And he's TWO.

I just can't even believe it.  I have very few words, except: we are so lucky to have such a wonderful little boy as our son.  I will take some credit for it, and I'll give a little bit to Carmen.  But I credit luck a whole lot too.  He is sweet, funny, charming, moody, serious, smart, too big, so small, and it goes on and on.

I now finally understand the people that said they want their kids to remain this size forever:

Seriously? I could do this all day every day right now.  I don't have to get out of bed and I get to hang out with my kid all day?!???  I'll take it.  Except those days when he drives me crazy.  Then I want to be at work.  Or at the spa.  Yeah, let's pick the spa.

And today he looked like this:

No mama, I will not smile for you.  "Play tracks."  (he got an airport/car track thingy for Mama and Daddy for his birthday and we've spent pretty much every waking moment that we're home playing with it.)

The most serious birthday boy ever.

I baked cupcakes last night to take to daycare.  Juju said she was giving the cupcakes out around 3 pm, so Carmen and I went to daycare around 3 and sang to Jayden and watched them eat cupcakes.  The boy on the left and the girl on the right are the kids I consider to be Jayden's older siblings.  They are such amazing kids and are so wonderful with the little kids at the daycare.
Instead of trying to blow out the candle Jayden tried to grab it.  Nearly caused Juju to have a heart attack.  I was laughing.  Oh well.  He didn't  grab it, he didn't get burned.

Now THIS is how you eat a cupcake.
My dad's comment was "did he eat the candles?!?"
In reality, he ate all the stars (sprinkles) off the top.  Then licked most of the frosting.  And then said "Mama, hewp" and made me feed him bites of cupcake.  Whatever, it's his birthday.

The best thing is that we all came home right afterwards, so we were all home by about 4 pm.  We opened the rest of the presents, sort of.  Anytime it got "hawd," Jayden said "Mama, do it."  Great.  We're raising a kid who gives up the minute things get hard.  Awesome.  That's the #1 thing to fix before he turns three.  ;)

We got to hang out together, checking out presents, talking on the phone to the grandmas and the auntie and then eating dinner together.  Because he is the most spoiled child ever (see the picture below for extra proof), he got to have a second cupcake.  But this time he blew it out by himself.  It's amazing how much performance anxiety he has.  He seriously can be an entirely different kid when it's just the three of us versus when there's anyone else around.

Cupcakes!  Totally novice decorating skills, but they tasted so sugary and good!

The haul.  And this doesn't even include the water/sand play table.  I may re-wrap the legos and give them to him at Christmas.  He was honestly overwhelmed tonight and I so badly do not want him to be that kid that has everything and expects everything.  It's such a fine line - I want him to understand that you don't just always get what you want and you have to work for the things that you do have.  I do realize he's two.  But I think it's an important lesson to instill in kids early.  So I have to figure out how to give him cool stuff, but in moderation, and how also to encourage him to use his imagination, to make a car track out of cardboard boxes (thanks Gamma!) or to turn blocks into a train (which he has also done).  I'm sure I'm over thinking it.  I usually am.  But it's something that's always going to be important for me.

It was a nice day.  I'm exhausted, of course, but that's probably from staying up late last night preparing for today and preparing for our trip tomorrow.  

So tomorrow we get on a plane to fly to San Francisco.  Yes, we're flying on Friday the 13th.  I'm not happy about it but we had no other choice.  One of my co-workers told me that growing up in Mexico it was Tuesday the 13th that was unlucky, not Friday the 13th.  So tomorrow we will be Mexican.  If only in my head so I don't become totally crazy and paranoid.  :)

Not too much to report for the past few days.  Jayden and I spent a long time at the park Sunday morning while Carmen watched football (Jayden gets way too involved in TV so I try to keep him away from it when possible - he gets to watch a little at Juju's house, about 30 minutes, and a little at home sometimes, also about 30 minutes).  I don't want him in front of it for an hour a day - it's just not healthy.  So I am going to come up with field trips for however many Sundays we're home during football season.  We'll probably go to the zoo a couple times, maybe to the Discovery Science Center, I'm sure we'll be back to the park, etc.  Every day this week, in fact, Jayden gets in the car when I pick him up he looks at me and say "pawk?"  And I have to tell him, no, we have to go home and see Jazzy. And then he's fine because he does love his doggie.  And actually calls her "doggie" half the time.  

Here are some park pictures:

Swide!

Climbing up the ladder all by himself.  He's such a big boy!  Except for when he gets to the top and I have to help him get his hands and feet on the play area.

Hanging from the bar above the slide.  A three year old boy was there playing on the slide with us and he and Jayden kept trying to copy each other.  It was hilarious.

Here's to us surviving two years.  And to making it many many more.  As my friend wrote today, when the kids are going nuclear on her and she's home alone, "the next departing flight is in seventeen years!"  So yeah, we've got something to look forward to.  And seventeen years may be optimistic, depending on the path he takes!

