Pumpkins, pumpkins and pumpkins! And a really large pumpkin.

On Halloween eve, I am spending my evening straightening up, as much as I can, and convincing myself that we'll make it through our activities planned for tomorrow!

As with my last post, I'm trying to make sure we get in the spirit of Halloween, even though it's not my favorite thing.  So, after the pumpkin patch, we got up Sunday morning and carved our pumpkins.  It was a lot of work, since Jayden picked pretty much the largest pumpkin he could possibly pick.  It was awesome.  We tried to get Jayden to paint his pumpkin, but once he saw us carving ours, he wanted to carve his too.  So we did.

Jayden's pumpkin is HUGE!

The serious insides of the giant pumpkin

Our carved/painted/decorated pumpkins!  Jayden's on the left (obviously), then mine and then Carmen's.  

All lit up.

Jayden and Carmen on the front porch with the pumpkins on display.

I let Dakota get in on the fun too.  My friend who has a baby a month older than Dakota did this for her kid, so I copied her - and kind of surprisingly, Dakota enjoyed it.

I put paint on a piece of paper and then slid it inside a ziploc and taped it to the highchair.  She could hit the paint (inside the ziploc) and spread it around, but no paint on her hands - so genius!
She's not quite ready for the highchair, but she did pretty well.  I propped her up with a blanket so she could be a little higher, which helped quite a bit.

And now her masterpiece is taped to the refrigerator and every time she sees it she gets all kinds of excited.  Probably mostly because of the colors, but it's still cute she loves her own picture.

We had soccer class, and then Carmen and I had date "a few hours" on Sunday afternoon.  We went to a local shopping area and just wandered around.  It was nice, and relatively relaxing.

A little wine flight.

I felt all fancy in my outfit, until Jayden stuck his head in my shirt, Dakota spit up on me . . . oh the life of a mom!

We got home in time for dinner and had a giggle fest.  

Cutest baby smiles.

Carmen definitely knows how to make his little girl smile.  And sound ridiculous in the process, but he'll do anything for her - especially to hear her giggle!

And then Monday was the BIG day, the day I had to drop Dakota off at daycare.  I had been anticipating it for weeks and the anxiety was definitely building.  As you can probably tell from my posts.  But yeah.  Monday morning came and I clearly was not ready.  (it's Friday night and I'm still not really ready, even though I've now done it five times!).  The rule at the preschool is that you drop the big kid off first and then the infant, since the infant room has cleanliness guidelines.  So, I dropped off Jayden's stuff, signed him in and took him down to the lower yard.  Then I went into the infant room.  And pretty much started crying.  I learned the process - bottles in the fridge, sign in, and update the information about Dakota's evening/morning, and put her stuff in her (locked) cubby.  Then the idea is that I hand over the baby.  But yeah, that wasn't happening.  So I sat in the rocking chair and held her, trying my best to let her go and convince myself that she would be okay.  And the thing is, I know she'll be okay.  I just want to believe she'd be better with me.  So then mommy guilt kicks in and I feel sure I'm making the wrong decision and I should stay home until the kids are 18 because I should be there every. single. minute.  But eventually I realize Dakota is going to get hungry and I need her to get used to being at daycare and being fed with bottles, so I hand her over, take one last picture, and pretty much run out of the room to my car, where I sob.

Asleep on my chest while getting ready to leave the house.  A weird picture of me, I know; I promise I'm not pregnant again!
*by the way, the dress I'm wearing is AWESOME! It's a little short on me (surprise!), but I wore it with tights and it was still work appropriate.  It has buttons down the front for nursing/pumping, but is really just a great shape.  I highly recommend!*

Saying goodbye, or not really...

One last shot.  In Teacher Kathy's arms as I walk out the door.
I learned the next day that Dakota was shaking a little bit after I left.  Which a thousand quintupled the mommy guilt. 

I cried all the way to work, and a little bit at work.  In some ways it was lucky that I had a lunch meeting where I had to give a brief speech and some other things to keep me busy.  BUT, the preschool is awesome and sent me some pictures to reassure me that Dakota was, in fact, doing fine.

Cuddling in teacher's arms.

Checking herself out in the mirror!

I definitely ran to get her as soon as possible, and was so excited.  She didn't nap at all in her crib that day, and didn't eat a lot either.  I knew she'd come around, especially with the eating, but I was definitely worried about the napping.  But it was a good evening, and Dakota was so happy to be home she hung on through her exhaustion and was actually cheerful.

