Tuesday evening awesomeness

First, this:

"fish face" for Daddy.

And then this:

ROARING, or really, roaring, in the bathtub.  The silent times, when he's laughing, is when I'm behind the camera silently roaring.  I was told that I was not allowed to say roar, but I could act it out.  "No Mommy, jus' me.  No you."  So I'd act it out and then he'd say it.  Intimidating, right?!?

I also realized I need to tell a few awesome Jayden stories.

1. Jayden napped really well in Hawai'i.  At least 1-1/2, sometimes 2-1/2 hours a day.  A couple times I had to wake him up so that he wouldn't sleep straight until dinner (plus I'd get antsy and want to get back outside again).  Not only did he sleep for a long time, but he slept heavily also.  Either Friday or Saturday he was curled up in his miniature crib and he'd been asleep for an hour or two.  I had dozed off also, but was starting to wake up.  All of a sudden I heard Jayden say "mama, whewe's goo-fee?"  I started to answer, "well, Jayden, I don't -" and then stopped, because my eyes adjusted and I realized he was completely passed out.  So he was dreaming about finding Goofy apparently.  AND he talks in his sleep, apparently!  (which I do too, occasionally - or so Carmen claims).

2. Tonight we were driving home and he saw his soccer ball on the floor of my car.  He asked if we could "pway ow-side."  I told him "well, I have to make dinner, so I probably can't play outside, but you can go outside and play with Jasmine if you want."  He said "noooo, no make dinner.  pway!"  I explained that we needed to eat and that I wish I could play outside but it probably wouldn't happen.  So then he whined a little more and said "no, mama, you pway ow-side."  I told him (again) that I wished I could but I had to make dinner.  He said "no mama, I make dinnew.  so you can pway ow-side."  I asked him "wait, you're going to make dinner for me so that I can go outside and play?!?" and he said "YESSS!"  Seriously, best kid ever.  I'm going to regularly remind him of this when he's old enough to cook.  :)

3. We woke Jayden up Monday morning around 8:00 am.  He's always a little touchy in the beginning (so am I, so I respect it and usually just give him hugs and let him stretch and wake up), and he certainly is when we have to wake him up.  We got him downstairs and were feeding him yogurt and talking about the day.  I told him we were going to take him to Juju's to see Juju, Lucas, Kennedy, Gloria, and everyone.  He said "nooooo, no go Jujus!"  I explained that both Mommy and Daddy had to go to their offices, so he'd have to go to Juju's today.  He said "No, I pway choo-choos."  I told him maybe we could do that when we got home, but that we had to go to Juju's now.  He thought about it for a little bit and then said "I pway choo-choos at Jujus!"  Solved his own problem.  So great, and saved me one of the 546 negotiations that I regularly engage in daily with him.

4. He has lots of rules.  There are lots of things that "jus' Jay-den" can do, but not Mommy and not Daddy.  Usually it involves singing or saying something.  "No mama, you don' tawk, jus' me."  "No singing Daddy!"   We ask, "we can't sing/talk/dance/run/walk/sit/stand/etc.?  Only Jayden can?"  And he responds "no.  jus' jay-den."  He's good at enforcing rules at daycare too, usually for the other kids.

5. Every once in a while he'll stop what he's doing, look at me, say "wuv you mama," and then give me a kiss.  No prompting, just the best three words I've ever heard in my life.

I'll try to throw these in more often - sometimes I'm not in a place where I can write things down and by the time I get to a place to write it down, I've forgotten the specifics.  But I'm trying to be better at remembering.

Hawai'i Livin'

ALOHA!  I think I'm going to move to Hawai'i.  Maybe not really, but maybe.  The flight is ridiculously long which is the biggest barrier.  But everyone was amazingly nice (and maybe that was the Disney magic, but even the non-Disney people were nice), the weather was beautiful and we just didn't have to do anything - or at least Jayden and I didn't have to do anything.

I was clearly dreading the flight - five hours in a confined tube hurtling through the sky with no ability to run in circles?!??  Not my idea of a good time with a two year old.  However, as usual, Jayden made me the happiest Mom ever.  He was a great kid.  He started getting antsy towards the end, but honestly, so did I.  I was seriously over sitting in that airplane seat so I can't get mad at him for feeling the same way.

