Just this series of photos

Thanks Aunt Kelly for the AWESOME slippers.  He's actually sleeping in them right now he likes them so much.  I have a feeling we're going to have to make a judgment call on whether or not he can wear them to his doctor appointment tomorrow.

And also, the weather here has been insane.  Last night it was 92 degrees at 10 pm.  And it was definitely over 100 yesterday.  Today it "cooled down" to a high of about 95.  It's just HOT.  But it makes for some amazing sky pictures:

Survival - and celebrations!

Wow.  So I (we) made it through the week.  There were days (particularly last Monday, which wasn't great), that I wasn't sure we were all going to make it.  But we did.  I was productive and as efficient as I could be.  And I spent more money than I should, but those extra dollars made my overall life easier, so I went with it.  I could sleep for days.  But instead it's Sunday night, and there will be no sleeping for days!

Jayden and I actually had a pretty good week last week.  The biggest bummer was the 5:30 am wakeup on Monday morning (I actually was going to wake up that early anyway to get a run in, but Jayden beat me to the punch because Carmen woke him up on his way to catch his airplane).  So Monday was hard.  But things actually did get (mostly) better from there.  Work is still a crapshoot, but Jayden is great.  We get along fine; I tried really hard to give him some time - although I swear I felt like I was rushing him everywhere during the week, which really sucked.  Of course I would rather sit down and play cars for 20 minutes - even 3 minutes! - but that just couldn't be done when I was trying to be full-time mom and full-time lawyer doing 1-1/2 jobs all. by. myself.

Wednesday night I wrapped all of his presents - of course we bought too much, but they were varied enough that I think they'll all end up being enjoyed.

I planned out everything I needed to do to get ready for Saturday - I had Friday afternoon off, so I had my errands for the afternoon, then picked Jayden up early since it was his actual birthday and went home so we could open presents.  It took Carmen longer than he planned to get home, so we really only got to open one or two presents before dinner.  We went to Lazy Dog Cafe for dinner, which is a typical American restaurant, but with a dog theme.  The food is pretty good and it's a cute atmosphere.  But it was Friday night and we were later than we planned, so we had to wait quite a while for a table.  Which made everything else later.  Jayden was still great, but it was clear he was starting to fade.  And it turns out they don't have cake for birthdays!  They brought out a scoop of ice cream with a candle, which I actually think was better since Jayden only thinks he's a huge fan of cake but doesn't actually enjoy eating it all that much.

The first time I tried to take a picture of him in his birthday shirt.
"Mom, did you take a picture of my shoes?  why?"

A little smile.  He demanded to wear his pajama pants all day long.  Whatever makes the birthday boy happy!

The big haul.  We seriously only "opened" two or three presents.  And only one of those was wrapped.  The other things he grabbed were things that weren't wrapped at all.

Ice kweam!

Saturday morning started off earlier than Carmen and I expected, but not really unreasonably early.  And it turns out, it's a good thing it wasn't later.  We went for a longer walk, which maybe I shouldn't have done either, but we made it eventually.  We ran to the grocery store to pick up the food I ordered, ice, and a few other last minute items.  And of course the store didn't have my order.  Luckily they were able to make it for me quickly, but it threw off my plan!  Oh well.  The thing is, Jayden is three and wouldn't know whether I forgot something or didn't put something out, so I decided it would all be fine.

We did manage to open the rest of the presents Saturday morning.  This is an airplane that Auntie Ellen gave him that he could take apart and put back together with his drill.  So awesome!  Not only did he love it, but many of the parents at the party loved it too.

We went to swim lessons as usual, where Jayden was unusually talkative to Ms. Stacy, including telling her it was his birthday and how old he was.  He passed out on the way home, slept for a bit while Carmen and I madly ran around finishing up last minute items (icing cupcakes, putting tables together, putting ice and drinks in coolers/buckets, etc.).

And then it was party time!  And I completely forgot to take pictures - except one:

Eating cupcakes!  They were too full to eat more dinner, but were not too full for cupcakes.  Funny how that works.
The girl on the left is Glory, she's about 2-1/2 and is the daughter of the woman who has done my hair for the past 7 years who just recently told me she's not coming back to work anymore.  So sad!  But it was so great that she was able to come to the party - her family is lovely.  Ollie is the one in the orange shirt.  Jayden spent the first hour of the party asking when Ollie was going to be there.

