Happy Easter!

Today was a good day.  Probably really a great day.  It was a lot of work for me, but it was fun.  And everyone was (mostly) happen and having fun pretty much all day long.  That's a complete success in my book.

Last night after Jayden's nap we went down to the beach to meet one of my friends from work and her husband and son.  Her son just turned four, so he's got a year or so on Jayden but only maybe an inch in height!  Jayden also is not used to the beach and the ocean so he was not as excited about running into the water and chasing the waves.  He eventually caught on and had some fun running into the water and really fast out of it.  We then had lunch at a restaurant right on the beach, which was great.  It's a place that's completely kid-friendly but actually has grown-up food.  The boys had burgers and fries and the grown-ups had crab-stuffed Salmon, ahi tuna, baby back ribs and scallops.  It was a lot of fun.  So we might have found one other couple we can hang out with and not offend with our rush home to bedtime or our inability to finish a conversation or us being covered in some substance such as sand, snot, water, fruit snacks, crumbs, etc.  :)

This morning we woke up and had our regular morning, eating yogurt, walking the dog (Jayden and I, while Carmen exercised), and then getting ready for the day.  Once everyone was ready, Jayden got to open his Easter basket and then search for eggs in the backyard. 

The Easter basket after I wrapped presents and prepared it last night.

Opening the first present. 
The hat is because Carmen decided to put his hat on so then Jayden put on his hat and I put on my hat. 

One of the gifts was a kaleidoscope with Mickey Mouse on the outside (in the dollar bins at Toys R Us - love those!).  It was hilarious watching him try to see in.  He apparently can't close one eye at a time, so he was squinting with both eyes, putting the kaleidoscope in the middle of both of his eyes, etc.  I still don't know if he ever actually saw anything.  But someday he'll figure it out!

One of the other presents was a police motorcycle lego man.  This was probably the biggest hit.  We looove us some motorcycles.

He found the first egg! 
I "hid" it by sitting it on the base of his basketball hoop.  We definitely had to do some strong hinting to help him find the rest of the eggs, but he still felt like he "found" each of them.

Dropping the egg into the basket.  Thanks Daddy!

Finding the last egg!

We then hung out in the backyard for a bit, enjoying the rather ridiculously warm California sunshine.  One thing I love about SoCal is because of the weather there's never a reason to get that dressed up.  A polo shirt and shorts that aren't athletic shorts are about as fancy as Jayden gets.  Even at nicer events, it's usually acceptable to wear something like this - thank goodness!

My boys.  Probably one of my favorite pictures EVER.  Jayden now gives his version of a smile when you ask him to, and I think it's a pretty decent one. 

Mommy hugs.

Checking the water to see if it was warm enough to swim.  "I go check Daddy, I check.  I tell you if iss ok."  Yeah, it wasn't okay.  It was cold.  So our pool heater still isn't working.  Awesome.

On Mommy's shoulders so he could be "talwer" to be able to throw the ball on top of the umbrella.  It worked.  He regularly threw the ball on top of the umbrella and only once did it fall into the pool.

 

The photo I put up on Instagram/Facebook.  My boys relaxing in the backyard.  Shoes optional.  Mimosa required (if you're a grown-up). 
By the way, Jayden is going to be the life of the party.  I don't know what this says about Carmen and me, but during brunch he kept saying "Everyone!  Drink wine!  And juice!"  And we'd all have to stop what we were doing and take a drink.  Eventually Carmen and I had to switch to water because you just can't drink that much that fast!)

Snacking on some pear. 

If I do say so myself, our brunch was pretty darn good.  I made baked nutella French bread and a chicken apple sausage frittata.  I'd eat that for dinner every night if it wasn't ridiculously unhealthy.  Welll, not ridiculously unhealthy, but certainly not the healthiest meal we've ever had.  But boy was it yummy.  Thank goodness for leftovers. 