Tuesday was better, I let her go more easily, but it still was hard, and there were definitely still tears.  I was crazy busy Tuesday (5 meetings in the 7ish hours I was in the office), which made the time fly by.  I ran out of there as soon as I possibly could to pick up the babies.  Tuesday she did better - ate a little better and slept a little better too, but still only in the teacher's arms.  She still was cheerful at home, I think just from being excited to see her people again.

Wednesday was even a little better, fewer tears for me, and Dakota was okay.  She ate two full bottles in the morning, and took a long nap in her crib.  She fell asleep on her own around 3 pm, Kathy transferred her to the crib, where she fussed for a few minutes, flipped on to her stomach and then slept until I got there at 4:45.  So great for her.  She missed her afternoon bottle because she was sleeping so much, so I fed her as soon as we got home.  Luckily I'd made dinner Tuesday night so all I had to do was microwave.

Mean mugging in the courtyard before I dropped her off.

A picture from the preschool, proving she does actually have fun without me!

A little series of bathtime fun.  All it takes is a Lightning McQueen bath toy that squirts water out.

This face is exactly what it looks like: "oooooh!"

Trying to figure out where the water went

Got it!  But I can't actually catch it!

Thursday she ate three full four ounce bottles and took two naps in her crib!  So great.  Totally proves that babies adapt much faster than adults do!  I tried to leave earlier, but the whole problem is the pumping (or as Jayden says, my "pumpers"!).  To pump three times a day, to get somewhere between 9 and 12 ounces, means I have to pump at like 10, 1 and 4.  And if I pump at 4, that means I'm not leaving until 4:30 or so, which means I'm not getting to them until 4:45ish.  I've tried to push it a little earlier, and sometimes it works, but it is definitely hard.

Thursday was pajama day, so both kids wore their pajamas.  And all the teachers did too!  Seriously so adorable.
Also, when I do drop off, we have to park in the back parking lot, which overlooks the lower yard.  So when we get there in the morning, Jayden stands at the fence and yells down at his friends until I get Dakota out and am ready to walk him in.  It's only slightly obnoxious!

Pajama day mug shots.  I promise both kids were actually pretty happy at this time.

Pajama Day at Children's Village
I don't know all the kids' names, but this is Jayden's class.  The one girl with a pumpkin over her face is because her parents probably said no pictures on social media when they enrolled her.

Jayden wanted to hold his sister.  Seriously how cute are these two?!??

Dakota really loves Jasmine.  She was petting her and then tipped over and fell face first into her.  Kind of awesome.

And today, I still cried a little, but not much.  And when we walked in to the classroom, she saw some toys and actually kicked her legs, cooed and got all excited.  It was nice.  And made me feel that much better.  I was technically on flex today, but wanted to go in for the morning to get a few things done.  So I picked Dakota up a little after noon.  I was going to get Jayden too, but he wanted to stay to be able to play in the lower yard and with Grayson.  I should have known!

She's rolling all over the place - heading towards rolling onto her stomach in the next few weeks, I'm guessing.
Also, on one of the days that I picked Dakota up - it has already escaped me which day it was - she was on the floor and roller over like she is doing in the picture when she heard my voice.  It's the little things that keep me going.

I'm still not exactly sure how she did it, but she managed to pick up the pacifier on her own and get it in her mouth.  It was amazing.  So maybe she will have a version of "baba" for herself.  But Jayden has already declared she needs to have a different name for her lovey.  I'm sure we'll come up with something.

Just some cuteness from the day.

And I'm only a little obsessed with her weight.  Tonight I weighed her and I came up with somewhere between 12 pounds 4 ounces and 12 pounds 8 ounces.  Which would be incredible.  So I'm hoping that the weight is really accurate.  I'll keep checking weekly-ish, and I'll know for sure in December at our next appointment.  Carmen offered a few of his pounds, but I had to explain she really only needs like a pound, so it won't do him or me much good to give up one of ours.

Tomorrow we have swim class as usual, and then are planning to go to a festival at the church next door, and then head down to meet my friend Lili, her husband Josh and their kids for dinner and then trick-or-treating.  Apparently it's quite crazy where we're going, so it should be an adventure.  With the time change Saturday night/Sunday morning, Sunday could end up being a very interesting day.  We're going to summon all of the patience that we have and hope for the best!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Halloween!  Stay safe, and mail Carmen all the peanut butter cups you can find!  (TOTALLY KIDDING - PLEASE DO NOT MAIL US ANY CANDY!  WE HAVE PLENTY!  (except Gigi, Jayden loves the Smarties you sent!))