The party was a lot of fun.  A lot of Jayden's daycare friends came, which was great.  Juju came, and Katrina came too.  And Carmen's friend Alex, my friend Lili and her family (Ollie and Josh) and Carmen's friend Mark and his son Emmett.  I was expecting 30 people and I think it ended up being more like 25, but it was great.  It has been ridiculously hot here, and it was ridiculously hot yesterday, probably close to 100.  Having the party at 3 pm definitely helped, but people were still sweating everywhere.  Lots of people swam, nobody was afraid of dogs, the kids all got along, everyone seemed to really have fun.  And most importantly, Jayden was loving it  And I didn't feel crazy stressed.  The cupcake frosting started to melt off the cupcakes inside the air conditioned house - that's how hot it was.  That stressed me out for a minute, but I rearranged the fridge by throwing yogurts in any open space and fit the giant cupcake bins in the fridge, thank goodness.  Everyone left by 8:30 or 9:00 pm - I put Jayden to bed around 8:30 - and I cleaned up for a bit and then couldn't keep my eyes open past 10 pm.

Today we thought (again) we might get a later wake up, but no such luck.  Unless 6:40 is "sleeping in" to anyone.  We got up and came straight downstairs to the race track.  Which, by the way, is the coolest thing ever.  If you have a toddler, you should get this - girls, boys, two year olds, four year olds, they all love it:

It really is so fun.  All the grown ups that play with it love it too!

We had soccer class today, or "baseball" as Jayden calls it.  Alex spent the night at our house and was going to relax on the couch while we were gone, but Jayden requested he come to soccer with him, and ran over in the middle of class and gave him a giant hug.  It was adorable.

Agility training - obstacle course!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAL!

He passed out on the way home again, slept for a while and then woke up and had lunch.  He and I watched an episode of Little Einsteins, talked to Auntie for a bit, played bat and ball, fell all over each other upstairs and finally went swimming.  It was a fun day, but tiring, as always.

Since I took no pictures yesterday, I took a few today of what was left of the party to make up for it.

First, we reenacted blowing out the candle.  He did have a "3" candle yesterday, but this is close enough.  Plus I have extra cupcakes so people have to eat them!

Blowing out the candle!  He never lets us finish the song - he always blows it out as we're about to say "happy birthday dear jayden..."

I asked Jayden if he would take a picture of the poster.  So he grabbed my phone and tried to take a picture.  I meant for him to be in the picture, but he did not see it that way, so we figured it was worth letting him try.  His second try was a picture of the chair directly to his right.  I have no idea how he thought he was taking a picture of us.

Daddy and Jayden next to the giant Dusty poster.  "Cheese!"

The banner that I ordered from Etsy.  Etsy is full of people who have creative ideas like I do, but who actually have the talent and take the time to make them come to life.  I love Etsy.

Some dot, stamp and roller ink drawings.  Thanks Gramma and Auntie (and Mama and Daddy)!

Since we'd had such a wild weekend, tonight was a night to disinfect him in the bathtub.  Washing hair is better now because we can make a "mohawk" with the shampoo:

He says "cheese" a lot, he just doesn't smile at the same time.  We need to start making him say "pasta with the stuff inside" or something equally appealing to him.  But it's a pretty good shot of the mohawk!

And now it's about to be Monday.  I luckily took the day off work, but because my life is crazy, I'm one of the speakers at a training tomorrow night and I've got a bunch of stuff to do in the afternoon.  We'll see if I get it all done.  I almost never do because I always think something will take 20 minutes and it takes 40.  Or, like tomorrow, I'll have to stop at the bank and the gas station and the grocery store, etc.  It'll all work out.  That's my motto these days.  It'll all work out.  Because it has to.

It was a great weekend.  Explaining to Jayden that he has to wait another year for his next birthday is going to be brutal.  We were talking about it tonight and we still have 7 more months until Carmen's birthday, and he's the next birthday in our little family.  Hopefully the bunch of new toys and books (and the leftover cupcakes) will keep him occupied long enough that he'll slowly forget...we'll see.