The rest of the day was uneventful.  Jayden napped for 3-1/2 hours or so while I went to the grocery store and napped for a bit too.  After he woke up, we hung around some more, danced, watched some NBA playoffs and generally had fun.  A funny story: Jayden thinks whenever he gets presents that it's his birthday.  So after his nap he was a little grouchy so he was demanding all kinds of things.  One of those thing was to "bwow out a cand-ull" because it was his birthday.  So I lit a tea candle, we sang "Happy Easter" to the tune of "Happy Birthday to you" and he got to blow out the candle.  Problem solved.  :)  Carmen grilled some steaks for dinner (for me and him) and Jayden ate a plate full of pasta.  We ran in circles for a bit, our usual post-dinner activity, and then it was off to bed.  Really, a nice, relaxing, fun day.  And I even fit two loads of laundry in there too!


I will leave you with this, a quote from one of my friends today (because I am feeling strong and accomplished and happy at the moment): "Just a woman?  Oh honey no!  I am awesome with a splash of bitch and a dash of wonderful and a hell of a mother, you be sure to remember that."

Happy Easter Weekend!

I can't believe April is almost over.  I swear I don't know where the time has gone.  Pretty soon it'll be 2020 and I won't barely have blinked. 

We actually had a pretty good week, despite our disrupted schedules.  We didn't have childcare Monday or Tuesday, so Monday Carmen took Jayden to work and then came home for naptime and worked from home and Tuesday I did the same.  We found out Tuesday that we had childcare for Wednesday through Friday, which was wonderful.  I definitely did not mind having Tuesday at home, and Jayden slept for a loooong time so I was actually pretty productive (made dinner, got work done, etc., which allowed me to play outside with Jayden once he woke up).  I wish that could be a regular thing but it would never fly with my job.  One of my good friends from work said she had the opportunity to accept a work from home job or work for PLC.  She eventually chose PLC but every once in a while she re-thinks that choice.  Such a hard balance.

In any case, today is Saturday, which is always a good day!  Swim lessons were okay; he fought me to get in to the pool (I finally had to pass him to Ms. Stacy) and he fought me to get out of the pool (I finally had to just lift him out when he got close to the edge) and then he fought me HARD for naptime.  I got all kinds of beat up, I had to put him in a time out and I had to hold him tight to just get him to calm down.  He's finally passed out, but this battle every Saturday makes me really really wish I could get an earlier lesson.  As soon as it's a possibility I'm taking it. 

I got a new phone, thanks to Carmen's handy connection to Samsung, so we were playing around with it this week.  This is the result:

It was clearly the red moon/full moon this week because Jayden threw a few more temper tantrums than normal.  Thursday night was particularly bad; I feel pretty confident he had a minimal nap that day.  It was Carmen's turn for bedtime, which was definitely a challenge.  But we all survived, eventually. 

Yesterday I was able to pick up Jayden a little bit early and Carmen finally got to go to his movie.  We had a good evening at home, and a calm, relatively easy bedtime.  Before, that, though, we had two cute moments.  First, Auntie sent Jayden an Easter present that he got to open (sorry Lizzle, I couldn't save it, he was too excited about the box being for him).  Right before he started opening it (or trying), he said "oh, it's my birrrfday!"  I didn't bother explaining he wasn't quite right.  He opened it and he exclaimed "owange cloves!"  (Auntie bought him a bright, and I mean really bright, orange shirt).  Then, at the end, he said "Thanks Auntie!!!"  And I have a video of all of this, but apparently it's too big for to put on the blog.  So you'll have to believe me and hope I can get him to say it again in a shorter video.  :)

Then, after dinner, we had a dance party!

This morning, before swim lessons, we dyed Easter eggs!  It was Jayden's first time and the first time Carmen and I had done it in years.  It was pretty fun.  We limited it to just a few eggs so we wouldn't be overwhelmed, and so I wouldn't have to make 500 pounds of egg salad for Mom and Jayden to eat next week! 

Just getting started!

