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She fell asleep right before we got here. Poor baby!

I decided yesterday afternoon that we would leave and spend the night in Gilroy and do a little outlet shopping while here. This is our continental breakfast at the hotel!

Jordan is really struggling right now with her transition from being a baby into being a big girl. Most of her friends, and the other kids at Gymboree are going through the “I do it myself” stage, but not Jordan. She is reverting hardcore. She wants to be swaddled, rocked, held, fed, etc. She does have her moments of “I dress myself! I pick my clothes!” etc, but I would say most of the time she says “I’m a baby.” or I guess more often “Jordan’s a baby”. If I tell her she’s a big girl, she starts crying and says “No! I Baby!!!” So even though she sleeps in a big girl bed, can dress herself, feed herself, brush her own teeth, she’s a baby. Makes me glad that we don’t have “another one” yet, as I’m really not sure what I would do if I had 2 “babies” to care for. Hopefully she will grow out of this stage soon, but in the mean time there are days when I’m holding a swaddled 2 year old for almost an hour at a time. Thank heaven she’s only 22 pounds! No I’m not exaggerating! She still tops the scale at 22 pounds, 3 oz. She’s been at 22 since 18 months-ish. At least she’s eating- sort of.

I have some pictures I took on my camera of the Aquarium trip that I will try to upload soon. Also Mike took some pictures of Abby’s birthday party last Saturday, and I took some on our trip to Disneyland last Wed. I’ve been keeping busy with school work, but so far so good. We are into the 6th week of our 8 week class, and so far I have 100% still! I know it won’t last, but I’m feeling pretty good about it so far. Our final project is worth 35% of our grade, so I don’t expect to get 100% on that one.
I’ve also decided to cut some hours at Gymboree. It’s just getting too stressful. So I’m keeping my same schedule through October, and then dropping Saturdays once November comes. I’ll still be teaching Baby Signs there through Nov 22. I am also trying to get my own private business going for Baby Signs. I’m hoping to teach a session of it before I head to Kentucky for my extended Christmas break. Then when I come back I’ll get into full-swing. Well, it’s time to get ready to take Jordan to Gymboree!

Yesterday while Mike was at work, Jordan decided she wanted to try on her Halloween costume. I said okay, and got out the camera. It was quite the photo shoot! She was being such a little ham that I got out the video camera and got some great footage. Here are some highlights:

This was the last picture taken. The End.

We have been home since Saturday (except for me working last night) with poor Jordan who has not been feeling well. Her poor little nose is stuffed up, or running alternately. She has however gotten very good at blowing her nose, and taking only one tissue out of the box. She’s also better at wiping her own nose, but she still needs help sometimes. Mike was drilling her on her letters this morning, and she knows her uppercase letters quite well. She couldn’t remember Q or X, and maybe one other, but it could have been the way they were written. I’m starting to add lower case letters to the mix now, and she’s doing okay with those. I was quite impressed when I asked her where a lower case b was on a page with all mixed up letter,s and she pointed right at it without hesitation! She can also draw “O”, “U”, and “C”, though sometimes U and C aren’t perfect. And O has a tail at times, but she gets the concept at least. I think we’ll add the sounds that the letters make soon, since she is so interested in how words are spelled. I would love to get her reading early. I went to my first practicum experience for my Master’s last week, and was shocked by the students who couldn’t recognize more than 3 letters. It was a kindergarten class, and some of them speak only Spanish at home, but they should at least know the names of the letters in Spanish I would think! It’s not like Chinese or another language with a completely different set of symbols. Anyway, I go to my second day of kindergarten tomorrow, just for a couple hours, then next Monday it will be my Title One school in 4th grade. Whee! Well, back to the books, just wanted to update on the family.

Our quick trip to Kentucky went quite well, though too fast for my taste. We decided to try a new airline as I have been disappointed to say the least with the past few carriers we have used. And I am pleased to report that Continental is a winner! The trip to Kentucky was better than the trip back, but still a good experience nonetheless. We flew through Houston this time, which made for a 3 hour flight followed by a 2 hour flight. Jordan, being 2 had to have her own seat, but we had actually purchased a seat for her the last Kentucky trip due to the wiggle factor. I am used to flying only around Christmas, so a flight in the middle of August was quite a nice change. The airport personnel were actually nice, and patient with a harried mother of a two year old traveling alone. I went through a special line through security which allowed to to keep my Smarte Carte(my best friend for this trip!) all the way to the gate, our gate was right across from McDonald’s, which allowed us breakfast before we got on the plane. We checked the car seat this time, as I recently bought a “CARES” restraint system. They are pricey, but they are SOO much easier than a car seat, and still give the extra security of a harness for a little one. Jordan is so small that it’s almost too big for her, but that at least lets me know that she’ll be able to use it for a long time. It took less than 2 minutes to install the first time, and takes seconds to remove. Jordan seemed to enjoy it.