My favoritest thing EVER

Somehow I neglected to upload this video from my cousin's wedding.  You have to make this as large as you can on the screen and turn the volume up.  And then wait for it.  The end is by far the best.  It's just priceless.  I could watch this over and over and over again.

Enjoy!

Quick update

So today was Monday.  Or so I was told.  I could've sworn it was at least Thursday, if not Friday.  First, Jayden thought it would be fun if he woke up when Carmen left the house, which was 5:35 am.  I convinced him to lay down until about 6:30, and I think he went back to sleep sort of, but not real sleep.  And me neither.  So we were both a little tired today.  Then, we were running out of the house so I could get 14 minutes of work done before my first of four meetings today.  I almost made it.  At 10 am I texted my sister that I was ready for the weekend.  At 11 am I had a minor breakdown and cried in my office.  By 2:30 pm I was feeling better.  I spent 5:00-7:30 reading books (thanks frizzle - we read Pete the Cat and Duck on a Bike 2372 times this evening!) and having fun with Jayden.  Despite the whining, that was clearly the best part of the day.  I just spent two hours reading about Veterans Benefits and appeals processes and reviewing an answer to a complaint for partition.  Love my life!  And soon it will be Tuesday, when I have a 9:00 am meeting, which is going to mean hustling out of the house tomorrow morning to get to my office by 8:45.  We'll see how this goes!

But before I go pass out, here are some pictures from the weekend:

On Saturday we had family pictures taken.  Here are a couple of sneaks that I took afterwards - without giving too much away!

Running up the path after pictures.

Smiling voluntarily, after we spent an hour doing some amazing things to convince him to smile, and after we had to run back down the path to the photographer's bench to take one last picture.  "But I wanna take mooorrrrrrre pick-shers!"  Yup, that's our kid.  Won't smile for the official hour of photos, but immediately afterwards? Super excited to smile and take pictures.  Argh!
But seriously.  How cute is this smile?!????

And Sunday was two things: it was the beginning of the NFL season, which results in the beginning of my life as a single mom on Sundays.  Awesome.  But, most importantly, we had Jayden's first soccer class.  I signed him up for these classes because I got a deal.  I wasn't sure how he would take to them, but he was suuuuper excited to go.  I think playing soccer on the beach with the big kids a couple weeks ago helped.  But he couldn't wait.  He kept asking why we weren't leaving for soccer yet.  He was slow to warm up (literally and figuratively) when we got there, but as soon as the coaches said "let's run," he was off.  And he never looked back.  He was at least an inch or two taller than any other kid in the three year old class.  And he was definitely the most athletic.  He's kind of a freak of nature in that sense.  It's going to be hard for other people not to put all kinds of expectations on him - and it'll be interesting to see what his actual interests are as he gets older.

Taking cone towers and putting them all over the soccer field.  Then they had the kids take the soccer ball and kick the ball at the cones to knock them over.  And then they had the kids run around and put the cones back upright using their feet.  Pretty cool way to develop all kinds of skills.

Racing after the ball, to go knock over some cones.  

Racing after double hoops.  The coach would roll the hoop or hoops and tell the kids to chase the cones and grab them.  The first one Jayden caught after maybe 15 yards - maybe 20 - and the coach said "oh, that was too easy for you!"  The second one Jayden made it a little farther, but still got both hoops.  Another one of those things that I never would have thought he was coordinated enough to do, but what do I know?!?  

So, overall, soccer was a huge success.  He pretty much ran for 45 minutes, and then didn't want to leave and ran for another 5 minutes after class was over.  He was dripping sweat, and was telling us how he got his "exercises" in and he was "allllll sweaty!"  After we left, Jayden kept asking what the soccer field was doing after we left, and why we weren't playing more soccer.  It was awesome.  He has no concept of time.  When I asked him today when his birthday was (after telling him 10 minutes earlier his birthday was on Friday), he told me it was in three months!  I said "sort of.  or four days.  either way."  He didn't seem particularly impressed.  I think he'll understand "tomorrow" when we get to Thursday.