I think pigs flew

At least last night.  After a rough couple of nights where I spent an hour or so sleeping-ish on the floor either inside or outside Jayden's room, last night, a Friday night, he slept from 8 pm to 7:20 am.  Straight.  Neither of us can remember the last time he slept past 6:30 am on a weekend morning.  Because I was so exhausted, I had gone to bed early and I got about 9 straight hours of sleep.  So amazing.

Last night we went out to dinner, just to give me a break and to do something different.  Jayden was really good, until I tried to put his leftover food into a carryout container.  He gets so mad when I move his food, even if it's food he's not eating.  But he recovered quickly and even smiled for the camera!

I titled this "a smile and a 'fro."  I do know he needs a haircut, but he's not terribly cooperative.  So for now we're just dealing with it.
Also, it's clear his favorite color is orange.  It's the only color he correctly identifies every single time and when he's given the opportunity to pick between two shirts, orange always wins.  So I think I'm going to make him an orange halloween costume.  This all depends on if I have a moment to breathe in the next month with our three or four out-of-town trips and our one out-of-town visitor.  I can't be the ultimate "pinterest" mom who does all these creative things for his birthday (or even actually throws him a birthday party at all) or whatever else, but I will try to make an effort to make his halloween costumes.  I may end up needing to buy a sewing machine, we'll see what his demands are as he gets older.

Swimming this morning was another success - he's not making the right movements, but he's making lots of them with his arms and legs.  One of these days I promise I'll stay out of the pool so I can take pictures/video.  But for now it's too fun to get into the pool with him.

The rest of the day was low-key.  Carmen and Jayden spent a lot of time together while I got a pedicure, got lunch and relaxed a little.

Jayden is instructing Daddy to lay "his" chair down all the way, then do the same with Carmen's chair, so that they can lay side by side in the chairs.  He usually has me do this when I'm out there, but I was inside at the moment, so it was good to see him doing it with Daddy.

The funniest thing was that for about an hour this morning Jayden called Carmen by his proper name and not by "daddy."  I don't know where he got that from, but it only lasted an hour or so.  After that it was back to "daddy" again.

We ended up back in the pool at the end of the night, because of course once he sees the agua he can't stay away.  He wore himself out, which we're not complaining about.  It's not even 7:45 and he's upstairs in his bed, settling himself down to fall asleep.

There had to be a lot of instruction about where to splash - not aimed at Mama, not aimed at Daddy, not aimed at Jasmine.  The funniest thing is when we tell him something and he takes it to heart, he then tells us.  So earlier we had told him no splashing Jasmine because she doesn't like it and he was getting her really wet.  So today we get in the pool and he looks at me and says "no splash Jasmine" very seriously.  He's so funny.  And he's doing such a good job of putting sentences together.
After dinner we went back outside one last time and we were playing by the basketball hoop.  He was riding in his truck and he put one of the basketballs in the back.  I tried to put mine in and he said "no fit mommy.  too big."  And took the ball out of the back (it was not too big, by the way; it fit just fine).  Later Carmen tried to put the ball in the back again and he stopped the truck and started to get out to remove it.  I quickly explained the problem, Carmen took it out and Jayden was able to continue driving, thank goodness.  :)

 

Sick Day

So yesterday sometime between 3:30 and 5:00 pm Jayden came down with a serious fever - over 102 degrees!  He was burning up when I picked him up.  Not being able to tell what was wrong with him, I fed him applesauce and toast for dinner (which he gobbled up, a good sign).  We skipped the bath and gave him some baby tylenol and sent him to bed.  He was so done he actually fell asleep in my arms after rocking for about a minute, which he hasn't done in forever.  He woke up crying around 2 am, I gave him another dose of medicine because his fever was still 101 degrees and then he tossed and turned for an hour or so.  Then he woke up crying again around 5:30 am.  I brought him to our bed and he passed out until about 8:15 or so.

Enjoying the comforts of Mama and Daddy's bed, all to himself!

When he woke up at he was almost completely normal.  I checked him about 30 minutes after he woke up and his temperature was down to 99.2 degrees or something within the range of normal.  I still kept him home today, thinking he could use a low-key day at home instead of being around a bunch of kids with a bunch of germs and excitement.  He's been in a pretty good mood, which is a good sign too.

Telling me about his choo-choo.

The only problem is that he's been refusing to eat everything.  He barely ate breakfast, he struggled with snack and he flat out refused lunch.  At some point he'll get hungry - maybe dinner, maybe tomorrow, we'll see.

And of course all he wants to do is go outside to play, where, according to my phone, it is now 90 degrees.  Not really the best prescription for recovery, to send a recently feverish toddler into 90 degree and humid weather.  But he's trying - even cleaning off his shoes to go outside.

Yes, he's the kid who cleans off his shoes so that he can go outside.  When we were out there in our bare feet he kept "wipe off" his feet even though I explained they were just going to get dirty again.  Oh well.