We're all done - except for the stickers!

 I'll put up another update either tomorrow or Monday with pictures from our Easter celebration - which will mostly consist of an Easter egg hunt, a few very small gifts and French toast.  Happy Easter weekend everyone!

Finally, mostly recovered

We had a good, low-key weekend.  All three of us were still tired from our travels and from our regular weekly routine, so Friday couldn't come soon enough.  With Juju in Cuba it meant I had to leave early to pick Jayden up from the backup daycare.  It meant I got less work done, but I wasn't too mad about starting my weekend early. 

Jayden and I ran a couple of errands (and got ice cream for his "snack"!) and then got home in time to play in the backyard.

Throwing the ball "up in the 'ky" in the backyard!

After Carmen got home we played outside a little longer and then went to dinner at a restaurant close by.  But before we left, Jayden said the funniest thing (or well, what he said wasn't super funny, but the context in which he said it and the way he said it was hilarious).  I hope I caught it.

(So, if you didn't catch it, at the end he said "I - I - I - I - I - I cannot bee-weeeve it down dere!"  The other day we were doing something and he said "I cannot bee-weeeeve it!"  And we both just started laughing.  This one isn't quite as good, but still pretty darn cute.  In case you were wondering, we were watching a caterpillar climb up the wall of the pool and all three of us were impressed that it wasn't drowning.)

Saturday was a mostly regular day.  Jayden, Jasmine and I went for a run/walk while Carmen exercised.  I love Carmen being motivated to work out, but it does end up taking away from my running freedom.  Oh well.  The three of us ran/walked almost 3 miles (2.8 according to my phone), so we still got our legs moving.  I was incredibly proud of Jayden, who made it the entire way without being carried.  He almost caved towards the end but I motivated him by going on a leaf hunt and jumping in the puddles.  Sometimes toddlers' ADD works in your favor.

Getting even this much of the three of us in the frame was a success.  Dogs and toddlers do not necessarily understand "get closer" or "bend your knees" or "see how your face isn't really in the picture?" 

Jayden had a wonderful swim lesson and then had a complete tantrum when it was time to get out.  I had to pull him out and carry him kicking and screaming to the bench where we changed him, still screaming and then to the car and then the whole car ride home and then upstairs to get him down for a nap.  It was awesome.  We both knew he was exhausted and that's where the tantrum was coming from.  But nobody else knew that.  He actually fell asleep pretty quickly, even though I had to tell a really quiet story to get him to stop screaming/crying in the beginning. 

I had a work event last night where I had to make a Spanish-themed pizza for 12 people.  My office had offered a small plates dinner catered by PLC staff at our last two silent auctions and somebody finally cashed in.  It was a bit of a pain, but the pizzas turned out quite well, so I was happy about that.  If anyone needs a Spanish pizza recipe with Spanish chorizo and manchego cheese, check out Williams Sonoma for a great recipe.  And I have a wonderful pizza dough recipe, especially for a crispy thin crust pizza, if you're interested too.  In any case, Jayden still wasn't awake at 4 when I left for the event, so he had a solid 3 hour nap, which I think saved him.  Carmen said he was pretty cheerful Saturday evening, which was nice for Carmen. 

Sunday (today), we switched roles and I went for a long run while Carmen took the two rascals on a walk.  They walked quite a ways too, probably two miles.  Then we took off for the park and for lunch at Islands. 

Figuring out how to climb around the chain in the middle, since he refused to use it.

We got home and Jayden passed out soon after again, with only a little bit of a fuss.  He slept for another 2-1/2 hours and woke up quite happy.  He actually woke up in his bed, rolled around for a while, and then moved to the floor and laid there for a bit.

He slowly made his way to the door, so I laid down on the floor in our doorway and looked at him.  He smiled and said "mommy, I poo-poo."  I just started laughing and then crying a little when the smell coming out of his bedroom proved him right. 