The first flight was the long one, and she did quite well. She was a little nervous about the turbulence, but I kept telling her it was just the clouds that were a little bumpy, so then every time she felt a bump she would say “Bumpy clouds”. Her ears bothered her a little bit, but sucking on a tic tac seemed to help. Those were also a wonderful “bribe” for good behavior. Every time I promised a tic tac, she would stop her “fake” crying, and be good. Her crying was real in the fact that she was upset, but it was fake in that it would stop within seconds of the promise of a tic tac. She did great on the 2 1/2 hour layover in Houston, and even sat down in the food court and ate 3 1/2 chicken nuggets and a couple french fries. Oh- and they served us BREAKFAST on the plane! For free! I haven’t gotten “real” food (other than a package of pretzels) on a plane in a looong-o time. They served honey nut Cherrios on the first flight with a little milk, and a large box of raisins. Jordan and I both ate the Cheerios, I drank the extra milk, and we left the raisins as neither of us are fans. The second flight they served a turkey sandwich on a little deli roll, a normal sized bag of potato chips, and a mini Twix bar! I was quite impressed. Jordan didn’t eat anything on the second flight because she pretty much slept through the whole thing.

We arrived in Louisville about 25 minutes early, went down to baggage claim, and our suitcase and car seat were right together coming around the carrousel. I picked them up, loaded them on my beloved Smarte Carte, and picked up the rental car. I decided to take the car seat from Mike’s car as it was the cheaper one, and I didn’t want anything to happen to our Britax, but I’ve never installed this one. I’ve also never driven a Dodge Caliber. It took me around 45 minutes in the Louisville humidity to get the car seat installed to where I felt like we could actually leave. My brother tightened it when we saw him the next day. While I was installing it, I put Jordan in the front seat so she wouldn’t be running in the street, or getting smushed by the car seat, and she managed to locate the lights and turn them on, the wipers AND the wiper fluid, and turn both of those on, the turn signals and the emergency flashers. Oh- and the door locks. Thankfully the windows were rolled down, so I could get back in. Anyway, we stayed a a nice hotel fairly close to both the airport and my grandmother’s house in a HUGE king sized bed. It was quite nice. Jordan slept pretty much in the middle of the bed, and never fell out! When we arrived we were hungry as it was dinner time in CA, so we headed to KFC and got mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and mac and cheese. Jordan ate quite a bit of mashed potatoes, and mac and cheese and then really surprised me by taking my corn after I’d only gotten a few bites, and pretty much ate the rest of the cob! I pretty much kept her on California time while we were gone, so we would go to sleep at the same time, but she would sleep later. The next day we took a trip to Target to get some juice and water and other things we forgot/wanted. After that we headed to Geen’s 90th birthday party at Austin’s, and I got a yummy hot brown! Jordan “ate” chicken fingers and “tasted” some apple sauce. She has been very difficult to feed lately. She would rather do anything than eat, and won’t eat the foods she should to keep her tummy happy. Jordan greatly enjoyed sitting with Emery in his chair

and chasing Mallory around, who is pretty much the same size as Jordan, but she’s a tad heavier, and a bit shorter.

Anyway, the party was quite fun

After the party we headed back to Geen’s house where the kids got to play a bit, and Geen opened her presents.

We gave Geen a Shutterfly book of Jordan’s birthday party

Jordan didn’t get a nap, so she was a bit tired.

Evidently so was Uncle Clifton

Jordan kept trying to hold Mallory’s hand

Then we headed to Fazoli’s for dinner and cake!
Mallory enjoyed the cake

The kids enjoyed dancing with G-pa

And Jordan got all the kids to dance with her

Here’s the cake:

The next day we went to Dairy Queen for lunch with Geen and Gigi. Jordan seemed to enjoy herself there, and we stayed for quite a while! She was drawing in a notebook, practicing letters with Gigi, and drawing with Geen.

Our trip back was fairly uneventful except that my suitcase was overweight, so I had to repack it, then had more to carry on. She was also very cranky on the plane as she hadn’t used the potty since the Thursday before we left. She still hasn’t gone, and I’ve called the doctor and am waiting for instructions. I know she’s uncomfortable, but she refuses to “let it out”. I keep telling her she will feel better when she goes, but she doesn’t believe me. *sigh* I’m hoping to get this all straightened out soon so we can get back to potty training.

I’m going to be posting a BUNCH of posts within (hopefully) the next week or so to catch up all the pictures, and goings-on! I’m currently trying to upload the RIDICULOUS amount of pictures that I’ve taken in the past month. Yes, I am a month behind with uploading! I have finally downloaded Gallery Remote for the Mac, so I can do it here on my laptop instead of my desktop, and I have figured out how to edit pictures in iPhoto as well. Hopefully now I’ll be able to get photos posted within a few days of taking them rather than a month later! Anyway- I’ll be highlighting pictures/events with individual posts so they are easier to find. I’m not sure if I’ll backdate them or not- probably not at first, so they can be seen. Anyway since it will take forever to get to Jordan’s b-day party post- it went very well. So much fun, and Jordan was such a good girl!