No fitting title. . .

Brian's mom was in town for the last week which was great and JJ had a great time playing with her all week. The first night she was here, she volunteered to get up in the middle of the night with him when he wakes up, but I think she may have regretted it! JJ has been sleeping horribly the last few nights, including waking up every hour one night. Me not having to walk up the stairs in the middle of the night though was great : ) Tonight he's already woken up crying once already, so it should be a long night. Anyone else want to come visit?!?!!?

So, now to explain the title. As you all know, Brian is currently on deployment. In case you don't know, he's stationed on the USS Sterett. And, in case you don't know the significance of that, his ship was the one that was "shadowing" the hijacked American yacht that tragically ended in the Somali Pirates firing at Brian's ship, and missing, and then the pirates murdered the 4 Americans. I have heard from Brian very briefly a few times the last few days and he has been understandably upset. He has only said that he can't talk, not sure if he ever can ever tell me everything that happened, and that they are still planning to come home "on time." He said they still can't say where they're going or what they're currently doing, but that he should still be coming home in two months. It's been a really hard few days and we now count the days even more until he comes home safely.

Random updates -

JJ has become much better at using a spoon, so much fun for both of us : )

JJ comes out with random new words all the time, word of the week - "cheero" aka Cheerios

JJ can now reach the light switches. Unfortunately he can only reach to turn off the lights, so I guess we'll just be walking around in the dark until he grows another 1/4 inch : )

Oh, JJ . . .

New sunglasses : )

JJ and I are slowly but surely getting better. This week JJ's sleeping was a little better than last week, so that's at least a step in the right direction. I know he's still not feeling back to 100 percent though since last night he sat on the couch with me and played with his Little People Noah's Ark for almost 20 minutes. This "playing" consisted of him pulling all the animals out of the ark, then saying "momma, momma, momma" until I would put the animals back in, just to start the process all over again! What a great game : )

So JJ has been up to some fun new antics lately. A few days ago, I was getting dinner out of the freezer and while I was looking for what to eat, he started playing with a monkey that appeared to be frozen! Sure enough, he had pulled it out of the freezer. I have no idea how long it was in there! Then, as I started to close the freezer, he started yelling, "pappca" at me (aka pacifier). I looked in the freezer, but couldn't find the pacifier that he'd thrown in there. Since I couldn't find it and refuse to unload the whole freezer to find it, I guess we'll just find a frozen pacifier surprise one day : )

The last few days, JJ has been putting me back on my toes. I had baby-proofed the house for "Crawling JJ" and then for "Walking JJ," but now he's turning into climbing and "Have to be Higher JJ"!!! I was NOT prepared for this! A couple days ago I walked into the bathroom and found him standing on my laundry basket and playing in the sink. Then today, he was in the living room climbing from on top of his Duplo set to the side table, to the couch! Not sure why he now can't just get up on the couch like normal, but maybe the first time he falls he'll learn to go up the "normal" way again!!!

I've been having some parenting problems lately with him. He has been really good about not doing the "bad" things like running out into the street, touching the TV, going down the stairs by himself, etc. However, I don't know how to stop him from doing the annoying things like flailing his legs while he's on the changing table, drinking the bath water, pulling things off the counter, and putting things into the diaper pale. Most of the time, he does these things when I'm doing something that takes some attention away from him. Last night, when Brian called, JJ pulled a bag of avocados off the counter and started eating them. On Monday, when Katie called, he put his pacifier into the diaper pale, then started yelling and "telling" me about it! Soooo gross!!! I feel like these aren't punishable offenses, so I guess the repeated "no, no, no, please stop, stop it, please stop" will just continue on until I can pay 100 percent of my attention to him at every second we're together!

A good end to a rough week. . .

Some sunglasses he stole from a little girl : )

JJ and I are glad to be done with a rough week. We were both sick and are slowly getting better. Thursday night I was awoken to a horrible noise coming through the baby monitor. . . a barking seal! If anyone has heard this noise coming from a child before, they know what I'm talking about. I totally freaked out and JJ and I were up crying and coughing from about 12 am until 2:30 am. In the morning, I took him to the doctor and the doctor said he has a cold (I could have told him that) and croup. This is JJ's first time having croup, so it really scared me. He is getting a lot better though, which is good. I think we've gone through about 4 boxes of Kleenex this week! It's been really hard taking care of sick JJ and being sick myself, but we're pushing through.