I WANNNNNNN DAAADDDDDDDYYYYYYYYY!

This is what I was greeted with when I picked him up from Juju's today.  Just as my friend predicted, Jayden is beginning to prefer Carmen to me.  I knew it was coming and it's (obviously) fine.  It's going to take some adjustment by me, and some adjustment by Carmen too!  He honestly was almost hysterical when I walked through the door instead of Carmen.  He eventually calmed down and was back to normal, but it was a little crazy.

To back up a little, Monday was a good day.  Another low-key, laid-back day, which is exactly what we wanted.

I put this up on Instagram. This is what we call responsible parenting.  :)

Stuffing as many fruit snacks in his mouth as it can hold.

Trying to push Daddy off the step into the water.

Still trying.  And almost falling in himself in the process.
He eventually succeeded, but it took a whole lot of effort.

Mummied up in the sunshine after swimming to get warm.  Love his cute little toes.

The week was fine, nothing incredibly bad or good.  My work life took a turn for the worse, in that I am now co-supervising another unit.  This means I am doing at least half as much work again - and supervising another 1-1/2 lawyers.  It'll be an interesting experience.  I don't know we'll all survive, but we'll do our best.  In any case, it means I spent my week (at work) with my head spinning and in about 845 meetings.  And that will continue next week.  I've come away with two positives, and I'm going to do my best to stick to them: I will be learning a new area of law, and that's always interesting, and I get to work more closely with my friend/co-worker Lili, and we have similar styles and seem to get along fine.

Most importantly, Thursday night was NFL kickoff, and it was a go SEAHAWKS kind of night.  Which means that today was TGIBF (Thank Goodness Its (Seahawk) Blue Friday).  Which I forgot about but managed to participate in nonetheless.

Yesterday Jayden had his first ever dentist appointment.  He was all kinds of excited about it, until he got in the chair.  Then he sat completely still, giving me the death stare and opening his mouth about 1/4 inch for the first 10 or 15 minutes.  He eventually warmed up.  The hygienist was really great with him and by the end he told me he had fun and that we should go to the dentist every day.

In the waiting room.  Mommy, why isn't it our turn yet?!?

Using the straw - so fun!

Look Mommy, my teeth are clean!!!

After I taught him to say "Go SEAHAWKS!" Thursday night and he forced Carmen to say it a few times at dinner (it was awesome), this morning he had a haircut, finally.  Carmen said he was great, and even talked to a couple of the guys in the barber shop this time.  He kept asking "is it my turn yet?!?"

Picked out.  Check out how long his hair is!

All cleaned up, chillaxin in the chair.  This is totally his happy face.

Jayden has been absolutely obsessed with books recently.  We "pway books" 18 times a day.  And we honestly probably read 20 books a day on the weekends and maybe 10 books on the weekdays.  It's amazing.  We read every kind of book there is - Cat in the Hat, picture books, Otis, By the Light of the Silvery Moon, Cinderella, The Belly Button Book, The Ugly Duckling, Wheels on the Bus, Giraffes Can't Dance, Three Little Pigs, Swim Swim, literally everything.  It's a lot of fun, but I have started drinking a whole lot more water.

This weekend will be busy, but hopefully fun.  I have to work in the morning, but will make it back in time for swim lessons.  Sunday Carmen's friend Kenny and his wife Tracy will come visit.  Our plans are primarily to hang out, swim, watch football, eat and just generally relax.  Jayden starts soccer on Sunday too, so Carmen, Jayden and I will run out to soccer for a minute.  We'll see how Jayden likes it.  He had so much fun playing soccer on the beach last weekend that I hope that translates into his classes over the next few weeks.  It's a parent interactive class, so we'll see how worn out Carmen and I get!

And then Monday comes.  Carmen flies to Montana and I'm on my own for four ridiculously stressful days of work, along with single parenting and preparing for the big birthday bash next Saturday.  It'll be fun.  Right?!?

By the way, can anyone believe that Jayden is three one week from today?  It's so crazy.  I'm so excited for him to keep growing and learning and becoming the coolest kid there ever was - or at least the coolest kid I've ever raised.