We took off ridiculously early on Wednesday so that we could get to Hawai'i at a reasonable time.  It worked out perfectly.  We got to our hotel by 2 pm, plenty of time for Jayden and me to put on our swimsuits and splash around for a bit.  It was crazy windy, but we had a good time.  We went to dinner at a restaurant across the street with Carmen's co-worker and his wife.  They live in North Carolina so I rarely get to see them - it was nice to catch up just the four of us.  We also randomly met some people next to us who knew someone Carmen knows at the NFLPA and they gave us cupcakes (they were celebrating a birthday).

7 am: on the shuttle from the parking lot to the terminal at LAX.
"We go bus Mommy?!?"

Dj-ing, aka playing "wheels on bus" on Mommy's ipad on the airplane.

On the Wiki Wiki shuttle at the Honolulu airport.  

Daddy and Jayden on the way to dinner.

Waiting for our table.  When we arrived at the hotel they handed out treats. I got a lei, Carmen got a bead necklace and Jayden got this cool tiki god necklace.  He would only wear it on Wednesday night, but I have it for when he gets older and decides he wants to wear it again.

After dinner.  A long day of traveling, riding shuttles, swimming, walking and eating wears a kid out.  (Actually, it wears out a grown up too - we just can't pass out and be carried back to our hotel room - sucks to be grown up)

We woke up Thursday with no plans, other than Carmen having meetings a lot of the day.  Jayden and I had big plans to splash in the water, eat, nap and splash some more.  Best kind of vacation.  Every day they had a character breakfast at the hotel.  We got pictures with Mickey and then Goofy and Minnie walked around the restaurant visiting and taking pictures too.  Clearly Jayden was not excited about actually talking to or touching the characters.

At the character breakfast.  He wasn't sure about Goofy so Goofy was being nonchalant here.  This was probably one of my favorite moments.

He slowly worked his way back and posed behind Jayden's chair so I could get a picture with the two of them.  

A really clear picture of Mickey waiting outside the restaurant.  

Still no smile, but it was a little better when Mommy was between Minnie and Jayden.

A beautiful Hawaiian sunset while we had snacks and drinks at a poolside restaurant.

Thursday night we had a babysitter and Carmen and I went to the NFLPA luau.  It was a lot of fun, with dancers, music, good food and drinks.  

There was even a fireworks show.  So exciting!  I wished I had brought Jayden, but now I know if we're ever invited back.  :)

One moment I caught on camera was Jayden singing "Happy Birthday" to his taxi car.  I was on the phone with Ellen and in the background I heard a little tune.  I was quiet for a minute and grabbed my camera, and asked Ellen to hold on for a minute and captured this beautiful little song:

Friday was more of the same: splashing, eating, napping, etc.

Jayden's Hawai'i smile.

Mommy's Hawai'i smile

Daddy's Hawai'i smile.
(If you didn't notice, the similarity with these three photos is the flower behind our ears.  It came in my drink so I showed Jayden how to put it behind his ear.  Then Carmen and I had to put the flower behind our ears and Jayden took the pictures of the two of us.  It was cute.)

Posing with Goofy. Jayden gave him a hug, but was still unsure about the whole smiling with Goofy thing.
We also got a picture taken with Mickey (Jayden and I did), but it was taken by the people there and I don't know how to get it.  I'm hoping the NFLPA contacts Carmen and tells him how to get it, since it was the NFLPA's party for the players, the guests and the kids.

There were a whole bunch of kids and activities at the party.  It was a lot of fun.  Not to mention good food.  Jayden's favorite activity, as is usual, was to run around in circles.  Luckily lots of other toddlers like to do that too.  

So Jayden found some friends and ran around with them.  For those of you that know football he was running with Jamaal Charles' daughter and Alex Smith's son.  The three of them were so cute.  And really rather fast!

Friday night we had a babysitter again, and Carmen, Joby, Susan and I took a client's family out to dinner at Roy's.  The fish was amazing there.  We got back to the room about 45 minutes before our time was up but told the babysitter to go ahead and leave, we'd pay her for the last 45 minutes anyway - we just wanted to go to bed!