He was in a pretty good mood, bouncing off the walls in our room for a bit, and getting stuck in our bed:

He was throwing his baba all over the room and it landed in between the headboard and the bed.  He tried to climb down feet first to get it, which clearly was not the right way to go.

Then Carmen was fiending for a movie so he put on Space Jam.  Turns out that movie is scary for a 2-1/2 year old.  I'm trying to teach Carmen that lots of things that grown ups would never consider scary are actually scary for a two year old.  It's a process.  I think we're going to have to start sending Carmen to movies by himself so he can his movie fix in since there are so very few movies that Jayden can see, and when he does sit and watch a movie for a while he usually ends up grouchy.  I know I was only allowed 30 minutes of TV, or at most an hour because otherwise I'd get grouchy.  So usually I got to see Mr. Rogers, but not Sesame Street.  :)  I unfortunately cannot control how much TV he watches at Juju's because I can't seem to get there earlier enough to cut him off after an hour, so I just have to put up with some grouchiness on the weekday evenings.  But it's nice to avoid it on weekends. 

This week, as of now, we have no childcare.  We may end up with childcare on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but we don't know yet.  Tomorrow Carmen will take Jayden to work with him in the morning and then come home in time for naptime and on Tuesday I'll take a turn.  It will be an interesting week; I think it will be fine, just a little trying for Carmen and me with respect to getting work done. 

If anyone has young kids or is going to have young kids, if they decide they want to start waking up at 5:30 or 6:00 am when they get to toddler age, you have to get one of these:

It's called an "Ok to Wake" clock, and the parent sets it so that it glows green at a certain time in the morning.  You teach your early rising toddler that it's not time to be out of bed until the clock turns green.  And you teach them that it is so cool and exciting, and they're such big kids to have their own clock, etc.  And it's awesome.  The kid wakes up at 6:25, rolls over, sees the clock isn't green and stays in bed until 6:45 when he/she comes bursting into your bedroom shouting "it's gween! It's gween!"  We're really hoping this helps Jayden, not only to give us extra time but also to give him extra time.  So far, when he hasn't been an exhausted disaster, it's been a wonderful tool.  I got mine on Amazon, but I think other places sell them too.  So far, it's probably the best $30 I have spent.

So wish us luck on our adventure tomorrow.  We'll see how productive Carmen and I can actually be in the afternoons when we're home with Jayden.  :)

Mommy love. Or not.

As I said in my previous post, we are extremely lucky to have such a great kid.  Jayden is, for a two year old, extremely patient and even-keeled.  But he's still a two year old.  And you can still only expect so much from him. 

Recently he has been extraordinarily fussy with me.  I know it's because he knows he's safe with me and because he knows I'll take care of him, and honestly, because I am extremely patient and because I won't give in to him every single time.  However, it takes its toll at the same time.  Jayden has started looking to Carmen more and more and wanting to be more "wike Daddy." 

For instance, Daddy bought Jayden these cool orange Lebrons, and Daddy bought himself matching shoes (except Daddy's are not bright orange).  Daddy does own bright orange shoes, though, so on Tuesday both Daddy and Jayden had to wear their bright orange shoes together.  Jayden now also wants to wear his bright orange shoes to bed every night and I have to explain to him that we don't wear shoes to bed for numerous reasons, no matter how badly he wants it.

That makes me a little sad, but also in some ways a little relieved.  It takes a lot of pressure and responsibility off of my shoulders.  But the problem arises when Jayden asks for Daddy because he thinks he'll get what he wants more easily.

For instance, last night he pushed every single one of my buttons.  He decided he didn't want to go to bed, so he laid down on the floor in his room.  I was not going to give in and rock him some more or lay down in his room with him, so I let him pass out on the floor of his room.