Where to start?

I'm a hot mess.  Every time I went to preschool this past week I got a lump in my throat.  I am having a much more difficult time leaving Dakota than I did with Jayden - I think mostly because I know how hard it is going to be, whereas with Jayden I was blissfully ignorant.

I think it makes it more difficult because I've had her at work with me for the past couple of weeks and so have had extra time with her.

My view of Dakota for part of my day at work - asleep on my chest in the baby carrier.

More pictures of her discovering her feet.  I absolutely adore watching her grab her feet.  She has been trying to get to her feet for a while, and she finally figured out to roll on to her side to grab her feet.

Hanging out in my co-worker's lap during our staff retreat on Friday.

And success!  She got her foot in her mouth.  She was so proud of herself.  And she likes it even better when I take her socks off.  Clearly barefoot toes taste way better than socks. 

It also makes me cry over just about everything else.  I cried at Friday's staff retreat, talking about how supportive my co-workers are, and when one of my co-workers spoke about how inspired she was about the work that we do and the impact we have on our clients lives.  And as I am writing this, we are watching Law and Order SVU, and I cried when the DA (on the show) decided to charge a 15-year-old boy as an adult for accidentally pushing a transgender child off of a bridge.  The mom broke down, and I did too.  So yeah.  I'm a mess.  I don't know if I'll even be able to work this week, really.  I'll try, but I feel pretty confident I'll be distracted all day.

This past week has been okay - not great, but okay.  There have been great moments, good moments and not-so-great moments.  Carmen was out of town for the beginning of the week, so it was just me and the kids.  There were difficult moments certainly, but I am finding my way through this madness of being a mom of two and finding ways to turn difficult situations into positive ones.

I decided to go for it and take the kids to the Santa Ana Zoo's halloween celebration on Sunday night.  My friend Lili was going with her family and a few of Ollie's friends, so we decided to tag along.  It made for a rather late night, but we had a good time, and it was good for all of us to be out of the house for the evening.

Our Halloween costume - mama and baby koalas!  (she's in my pouch - get it?!??)

Jayden and Ollie on the train.  Ollie is 5-1/2 and is about the same size as Jayden. And they are SO cute together.
Ollie's other friend, Aaron, who is also five, was being rather aggressive towards Jayden.  Aaron would tell Jayden that he couldn't do things, or that Aaron and Ollie were on one side and Jayden couldn't be part of their group, or something similar.  Luckily Jayden didn't really get just how mean Aaron was being.  But Ollie was awesome.  When Aaron would say something like that, Ollie would say "hey!  don't say that.  Jayden is my friend and he CAN be part of the group" or something similar.  I was very impressed.  

And then they had ice cream sundaes and bonded over those.  These boys are so cute.

Halloween is not Jayden's favorite holiday.  I feel bad, because it's not my favorite holiday and I feel like I've influenced him because I don't get so excited about Halloween.  I'm trying to be better about it.  In any case, Jayden, at the last minute, decided he wanted to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.  Before anyone gets any ideas, he has not seen the movie and doesn't really know the story.  He only knows that there are four turtles, they wear different colored masks, and that there's a theme song ("Turtle Power!!!").  So I went online and ordered a costume, but of course it didn't arrive until the day after we went to the zoo.  Oh well.  Jayden was super excited to try it on, but hasn't wanted to wear it since.  I may have wasted my money, so thank goodness I got it cheap!  Next year I'm going to try to make a costume out of clothes, if Jayden can decide early enough what he wants to be.  Jayden is so much better at "dressing up" when he can wear "everyday" clothes with a twist.

Trying on the costume without the mask.  Such a cute smile.

And the full getup!  He actually liked the mask, but as I suspected, couldn't really see out of it so didn't wear it all that long.

Dakota continues to be mesmerized by her big brother and he continues to adore her, in his own way ("Mommy, Dakota just really really loves me!").  He doesn't understand personal space.  But he can almost always calm her down, make her smile, giggle or squeal.

Of course, just before I took the video above, she was giggling and smiling, but as soon as I hit record she just stared.  But you can see the hint of a smile partway through, and you can definitely see the eyes focused on her big brother.

Dakota is developing quickly.  She can sort of sit up, relying on her hands.  She quickly becomes a pancake (or a quesadilla or something - basically her torso falls over forward onto her legs - oh to be that flexible!), or falls over sideways, but she can sort of be supported.  And she grabs everything.  She especially likes things her brother is holding.  Which is difficult for Jayden, since he feels like she is taking his things.  I try to explain she can touch things, but that they won't become hers, I promise.  Sometimes he believes me and sometimes not.