This weekend, we went up to LA for Tristan's birthday party. Although we both aren't back to 100 percent yet, we couldn't miss a good party! It was an extra special weekend because we got to meet Michael and Krista's new foster son. He and JJ got along really well and it's so fun to have another boy in the family : )

JJ slept the whole way home from LA today, so he got a nice nap, but I was really tired when we got home. Luckily I got him to sit on the couch with me for about 1/2 an hour and watch the movie Babies with me, I thought it was a good pick on my part : )

Tonight he was really cranky and didn't even enjoy his bath, which is normally a huge hit. I finally got him calmed down to go to sleep, but as I was sneaking out of his room I got a text message and then kicked one of his musical toys! Disaster! I then had to go back and start all over and rock him to sleep, which I hadn't done in probably a year, but I'm being nice since he's sick. I can now hear him coughing already, so it might be another long night : (

A MUCH better weekend!

Giving Ashley a hug before we left : )

Enjoying the cookie I bribed him with to get him to go inside!

I guess I could have turned his chair. . .

So the JJ and I of this weekend were very different than JJ and I of last weekend. We actually had a really nice weekend with just the right amount of activity : )

Friday - I picked him up and we stopped by the Farmers Market and he did really well with only one attempt to escape in the parking lot. Then that night, we went out to dinner with our friends Erin and Andy and JJ's girlfriend, Avery. We went to this great Mexican restaurant that serves amazing free cheese sauce with the chips and salsa. JJ started by dipping his fingers in it, then chips, then crayons! Yep, he would take a crayon, dip it in the sauce and then lick it off! It probably wasn't the most sanitary thing, but we're just helping to build his immune system : ) It was a really good dinner and both the kids did great.

Saturday - We ran some errands in the morning, then JJ took a 2.5 hour nap!!! I was able to get lots of homework done, so it worked out really nicely. After that, we went up to our friends Chris and Renee's house to visit JJ's other girlfriend, Ashley. There were a couple other little boys to play with for awhile too, so all the kids had a great time (JJ was in pajamas right before we left since we stayed late, no, he didn't wear them the whole time we were there). He burned off a lot of energy, but apparently not enough since he slept horribly last night, but that's not a new occurrence.

Today - We went to church this morning, then JJ took a 2 hour nap! Once again, it was great and I was able to get lots more homework done. After his nap we went for a nice long walk and then he played outside on the playground for a long time. I finally had to bribe him with the promise of a cookie (they are Swedish ginger cookies that Brian sent to me and we both love) to get him to go back inside.

All-in-all, it was a great weekend. I think we're both getting adjusted to me being in school long hours and him playing with other kids all day long. Next weekend we head up to LA for Tristan's 4th Birthday party, so we're both looking forward to that : )

17 Months, Yesterday. . .

JJ is now 17 months old. He hasn't changed much in the last month, just lots more words and tantrums! He definitely thinks I should understand more than I do when he "talks" to me. I feel bad since he seems to get frustrated when I don't understand, but every day I understand more and more of his "words."

One new development was that last night he slept through the night! It was probably the second time in his life! He only woke up a few times crying/screaming but went back to sleep after only a few minutes and never sat or stood up and went back to sleep on his own. He finally "really" woke up at 5:15 am and unfortunately since he had slept so well all night, he decided that that was the time to get up for the day!!! I convinced him into cuddling with me for about an hour, but he/we never fell back asleep. If this is what sleeping through the night means, then I don't want it! I would rather get up 1 or 2 times during the night and sleep in until the alarm goes off!

JJ amazes me all the time at how much he understands and remembers. This morning I had the news on and they were showing the USS Reagan leaving for deployment with all the sailors manning their posts. JJ pointed at the TV all excited and yelling "dadda, dadda, dadda"!!! I, of course, immediately started crying and telling JJ that no, that wasn't him, but would be in a few months.

It's finally Sunday night!

It has been a very long weekend for JJ and I and I think we are both happy it's now over! Let me preface this post with two items -

1. I love JJ very much and feel very happy and blessed to have him in my life

2. He has been obsessed with trains ever since he played with Elijah's train set a few weeks ago up in Washington

So, with that out of the way I'll give you a re-cap of our weekend. . .

Friday - JJ spent the day at "daycare" while I was at school. It was a very long and stressful week for both of us. When I picked him up, I found out that JJ's new little girlfriend had woken him up early from his nap because she wanted him to be up and playing! After that, we went on base to run some errands and he was being crazy. We were going into the store and he was sitting in a "normal" cart and he saw the fancy kids car cart so he started crying and screaming until I switched him into the car cart. Then in the car cart, he could reach the groceries so he kept throwing them out of the cart!