We had the same babysitter Thursday and Friday, which was really nice.  Jayden was still hysterical when we left, but the babysitter said he calmed down a few minutes after we left the room.  On Thursday she showed him pictures of dogs and cats on her phone, "dancing" according to him, which made him giggle.  He went to bed much later than he should have both nights, but what're you going to do - it's vacation!  On Friday she actually brought him a puzzle and then left it with us for him to take home.  It was so sweet.  She and I were talking and I found out she works as a family support worker for families dealing with problems - kind of like a social worker who tries to help families stay together.  She said she loves her work, she loves her kids and she wouldn't change her job for anything.  She was so sweet.  Definitely made me feel better about leaving Jayden with a random person in a hotel room!

Saturday we woke up with lots to do.  There were three pools to splash in, a lazy river to float around and a water slide to check out.  I also got in a run outside along the beach.  Too bad I can't do that every day.

Family photo with Mickey.
We did one more character breakfast, just to see if Jayden would be any more excited about the characters.  And it worked - he'd seen them enough that he was actually pretty excited!

Family photo with Goofy.  We all got hugs for this one.  

Jayden's hug from Minnie.  You can see how happy he is about it.  

The resort, as seen from the far side of the pool.

The beach.
Or "whoa-shen" if you're Jayden.  Carmen and Jayden went to the beach the first day while I got a quick run in on the treadmill.  He fell down in the water in his clothes and got "diwty" and then never wanted to go back.  I'm not mad at him; I hate getting sand in my clothes too.  But I do feel bad that he missed out on the fun of the whoa-shen.  Oh well.

A nice message on my morning run.
Joy. Peace. Hope. Love.

What we spent our entire visit doing: running in and out of the shallow water in one of the pools.  It truly is amazing how toddlers can do the same thing over and over and over and over again and never get bored.

Napping in his miniature crib.  He honestly was too tall to straighten his body out in the crib.  Luckily he likes to sleep curled up, like his mama.  

Stretching out in the windy Hawai'i afternoon.  "Mommy, I taw-wer?!?"

"We have sun-gwasses on ouw heads?  Mommy, I smiwle!"

Saturday night Carmen, Jayden and I were able to have dinner by ourselves, which was really nice.  We went to a nearby sushi restaurant and ended up crashing the date night of one of Carmen's co-workers and his wife.  She adores kids (she has two beautiful kids of her own - Leah and Coby) and was so sweet with Jayden.  He kept asking "whewe's Juwia?" (her name is Julie).  And he gave her big hugs when he saw her and when we were leaving.  I wish I could spend more time with her - she's like to exercise but isn't crazy about it, she likes to have a glass of wine, but no more than two, she adores her kids and does what she has to do to take care of them but still have a career.  And she really is probably one of the sweetest people I know.  After I quit my job and find something I can do three days a week maybe I'll start planning lunch dates with her.  :)

I had seen on the schedule that Disney was showing a movie on the lawn Saturday night, so after dinner Jayden, Carmen and I went to  grab a mat and watched the second half of the Princess and the Frog.  It meant Jayden stayed up late again, but again, it's vacation and you're supposed to do things you don't usually get to do, right?!?  (Also the reason he ate about three vegetables total for the entire five days we were there and only about five pieces of fruit.  He was carbed and proteined up!)

The lazy river at night.  

Our last day was Sunday.  Our flight left in the early afternoon, so we needed to leave the resort by 11:30 or so.  I was determined to let Jayden get in the pool one last time.  I eventually had to wake him up at 8:00 am and when I did and asked him if he wanted to get in the "swimming 'cool," he said NO!  I figured if I got him where he could just see the pool, he'd change his mind.  And thank goodness he did.  After breakfast we grabbed our towels and our "watches" (aka colorful wristbands that Disney requires you to wear if you use their pools - Jayden still has his on his wrist: purple, orange, green and blue) and our innertubes!

The second to last ride down the water slide before we took off for the airport.
I really thought Jayden was going to freak out on the slide, and he was completely silent the first time we went down it.  But after we hit the water at the bottom he exclaimed "Mama, that was FUN!  We go 'gin."  So we went 6 times in a row, literally.  The lifeguard at the top of the slide said "wow, you really like this don't you?!?"  I think it's the toddlers can do anything fun over and over and over again syndrome.  But now I need to find a water slide park nearby where I can take Jayden to splash.