She also can spend quite a bit more time on her tummy, can push herself up onto her arms and look around and she can reach her arms in front of her to grab at objects.  And sometimes she figures out to roll over too.  It's pretty awesome.  She is still pretty light, but she is really enjoying the rice cereal, so I'm hoping that will help her pack on the pounds in a healthy manner.  I know I'm imagining things, or wishfully thinking things, but I swear she's heavier already.  When I weigh her (by weighing me holding her and then weighing me by myself - not my favorite method but it's all I have at home), it seems like she is now over 12 pounds, which is really positive.  If she can gain a few ounces a month, so that she's close to 15 pounds by her six month appointment, I think she'll be on the right track.  But I also think she's just bound to be long and skinny, like her brother, just not as long, so a little bit more skinny!

Oh, and today.  We had swim class.  Then I went to a baby shower for one of my friends from law school while Carmen stayed home with the kids.  After I got home and Jayden woke up from his nap, we went to a "pumpkin patch."  I put that in quotes because there were more bounce houses than pumpkins, I think.  Luckily that's Jayden's idea of a pumpkin patch, so it worked out well!

Coming off one of the giant slides.  These slides were actually too big for Jayden; they were a little too high and too fast.  He got a couple rubber burns, so we did two and then decided regular bouncing was a lot more fun than the giant slides.  

Coming soon: the GIANT pumpkin that Jayden picked out today.  So awesome.

Doing my "okayest"

At least most of the time.  Some of the time I'm superwoman and other times I'm so much less.  But if you add it all up and average it out, I'm working on my "okayest."

I've mentioned this to a couple people, but I am currently working two full time jobs, at the same time: mothering and my actual lawyer job.  I am doing neither well, but both adequately.  Everyone tells me what a good baby Dakota is, and how awesome it is to have her at the office.  Which is awesome.  But the reason she's so amazing is that I work my booty off to keep her amazing.  Sometimes she sleeps in her pack-n-play, but most of the time she sleeps in the baby carrier on me.  I'm going to need a year of chiropractor appointments once I'm all done with this.  So I'm all tough, thinking I'm doing this amazing thing.  And then I talk to my co-worker who had her second son on Monday, and was back teaching (she was a professor at a local university before she went to law school) that Friday.  And for the first year of his life, she worked with him in tow.  And then I talk to a mom at Jayden's school, and she worked for the first year or so with her son, including going in to work about five days after he was born (born on Friday, in the office on Wednesday).  These people are crazy!  So.  I have one more week left of bringing Dakota to work.  Daycare was supposed to start this Monday, but it turns out they don't have space for her until next Monday.  I am not as strong as my friends, apparently, so I am going to try to actually work some half days this week to make it more bearable for me.

On Wednesday I cracked.  I tried so hard all week, and I get home and I have to work more after the kids are in bed.  On Wednesday I was putting Dakota to sleep and she just wouldn't go down.  I tried everything.  I finally gave up and just started sobbing.  Carmen finally took the baby, which made her cry more, but he eventually got her to sleep.  I was just overwhelmed and probably making it worse for myself, but sometimes once you're in the thick of it you just can't get yourself out of it.  And I think the stress had been building and I just let it out all at once.

However, it is not all bad.  I DO get to spend my days with my baby girl, and, for the most part, she is just lovely and cute.  On Thursday, Dakota had her four month check up and she has been battling a cold, so I just stayed home with her all day.  We spent five minutes just looking at each other cracking up.  I will capture one of these giggle fests for you guys, because there's really nothing better. And the best part is that she is literally laughing at laughing.  I don't make faces, sing, do anything.  I just look at her and laugh and she laughs back.  She did it with Carmen for the first time on Friday and it pretty much killed him.  He talked about it for the next two hours pretty much.

Some morning cuteness.

We even got some tummy time in at the office - pretty great!  She didn't want to roll, but she's getting quite good at picking her head up and looking around.
Today she rolled over - I'd say every other day or every third day she decides to roll over.  The rest of the time she hangs out for a bit and then ends up face down....