He then woke up at 4:45 am.  He wanted to rock, then to go potty, then to do anything but go to bed.  I refused.  I told him it was dark outside, it was the middle of the night (sort of) and that it was time to lay down and close his eyes.  After 45 minutes of me refusing, he came to his door and said "I wan' Daddy."  I told him "no, Daddy's asleep and you need to be asleep too."  I laid him in his bed, he gave a half wail and he passed out until we woke him up at 7:30.  I of course spent 45 minutes sleeping on the floor outside his room to prevent him from leaving so needless to say I was a mess this morning.  But my point is that Jayden knows.  He's a smart kid and he knows that he can get away with certain things with Daddy that might not be possible with me. 

Another example: this morning he had a toy with him while eating breakfast.  I don't usually let him do that because his yogurt gets everywhere (and I mean everywhere, his eyebrows, his hair, his elbows, etc.).  So I asked him to put it down while he ate.  He looked at me and said "Daddy said yes!"  I then asked Carmen, who thought I was asking him something different and didn't give me a straight answer. So Jayden ended up getting to keep the toy with him, even though for the past two months he's not allowed to keep the toy with him at breakfast.  So it's going to be a challenge over the next few months as Jayden detaches somewhat from me and shifts to Carmen to be consistent and to not let Jayden get away with whatever it is he wants.  I like saying "yes" to him as much as possible, but sometimes it's just not possible and there is nothing wrong with him having some limits.  I just hope we can keep him rested, because he's so much more pleasant and has so much more fun when he's not suffering from exhaustion.

Oh parenting.  What a challenge.

A good trip, a bad return

Since it has been a while since I've posted, I have a bunch of updates.  Nothing super exciting, but in the world of a two year old, everything is exciting.

Last Monday I had the day off for Cesar Chavez Day.  I had some work to do in the morning, so Jayden still went to Juju's, but then I picked him up after naptime and went to meet my co-worker and her son at the beach.  Her son is four, but he and Jayden had a good time running in circles, rolling their cars down the slide and dancing to some music.  We were so excited the boys got along, we're planning to have some more play dates!

Digging in the sand.  They actually did a good job of sharing their toys, not just with each other but with other kids too.

Listening to some jams outside the ice cream shop

It was a hectic few days getting ready to zip across country to Delaware and back.  It was a short trip, but it's almost more difficult on the short trips because you want to be so efficient.  In any case, we got ourselves together and were at the airport by 5:30 am on Thursday.  We ran into a few hiccups, but we got it figured out and on the airplane with plenty of time.  It was a quick hour trip to Phoenix, where we switched planes and got on the plane to Philly with only a short delay.  Jayden took a solid two hour nap on the plane, which is better than normal and for which I was very grateful.  We landed a little late, but got to Gramma Gigi's house in time for dinner.  Jayden was generally in good spirits, just maybe a little tired. 

Friday morning we got up, ate a boatload of yogurt and headed out to Carmen's elementary/middle/high school.  Jayden was great, sitting in my lap for the whole speech and only making a few inappropriate noises: first, when Carmen was showing a video he saw Carmen on the screen and said "hey!  that's daddy!!!" and second, towards the end of the speech Jayden yawned extra loudly during a particularly quiet moment.  Of course. 

During the speech.
(he did spill the beans; in case you were wondering, it is not actually Clay Matthews' mom in the Campbells commercials)

Mommy and Jayden, looking handsome as always, in the crowd.

After the speech Jayden ran down the stairs to Daddy to give him a big hug.  It was very sweet.  As an aside, Carmen's speech was great and everyone was very interested.  The high school students asked some great questions, as did the alumni in attendance.  There was a lunch reception afterwards and Jayden met one of his relatives/cousins who had just turned two in February.  They took turns copying what the other one was doing.  It was really cute, and they had a great time.  It was nice for Jayden to get some interaction with other kids. 

Headstands and somersaults at the lunch reception

On the floor playing cars.  Until Jahzid decided he was over it and tried to return the cars to Jayden, who said no.  It was awesome.

Racing through the halls of the alumni house at Tower Hill.