When we finally got home from the nightmare experience, he was refusing to walk up the stairs. My hands were full of groceries and he was flailing around on the stairs. I was literally dragging him up the stairs with him screaming, me swearing in my head, both of us in tears! At this point, I decided postpartum depression was setting in, but Krista confirmed it's just exhaustion handling a toddler by myself with Brian being gone for 100 days (yep, we've hit the 100 day mark)! After lots of "fighting" I put him to bed early : )

Saturday - We went up to LA for my friend Mary's son Riley's baptism. The baptism was really nice and JJ did well, the reception after was another story! The reception was in the pool area at their townhouse complex. I spent approximately 90% of the 2.5 hours chasing JJ around the outside of the pool trying to get him to not go into the pool. We only had 2 mishaps, 1 with JJ getting his whole foot/shoe into the pool, the second was him throwing a tantrum on the side of the pool which almost resulted in him flailing himself into the pool which was probably his goal! I was unable to get any photos during the day because I was too afraid to even attempt to get my camera out due to fear that that would be the opportunity he was waiting for to get into the pool! He did sit for about 10 minutes and "let" me eat a quick lunch while he was playing with a train that he had stolen from another kid.

Sunday - JJ had a really rough nights sleep, but then he ended up "sleeping in" until 7:45. We had a pretty relaxed morning sitting around and lazily getting ready for church. During this, I told him we could go buy him a train and started looking at some online. He thought I meant we were going to buy one right then, so he got his shoes, went to the door and kept saying, "choo choo." I tried to explain that we had to first go to church, then the zoo, then go buy a train, but he didn't seem to understand that we would eventually get one, so he threw a HUGE tantrum!

I finally convinced him to go to church, then after church we went to the zoo with my aunt Thema who's in town. JJ really enjoyed the bus tour and kept leaning out of the bus to get a closer look. After the bus, we went to the petting zoo. JJ was having a very good time until he got into a goat encounter! He was just walking along when a goat came charging across the pen and ran straight into him! JJ went flying and landed on his stomach. He immediately started crying with "real" tears. After picking him up, consoling him, and cleaning him up, he was finally ok with walking around on his own again, but every time he went up to a goat, he started crying. I'm afraid that he's been scarred permanently and will forever be afraid of goats!

After the zoo, we went to Target and got a train. After we picked it out, he kept screaming "choo choo" and wanted to open it. He really didn't understand the concept of paying for something before we could play with it. Lots of crying and screaming and "choo choo-ing" ended in JJ falling asleep in the car on the way home.

Weekend round-up equals lots of crying, screaming, tantrums, but eventually surviving! The next 82 days until Brian comes home couldn't go fast enough!

Random . . .

JJ's truck taking a "drive" in the refrigerator

JJ "helping" with the dishes, notice his truck is in the tray next to his hand!

Tristan running the bases in t-ball. He's the one in the hat : )

Right before Tristan kicked JJ off the baseball field because JJ's not big enough to play baseball, per Tristan : )

JJ and I have had a pretty eventful month. Since coming back from Washington, my mom came to visit and we went up to LA for the weekend. The boys did pretty well together and since it's been so nice we were able to be outside most of the weekend, which really helps!

Yesterday, I started school. It was really hard since I've been with JJ for about the last month and now I don't get to hang out with him all day anymore : ( It was also hard since the lady that had been watching him decided to get a "real" job so JJ started his new "daycare" yesterday. A friend/navy wife will be watching him for the next few months. She has 3 kids and we've been over there a few times so he is comfortable with them, which really helped. Yesterday after I picked him up, he was exhausted from a big day of playing, but seemed to be happy that I was there to get him. Today, he gave me a hug right when I walked in, but then threw a huge tantrum when I said it was time to leave! I guess it's good that he's having fun!

JJ randomly comes out with new words these days and his current new word is "cool." It's pretty funny, but I like that he says I'm "cool" : ) He's also been saying "no" a lot lately. It's fun when he uses it correctly as an answer to a question, i.e., Me - "JJ, do you want to go take a nap" JJ - "no"! It's not as funny when he is intentionally doing something he shouldn't and telling me about it, i.e., last night while I was doing laundry he walked in and started turning the dial on the washing machine saying, "no, no, no, no" the whole time he was doing it!!! It's so annoying and cute!

We hit one HUGE milestone this week - we're now more than half way through Brian's deployment!!! We're finally into a "real" countdown and very happy about it : )