Like in this pictures.
Giving up on tummy time.
By the way, we're so lucky to have friends who are willing to splurge on baby clothes.  This outfit is by Splendid, which is one of my all-time favorite brands of clothing, for me and for Dakota.  It's expensive and I can't bear to spend that much money on baby clothes - BUT it's so soft and lovely it makes it so tempting to splurge!
As my compromise, one of my FAVORITE baby clothing brands is a company called Kickee Pants.  Turns out they were founded (and are still headquartered) on Bainbridge.  Such a small world.  They're having a sample sale in a few weeks, and I've already told my mom I'll send her a shopping list with the items and sizes I'm looking for so she can go to town.  :)  If anyone else out there is a Kickee Pants fan, tell me and we'll see what we can find for you.  And they DO have adult clothes, just FYI.  

 So.  Thursday was Dakota's four month check-up.  We knew she was light, but she was really light.  She isn't even 12 pounds - she weighed in at 11 pounds 14-1/2 ounces.  That's in the 8th percentile.  To be fair, her weight has always been low; 16th at two weeks, 29th at one month, 19th at two months and now the 8th.  But the doctor decided she didn't like her weight being so low and decided I wasn't producing enough milk.  So right off the bat she told me to start supplementing with formula.  I'd had a rough week, and tears immediately came to my eyes.  She asked me how much I pumped, I told her about four ounces, and she said the baby should be getting six, so I need to supplement two ounces each feeding.  I find this to be ridiculous, so I am refusing.  But I am going to get support.  I called a lactation consultant and am meeting with her on Monday.  Talking to her on the phone made me feel so much better already.  She totally legitimized my feelings and my intuition.  Dakota doesn't seem hungry, and I had similar problems with Jayden; he'd eat 6-7 ounces with each bottle, but when I pumped I could only get 3-4 ounces.  So basically I hate pumping, and can't figure it out.  I'm going to take my pump on Monday to see if she can help me with that too.  Dakota isn't in danger of getting to the point of "failure to thrive," but I do want to make sure that I'm not doing her any harm.

What I DID agree to do was to start Dakota on solids.
I had completely forgotten, but we apparently started Jayden on solids at four months also, because his weight percentile dropped significantly at four months (he went from 80th to 60th from his two month to his four month appointment).  Jayden's pediatrician did NOT suggest formula, but did suggest we start solids, since it takes quite a few weeks to get them actually eating anything.
So, today Dakota had her first solids.  She "ate" about 10 spoonfuls of rice cereal mixed with breastmilk.  I told Jayden what we were going to do and how we were going to make it, and he said "but you need to pump to get your milk.  I'll go get your pumpers."  He's so cute.  I explained I already had milk in the fridge that I had pumped in the middle of the night, so we should be okay.  But he helped feed Dakota too, and was really cute about it.  He was so excited that she was using spoons.
She spent most of her time spitting the food back out.  But that's to be expected.  It's going to be a messy process, but hopefully it will make a difference.  

As my co-worker and I were discussing, so much of raising a baby is on the mama.  I mean, even the doctor, when finding a solution to Dakota's weight problem, immediately identified a problem with ME.  I'm not necessarily saying she's wrong.  But that's the thing with breastfeeding - whatever problems occur, it's between the mama and the baby.  And no matter what, nobody else can really take responsibility.  And then for working mamas, who have to pump, cart milk back and forth, nurse in the morning, when we get home and before bedtime, and have no control during the day, it's a challenge.  There's just so much to worry about, manage, coordinate, etc.  And it feels as if the odds are stacked against us.  My co-workers and I are lucky that our jobs are flexible enough that we can arrange our schedules to be able to pump 2-3 times a day, AND that we have offices to ourselves.  Not everyone is that lucky, despite what California law says.  This is another area where we have to do whatever we can to feel we're doing our best, but also understand that our "okayest" is enough.  Pumping, or lack thereof, is why I had to start supplementing Jayden at seven months, why my co-worker had to start supplementing her daughter at six months, and why a mom I met Friday is quitting breastfeeding at seven months now that she's back at work.  I could go on, but I won't.  We all make choices about working, about breastfeeding and about raising our children in general.  And we have to figure out how to move forward with those choices and be the bestest (or okayest) moms we can be.

So, back to regularly scheduled programming: on Friday, Jayden's school had a fall festival.  It was really cute.  They decorated their pumpkins from the pumpkin patch, they made bracelets, they listened to stories, they played with bean bags, they painted faces and they ate their "Friendship Soup" that the kids had helped make.