In the taxi car on the way to the airport. Daddy was working and Jayden and I were talking about everything we saw on the ride: "Mommy, whas dat?"  "Mommy we widing?!?"  "Mommy, I wanna go aiwpwane," "Mommy, we in taxi caw?" "Mommy, I see it!" (the last one talking about the airport when we got there)

The Honolulu airport.  It's an open air airport and since it was raining outside when we were leaving it was really quite beautiful.
We got to the airport two hours early, which was WAY too early, especially since we got there right about at naptime.  Jayden was about to throw a fit, but luckily I took a tip from my mom's book and had brought a few new toys for each flight.  So I pulled out a couple new truck toys (a tow truck and a tractor thingy) and that kept him occupied until we got to the gate, at which time I walked around with him looking at souvenirs and talking about everything we saw until it was finally time to board.
The flight home was amazing.  Luckily it was only about four hours and forty minutes.  Jayden was awesome.  He slept for 1-1/2 hours, which actually allowed me to sleep for a bit too.  Then he woke up and played with the ipad, read some books and played with his tow truck and tractor until we landed.  We were surrounded by families (naturally) and I think there was maybe five minutes when a kid wasn't screaming.  Three or four kids took turns screaming the entire flight.  I felt bad for the parents, but it also made Carmen and me realize, once again, just how lucky we are to have such an awesome kid.  

All in all it was a good trip and I'm really glad Jayden and I got to go this year.  I don't know if Carmen was happy to have us there or if we were more of a burden, but if we're allowed to go back in the future I think we'll jump at the chance!  I'm just going to make sure Jayden is potty trained so I can drop him off at the kid's camp for a few hours one or two days.  :)

Hope everyone had a good weekend.  Aloha!

Biker Dude

Once Jayden got his helmet, he could try out the bicycle.  He was a little unsure but he liked testing it out.  As he keeps using it, he'll get more and more confident, and better and better at balancing.

We moved about five feet, from the beginning of the concrete to here.  And then he decided he was done.  He did turn it around and go a few more feet.  But it's going to take a little more practice to get him to pick up his feet.
A side note, his shirt did match his bike, which is awesome (and clearly important).

I also forgot to put up a picture from last weekend:

Relaxing on the couch during the Seahawks game.  I did expect a little more enthusiasm, but I was just happy he was cheering for "Mommy's team."

Who doesn't love a long weekend?!?

We really couldn't have been happier to have a long weekend.  I was unable to access my office on Friday, so I worked from the courthouse for a bit and was relatively unproductive.  I left early, picked Jayden up a little early and got home a little early to let Jasmine out.  Then we all met at a local restaurant to have dinner with Carmen's friend Alex.  The whole way home Jayden was talking about "Daddy's fwend" and "awex" but as soon as Alex showed up, Jayden clammed up.  He opened up a little later on, but still barely said a word around him.  He was really excited to see "daddy's fwends caw" (Daddy's friend's car).

It has been ridiculously gorgeous around here, to the point where I'm really tired of it.  I really appreciate my rain and gray skies and it should not be 80 degrees in January.  But we do get some beautiful sunsets.

I promise I was not driving when I took this picture.  I was stopped at a red light.  It probably was still illegal, but it was not dangerous.  :)

Saturday we had swim lessons.  I didn't get in the pool and had planned to take all kinds of pictures but the few I took were terrible and then another mom started talking to me and suddenly the lesson was over and I'd practically missed the whole thing.  It was nice to talk to another mom, and hopefully we'll see her at the pool again in the future.  Her daughter is only a year or so older than Jayden and they live near us.  So maybe they'll be friends some day.  :)

We spent the rest of the day running errands and relaxing.  We watched the Duke game (a win, luckily) and broke out the paints and the easel.  The most important thing to note about the pictures is that the "smock" that Jayden is wearing is actually one of my t-shirts turned inside out, and that t-shirt happens to be a North Carolina shirt that I had in high school.  Carmen would have rather had the shirt right side out, which I will be sure to do next time.

Oh, and the other important thing to note is that Jayden had so much fun painting.  It was awesome.

"No mommy, I no smile."

Concentration.

Serious concentration.

Checking out the chalkboard side too.  We drew orange grass.

A beautiful masterpiece.

Taking off his "smock" all by himself.  He did actually get the thing off on his own.  But it was a longer process than it needed to be.  And rather funny.