Jayden took a nice looong nap Friday afternoon, which meant I also took a nap since he sleeps on a regular bed and he rolls around waaay too much to trust him to not fall off.  We then went to Carmen's friend's (Mark and Jen) house for dinner.  They have two kids, a 9 or 10 year old girl (Alli) and a 7 year old boy (Ben).  Jayden found some trucks that were awesome; they'll be going on his Christmas list next year for sure!  Alli was really sweet with Jayden, letting him play downstairs with her while us grown ups were upstairs.  Towards the end of the night the kids all got a little wild, running in circles through the house.  Jayden was hopping everywhere and eventually hopped so much his pants fell down!

Despite his exhaustion, he remained in pretty good spirits.  When we got back to the house he goofed off with Gigi's pillows on the floor before bedtime.

King of his castle. Until Mama tells him otherwise.

Saturday we slept as long as possible (about 8 am, not too bad really!) and then eventually made it to brunch at Cracker Barrel.  Jayden was a bit fussy, but it was clear exhaustion was setting in by this point. A small victory is that during the meal he leaned over and said "Mommy, I need go potty."  I gathered everything and walked him to the toilet.  We got him on the toilet and a few minutes later he went potty.  And his pull-up was completely dry.  Which means he actually held in whatever he had and waited until he got to the bathroom.  Seriously amazing.  It's a back and forth process, we gain some ground, we lose some ground, but each little step forward is progress.

Playing with the classic Cracker Barrel game while we waited for our food to come.  He explained to Daddy how to play the game - you can't just take the puzzle apart piece by piece, you have to "hop" the pieces.  The little things he picks up on sometimes amazes us.

Rockin' out in the chairs outside Cracker Barrel.

We stopped by a park on the way back to Gramma Gigi's house to let Jayden run off some of his energy.  The park we picked had about 18 slides (really about 5, but that's still more than most parks), which was awesome.

Gramma Gigi, Grampa William and Great Grandmom stayed in the car while we ran all over the place, in circles and back and forth.  We also threw a whole bunch of leaves in the water.  It was a beautiful day, just a little windy. 

Saturday night we went to a local restaurant, had some chicken wings and watched a whole bunch of basketball.  A nice relaxed night, which is what we all needed.  Jayden seriously struggled with going to bed, screaming and crying and fighting me to the death.  I finally stood up and rocked him for a minute and he finally collapsed into me.  I then passed out for an hour and missed most of the first half of the Wisconsin-Kentucky game.  Oh well. 

Sunday morning we hung around the house for a few hours and then took off for the airport. 

Saying bye bye to Gramma Gigi.

The fateful trip to the airport...it all began at about 11:30 AM eastern or 8:30 AM pacific when we left Gramma Gigi's house to drive to the Philadelphia airport.  We got our bags checked with a little trouble, but made it, got through security no problem and made it to the gate.  We got on the plane, settled in and took off.  Jayden had the iPad and was happily playing the Wheels on the Bus game (he can solve the match game quicker than a lot of grown ups - his ability to remember where the matches are is really impressive). 

Once we got up in the air, the pilot comes over the loudspeaker and says "wellll, if you look outside you'll notice we are now returning to the Philadelphia airport.  It turns out we hit a bird on takeoff.  We're running through our checks and everything appears to be okay, and this should be an uneventful landing, but we're returning to the airport just in case."  So, at that point I'm scared.  Not cool.  Not cool at all.  I am forever grateful for our pilots though.  We returned to the airport and landed without incident, thank goodness.  When a bird hits a plane, they have to do a full inspection of the plane to ensure no damage.  That can take at least an hour, so they took us off the plane.  About 45 minutes later they announced that the crazy little bird had cracked the nose of the airplane, the plane was not able to fly and would be going straight to the hangar.  So we had to get back onboard and collect our bags and hike to another gate where an airplane was supposedly heading to take us to Phoenix.  By this point, Jayden was so tired he had passed out in my arms.  We got back on, collected our bags and then began the hike.  Carmen was carrying a bunch of carry-ons and I was carrying my carry-on and 35 pounds of dead weight in my arms.  My arms were shaking halfway through but I'm stubborn and it made more sense to just keep going and get to the gate. 