I don't mind spending the day at home, but as usual, it will put me behind again tomorrow.  At least he's feeling better and I'm not worrying about whether I'm being irresponsible by not taking him to the doctor!

Self-portraits

Jayden loves pressing the button on the camera and then looking at the results ("I see it!").

Here's his most recent accomplishment:

I actually took one because he kept putting his hands over his ears.  Probably learned that from someone at daycare and I don't know why he was doing it to us.  But it was funny.  And he knew it.

Happy Labor Day!

Once again, we had a good weekend.  Lots and lots and lots of pool time, because it has been rather ridiculously hot - in the high 80s and low 90s, with humidity that lasts all day long.  We go for our walk/run at 7 am and the temperature has been 78 degrees and sticky.  We know the east coasters think we're ridiculous, but it's just too much.  We live out here for a reason!

Friday night we went to a friend's parents' house for dinner.  There were six kids between the ages of five months and four years and it was pretty fun to watch them run around and sort of play together, sort of play next to each other.  One of my favorite moments was when Jayden and the two other two year olds (including one who was born seven hours after Jayden in the same hospital!) grabbed chairs and moved them over to a platform, lined them up and created a choo-choo train or a bus or something else like that.  They all sat in a chair and did the "choo-choo" noises.  It was so awesome.  I am oh so sorry that I do not have a picture of that, but I could not get to my camera fast enough.  Someone else did take a picture but I don't know that I'll ever get a copy since I didn't know the people so well.

Swimming in the pool with Daddy.  It was hilarious; not a single mom got in the pool - it was all the dads and the kids.

Friday was our five year anniversary!  As I wrote to my dad, it feels like just yesterday, plus five years.  :)  We knew we weren't likely to get a babysitter during Labor Day weekend so we had gone out to a nice dinner when we were in NYC to celebrate.

Saturday was swim lessons as usual and then errands.  We went to Costco and out to lunch.  Jayden was so tired that he literally fell asleep sitting up in the shopping cart in Costco.  The lady at the checkout was cracking up.

His head kept tipping over and then he'd jerk back up, the way I sleep on airplanes.  I kept being worried that he was going to hit his head on the handle of the shopping cart.

We came home and went swimming again after Jayden's nap because it was honestly the only way to be outside.  Jayden helped Carmen sweep the pool deck, which turned into him sweeping the pool and whatever else he came into contact with.  What mattered is that it made Jayden smile, no matter how much extra work it made for the rest of us.

Smiles!

Sunday we had people over in the afternoon.  We invited probably twenty people, maybe more including all the kids, and only six people showed up.  Oh well.  It was still fun and a nice, relaxing afternoon.  I managed to take no pictures.  So here's what I have from Sunday.

Ready to rock the shades before the party.

And today we had another low-key day.  A couple errands, including shopping for Jayden's birthday with Jayden (so great that we can do that now - I don't know if it'll be possible next year - although my mom did it for years and always managed to sneak things in when we weren't paying attention).  We also ate at this amazing restaurant called Slater's 50/50.  It's a burger place where their signature burger is 50% beef and 50% bacon.  Today the special was the "roo," which is 50% kangaroo and 50% bacon.  Neither Carmen nor I could handle it.  But the traditional 50/50 was really great.  The only downside was as we were putting Jayden into the car, Carmen put his glasses on top of the car.  And then drove off.  And didn't realize it until we got home.  They were in a case, but he went back to the restaurant to look around and couldn't find them anywhere.  So he lost his glasses.  Luckily he has about eight pairs of glasses so it's not like he won't be able to see.  It was just a bummer for him.

On the "swide" at the mall.  We went down the slide about 25 times before we could go eat lunch.

Jayden is talking more and more, and really developing his personality and his sense of humor.  It's amazing and really so funny for us.  He makes us laugh as much or more than we make him laugh.  We were getting him dressed the other day and I asked him to do something - sit still, stand up, something - and he says "OH!  oh-KAY" as if he was 15 years old and I had just asked him to take out the trash.  Hilarious.  He also knows when he's being funny and will look at us sideways out of the corner of his eyes to see if we're catching on.  Love.

We've been giving him medicine at night before bedtime because I really think he's getting molars in.  And of course he adores medicine, so he thinks it's a treat when he gets medicine.  In the beginning I would feed it to him and I'd pull his head back to get the last of the medicine in his mouth.  So when he started drinking it on his own, to pull his head back he did the same thing I do!

Gamma, he loves his robot and space pajamas, by the way.  They're not as soft as the ones I buy for him, but they zip up which he thinks is pretty cool.

And one last picture that he'll someday hate me for sharing:

Some of you may know right away what he's doing here.  But for those of you that don't, he was in this position for about five minutes and afterwards we went immediately upstairs to the changing table.  And it was stinky.  But it took him a whole lot of effort, poor kid.

We've enjoyed our long weekend and are not really looking forward to going back to work.  But at least it's four days.  We cannot believe our baby will be two in nine days!