Today we did errands again in the morning and then came home and spent the afternoon all football, all the time.  Luckily both of our teams won (Carmen was rooting for Denver, I was clearly rooting for the Hawks, except for Richard Sherman).

Getting a helmet at Target so he can safely ride his bike.  He is wearing a helmet that is supposed to fit ages three and older.  As Carmen said, "welcome to the big head family."

Chillaxin on the couch with some strawberries and purple drank.

"Look Mommy, I purposely covered my arms in dry erase marker while you weren't looking for 2.5 minutes!"  Best invention ever?  WASHABLE markers.  Seriously.  Everyone should buy stock in any company that makes washable markers.  As long as I have kids I will be buying washable markers.
Oh, and this was version of a "smile" today.

Jayden is clearly still funny.  Yesterday in the car Carmen said something, I forget what, and Jayden started laughing and said "Daddy is crazy!!"  I promise backwards and forwards that I did not teach him to say that.  It was hilarious.  And all the time he says "Daddy funnnnnnyyyyy."  He loves making funny faces, which involves squinting his eyes and showing his teeth.

He also has an imagination that is developing more and more.  He makes his cars and other toys say things.  This afternoon he was playing with his cars on his train track and was saying "okay, I'm leaving now," "okay, see you tomorrow," etc.  It was awesome . I couldn't get to my camera fast enough to catch that one, but I did catch this later on:

And in other good news, I can once again upload videos to the blog!  If anyone had trouble accessing the three I posted earlier, please let me know so I can post them officially in the blog.  I'm just glad to know it wasn't me making some kind of mistake.

I'm so excited to have tomorrow off, it's just so wonderful.  I am really looking forward to a relaxing day with my baby.  Maybe we'll go to the park for a bit, maybe we'll run around in the backyard, maybe we'll break out the bike now that we have a helmet!  Whatever we do, it'll be fun and we'll definitely be laughing.  :)

Sunday evening

It has been a good weekend.  We've stayed busy, but also somewhat low-key.  As usually happens, as Jayden was getting over his minor illness I was developing something.  Most likely from him, and usually at least twice as bad.  I'm fine, just congested and tired.  But what's new between October and April, apparently?  In case you can't tell, I'm really and truly over being sick and congested and tired.

Friday night Jayden slept 12 hours - 7:45 pm to 7:45 am, which was amazing.  He never sleeps past 7:00 am on weekends.  And especially not when I'm home alone with him.  Along with each blessing comes a curse, and I of course paid for it later (by a late nap and therefore a late wakeup from a nap and therefore a refusal to go to bed), but it felt nice Saturday morning!

We went to the "swinnging cool" (aka swimming pool) first.  We had fun, although Jayden was a little less enthusiastic than the prior Tuesday.  He was still floating and kicking and maybe sort of thinking of moving his arms.  So that was good.

We got home, ran around for a few minutes and then got back in the car to head off to a birthday party.  One of the boys from Jujus was turning one and they were thoughtful enough to invite the whole daycare.  I felt silly; it never even occurred to me to invite Jayden's daycare friends to his birthday party, but it totally makes sense.  If I'm brave enough to have a party this year I'll make sure to invite them.  In any case, the party was fun and very cute.  It was cookie monster themed, and there was a cookie bar with take-home bags.  So exciting.  I now have my very own bag of cookies, on top of all of the other sweets from the holidays I'm still doing my best to devour.  Jayden had a great time running around with the other kids from daycare, watching the fountain outside and trying to steal Owen's toys.  I let him off by himself around the room and he pops back around the corner riding a bike Owen (really Owen's parents) had literally just opened.  The other parents reassured me and we decided Jayden was just doing quality control, making sure it was safe for Owen to ride later on.

As expected, Jayden passed out on the ride home.  He slept until a little after 4 pm (and I watched most of the recorded Seahawks game - GO HAWKS!).  We played around for a bit and watched the end of the football game.  

My two kids.  Sharing the same bed, neither happily.

Distracted by dinosaurs.