We had clearly missed our connection at this point but there was nothing we could do except get to Phoenix and hope for the best.  So we got food and let Jayden run off some more energy outside the new gate.  The plane finally shows up and we get on.  I then realize I've somehow lost Baba, which is only Jayden's comfort stuffed animal.  It's somewhere either on the first airplane or in the lobby area outside of the new gate.  Such a bummer.  And definitely was the straw that broke the camel's back for me at the time.  It's so often the little things that create Mama guilt, and for me, all I felt was that I had "failed" Jayden by losing his most prized stuffed animal.  Luckily I had "aminal" with us, so that served as a substitute and Jayden didn't freak out at all (AND I had an extra Baba at home so once we got home everything was fine).

We landed in Phoenix and tried to get on the next (and last) plane to Santa Ana that night - amazingly the gate was right next door to where we landed.  Carmen did what he could, but there was no way all three of us were getting on the plane and it made no sense for one of us to go without the other two.  So at customer service we had the chance to get on a flight to LAX, but they wouldn't separate us from our luggage and they didn't think our luggage would make the plane.  So they booked us on the first flight out Monday morning and told us where we could stay.  We told them we needed our luggage since I had a total of two diapers left and very few snacks for Jayden. They told us it would be an hour but to go wait by baggage claim.  We did, and we waited for over an hour.  Finally I took our bag tags up to the luggage agent and had him look them up.  He said, "oh, you called for these bags?  because they were just offloaded in Santa Ana."  So.  Yeah.  That happened.  They're not allowed to purposely separate us from our luggage by putting us on a flight, but they are allowed to purposely separate use from our luggage by putting our luggage on a flight.  Whatever.  So we caught the shuttle to the hotel, and passed out. 

I am grateful that Jayden passed out in my arms again while Carmen was dealing with customer service, and he slept through everything, even the various transfers from arms to floor to car seat to shuttle to car seat to bed to crib and back to bed when the crib clearly wasn't going to cut it.  I wish I could sleep that heavily.

Asleep on the floor of the Phoenix airport while Carmen was dealing with customer service and I was setting up his carseat.

Back in his carseat.  Thank goodness he loves his carseat.

Monday morning we woke up just before 6 am to catch the shuttle back to the airport.  Carmen and I got up first, putting on the same clothes we'd been wearing for the last 24 hours - gross! - and then woke Jayden up at the last minute.  He woke up and said, "no, I tie-yewd. stiww dahk ow-side, I stiww sweep."  He fought us for a few minutes, saying he didn't want to be awake, he should still be sleeping, etc.  Finally he sort of woke up, rolled over, sat up, looked down and said "hey!  I have no pants!"  It was hilarious.  I had luckily brought a change of clothes on the flight, but had put him in just a t-shirt and diaper to sleep in so that his pants for the next day were somewhat clean.  The fact that he had no pants on was distressing that he did allow us to dress him and he eventually climbed into his carseat.  We made it the airport with plenty of time (the one benefit to not having our luggage was not having to re-check it Monday morning), made it on the plane, took off and landed in Santa Ana by 9:30 am.  And saw our luggage inside the locked luggage office.  Luckily we found someone to help us, we got our bags, and we were on our way.  Jayden, of course, passed out in the car on the way home.  I ended up waking him and getting him to Juju's to try to get him back on his regular schedule (and because I had a dentist appointment Monday afternoon).  But that was the longest east coast to west coast trip.  I am eternally grateful for Jayden and how much he loves traveling and airplanes and carts and trucks and anything else with wings or on wheels.  And how I honestly now believe all airports should be surrounded by scarecrows or other (gentle) anti-bird mechanisms.  But thank goodness we're home and sort of almost maybe back to normal.