer.  Of course it is still 90+ degrees here, and soccer is outside this session due to some unforeseen circumstances, but Jayden was super excited to be running around again, despite being tired and almost not making it to the class!

And tomorrow we're back to preschool and work for Carmen.  I've got three days to live it up before "work" officially starts.  We'll see what I can come up with - so far I have an eye doctor appointment scheduled, and some organizing and cleaning unofficially scheduled.  Pretty exciting!!!