Decorating pumpkins with Grayson.  The minute Grayson walked in with his parents, Jayden jumped up and down and spent the next twenty minutes doing everything Grayson did, or asking Grayson to do everything he did.  They are so adorable.  Grayson is almost literally half Jayden's size.
Grayson's parents, by the way, are amazing.  They have Grayson, and about two months ago they decided to open their home up to foster kids, and now have FIVE kids in their home.  They took in a sibling group of four kids.  The foster kids have visitation six days a week, because the parents can't visit together. One of the kids is in Room 5, so he must be about 5 or so.  And Grayson's parents feel pretty sure this isn't their first encounter with the child welfare system.  It's so sad.  But I just can't get over the generosity of Grayson's parents.  They don't know the foster kids, they just decided to do this to be good people and to provide a loving, safe home for these kids.  It's overwhelming to me.  

Making a bead bracelet.  

Enjoying his "Friendship soup."  Friendship soup is vegetable soup.  It wasn't bad - a little bland, but all the kids had to eat it, so that makes sense.

Pictures of the kids cutting up the  veggies for the soup.  Jayden is the second from the bottom on the left.  He said he cut onions, but it looks to me like he's cutting squash in the picture.

Story time (A "Pete the Cat" book) with Teacher Sally.  

Jayden let me paint his face!  He wanted a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and one of the teachers had the brilliant suggestion to paint a mask on Jayden so that HE could be a TMNT.  So smart, because there was no way I was painting a turtle on Jayden's face.

Dakota in the middle of her giggle fest with Daddy.

Throwing the bean bags with his friends.

Because I was the best mom ever on Friday, I let Jayden paint my face too, after I painted his face.  He painted the ocean on one side, with blue and green, and on the other side, the one you can see, is Dakota and Jayden.  Dakota was the green one and Jayden was the red.  Luckily the paint washed off incredibly easily.

And today was a normal Saturday.  Because of the fall festival, the face painting and his t-shirt, Jayden has now decided he wants to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for Halloween.  Hopefully he still wants to be one Monday, when his costume arrives.  I figure if he doesn't wear the mask and I just paint the mask on his face, he'll be okay.  We went to a costume store (the "ninja store" Jayden called it) to look at the costumes in person so that Jayden could be sure that's what he wanted.  And so far, so good.

We also ran some errands at the mall, and we convinced Jayden to come by promising a carousel ride.  Jayden, Dakota and I rode the carousel while Daddy shopped.  One of Daddy's favorite designers, John Varvatos, was actually in the Varvatos store at the mall today.  Of course Carmen was too chicken to meet John and take a picture with him, but he did take advantage of the sale and got some new clothes.  :)

Jayden checking himself out in the mirror in the Varvatos store.  He loves watching himself in the mirror.  It's pretty awesome.

On the carousel with the kiddos.
I am the only one looking at the camera!

Carmen left on a red-eye tonight for Detroit and then North Carolina.  He'll be back Tuesday morning, so it's a really quick trip.  Tomorrow will be challenging, but we have soccer and we may go to a Halloween event, so we'll keep ourselves busy, as always.  And Monday I have work and the lactation consultant, and Tuesday I have work and a check-up to make sure Dakota's lungs are clearing up from her cold.  So I imagine the days will go by quickly.

Jayden is awesome.  On the way to the mall I asked Jayden about an earthquake drill that his school had on Thursday.  I had been forgetting to ask him, so I asked if they had a drill.  And Jayden launched into this story about emergencies, the office, the lady who works there (Stephanie, I reminded him), and how there are two tables in the first floor of his classroom and Jackson and Emma were with him, but then Jackson G. wasn't there that day.  And it turned into a story that Carmen and I could barely follow, but were cracking up listening to.  It clearly made sense to Jayden, and followed some kind of logical progression.  But Carmen and I really had no idea what that logical progression was.  THAT is why Jayden is awesome.  He loves telling stories, dancing and generally having fun.  So many of the kids at preschool are excited to see him when he gets there.  One little girl, whenever her mom asks her about school, talks about Jayden.  Another little girl tells her parents she plays with Jayden all the time (Jayden, on the other hand, has not mentioned playing with that little girl...!)  And he plays with pretty much all of the little boys - Dez, James, Vincent, Gavin, Jackson (both of them, apparently) and some others whom I cannot remember.  It's a little unclear from what he says, but I think he makes a pretty good impression on his classmates, which makes me such a proud mommy.  The way I see it, it means he's a good kid, is kind to everyone, is fun to play with and is easygoing enough to play with a wide variety of people.  Basically my goal for my kids!

And on that positive note, I'm going to try to get some sleep before I wake up to pump/soothe a bad dream/nurse a baby to sleep.  I'm hoping only the former, but you never know, it might be all three.  Happy Saturday night!