We then got back in the car and had our Mommy/Jayden date.  We went to a pizza place nearby and Jayden had pasta (shocking, I'm sure - this is the 1854th night in a row that Jayden has had pasta for dinner) and I had pizza.  It was lovely.  And we had a good time.  We got home and pretty much went straight upstairs for bedtime.  We skipped a bath and generally ran around.  We talked to Carmen on the phone and Jayden told him all about his day, "showing" him the ball he was playing with and telling him stories about our day.  And then as we were reading books Jayden told me he "no wann go sweep."  So I rocked him a little extra long and then laid him in his bed.  He immediately sat up and tried to get out of bed.  He wanted me to lay down next to him, which I would not do.  So we finally compromised and I laid in the hallway with the doorway partly open so he could see me.  For. An. Hour.  He finally rolled himself around to sleep at about 8:50 pm.  I had to turn on the stars again for him even, it took so long.

And then he woke up at 4 am, wanting me to change his diaper.  I did the fastest, worst diaper change ever with him in his bed in the dark.  I turned on his noise machine, laid down next to him and passed out for an hour.  Luckily so did he.  I was back in my bed by 5:30ish and then Jayden slept until 7:30 am.  We'll see how tonight goes.

Today once we got going, we went for a looong walk (with Jayden actually walking the whole way).  It was really fun.  We made footprints on the sidewalk with the wet grass, we hopped on Jasmine's paw prints.  We pressed the button to get the green "walk" signal, we saw another dog walking, which actually is a funny story.  We were walking on one side of the street and a man with a dog was walking towards us on the same side of the street.  Jayden actually saw the dog first and shouted out "doggie!"  I grabbed Jayden's hand and walked across the street.  We looked back and I said "good morning," and Jayden echoed me "goo' mohning!"  And he said it again later when we saw another person in their driveway. Apparently he's suddenly Mr. Social.

Jayden was adamant we go to the park, so off we went, yet again.  We ran all over the place at the park, down the slide, up the ladder, down the slope, up the hill, around the corner, etc.  It was fun.

Classic Jayden, examining someone else: "they go pahk?  they go swide?  they go up staiws?  they go on othew ones?"  Yes, I think so.  Well, I don't know, probably.  I think they will go up the stairs.  Yes, apparently you're taking up this entire stairway so they have to use the other ones.  

Funny story about the hat: we were driving down Newport when Jayden said his head was cold.  I asked him if he wanted his hat and he said yes.  He never asks for his hat, so I took the opportunity, made a u-turn and headed back up the street.  I ran into the house, grabbed his hat and brought it out to the car.  I put it on his head and he said "I wiiike it! I han-sum!"  At first I didn't understand him, but then I caught on, "oh, you're handsome Jayden?"  "Yes mommy, I han-sum."  It was awesome.  Good thing he's confident.

After the park, we went to the drugstore and the grocery store, quickly getting the boring errands out of the way before we went to the "west-waunt" for "cheez -buhgehs"!

Chowing down on his cheeseburger.  He ate the entire thing, half his milkshake and some french fries.  Yes, he's a monster.

I expected him to pass out on the way home, but of course he did not.  When we got home we went straight outside, played with the balls, played bubbles and generally ran around.  We were talking to Gwamma on the phone and Jayden kept "showing" her things also, like the "wemons" (lemons) that he found on the ground, the balls that he was throwing, the bubbles he was blowing, etc.  I had to quickly explain to Gwamma what it was she was "seeing" so she could appropriately comment.  An aside: last summer we bought a bat and a ball for the pool.  We bought a couple other soft balls too.  One of the games we play is me hitting the balls with the bat and then we all (Mama, Jayden and Jasmine) go chase the balls, retrieve them and start all over again.  Well, while I was on the phone with Gwamma it was hard for me to hit so Jayden picked up the bat and a ball and started doing it himself.  He actually hit the ball a couple of times a pretty decent distance (10 feet or so) by tossing the ball with one hand and hitting the ball with the bat in his other hand.  It was awesome - amazing hand-eye coordination.  Yeah, that's my kid.

I got him to sleep without too much pain.  He started crying and trying to get out of my arms so I told him the story of the five little monkeys jumping on the bed (because it's the only one I have memorized) and by the time I got to the mama jumping on the bed he was pretty much passed out.  He slept for a bit and then we played some more, watched some Golden Globes, ate dinner (guess what?  He had pasta!), took a bath and went to bed.

All in all, a good weekend and even somewhat productive.  And tomorrow it's back to regularly scheduled programming, for better or for worse.  Hope everyone else had a good weekend and that the work week ahead treats you all well!