A to -and -fro kind of weekend

This weekend saw us in the car everyday, for hours, starting Thursday night. Pete got us tickets to see DMB at Deercreek. It was a wonderful, thoughtful, and generous gift, but as is the case with men, sometimes, the execution of said gift wasn't fully thought out. We have Jack and so the first question that came to my mind was, "What are we going to do with Jack?" Pete responded, "Take him with us." Yes so as you can see right away that men and women do not think alike at all. After quite a bit of discussion, frustration, and many alternate plans it was decided that we would just have to drive to Granny's house on Thursday. The concert was Friday night so Friday afternoon Pete and I got in the car and drove back up to Indy. We ate a early dinner at Harry and Izzys. Then drove to Deer Creek to watch Dave. We had a great time and noticed the huge age gap among the audience goers. Either you were 18 or you were not. We came to the conclusion that to go to a Dave concert in college must be a rite of passage. As we were in the not 18 group we were part of the older minority, but what singled us out the most was the fact that we were probably the only two people who were not drunk. So the concert was fun and the people surrounding us were just as amusing.

The next morning after breakfast we drove into Louisville to eat lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, mostly because of the green chili wantons, the Bristol. Then we headed on to Lexington to watch Danny and Jon play in the Bluegrass State Games. Then it was back to Granny's. We learned that Pappy and Luke were having travel troubles getting out of Haiti so we were all a bit tense since we had no way to communicate with them. Sunday after church Pete and Danny were playing frisbee when Pete fell and maybe sprained his ankle. He couldn't get up or put weight on it for quite some time. Once inside it started to swell some and my grin and bear it-never takes any medicine for pain husband- took some pain medicine. I knew it must be bad. Luckily, his mom had an ankle brace in the house to help him out some. We left shortly after that. I drove 2 hours and Pete drove 3. This is also a big deal because I am not ever allowed to drive the long distance drives-- I think my driving scares him a bit. :P It wasn't until we were back home that we learned that Pappy and Luke were safe in Miami. Pete went off to study and as soon as Jack was asleep I went to sleep. I haven't been that tired in a long long time.

So a quick note about the pictures- Jack and I eat breakfast at Einstein's Bagels pretty often and the table in the back has I Love Becky scratched into the table. Well I saw it this morning and thought that even though this weekend was tough, and I still could use some sleep and/or caffeine, the whole inspiration behind this weekend was exactly what that table says.

* In trying to go back and find said I Love Becky table carving picture a couple years later- I could not so it is not really on here.* The second picture is of Jack at the BGSG where he loved playing with the cars. We also saw a couple more boo-boos Jack had acquired while we were away. One was a slightly busted lip from trying to do something with Tigran under a table and the other was a cut on the head from the corner of the ping pong table. I told you that kid is always getting hurt or into something. He can never go a day without some scar of the day on his body.

The last picture is just of Jack standing on the dvds trying to turn up the music so he can dance up there. That only lasted a few minutes and then he used that position to lecture to Tigran-- using his hands to show he means business.

head banger

So The close up picture of Jack's face is just a snapshot into our life at the moment. I stay home with Jack all day, and every day this kid ends up with some sort of scratch, scrape, or bruise of some sort, and I have NO idea how!! He ends up falling, tripping, tumbling, or something on everything lately. People must think I am a horrible parent. They say, " So what what happened to him?" I respond, "I have no idea." They just sort of look at me and go, " Oh, I guess that happens." Of course it happens-- he is almost 1.5 yrs. Come on people don't you remember when your son was that age?

Jack has also become our little head banger lately. When you tell Jack no or when he can't quite figure something out, he goes to our door and bangs his head against it a few times, then he shifts to the closet door and bangs his head. After he finishes he just looks at me like--see what I did, doesn't that hurt you? It reminds me of my sister, Mary. In my house growing up, we had this brick wall, and Mary would always bang her head on that the brick wall-she constantly had huge knots on her forehead. The doctor told my mother it was just a phase and she would grow out it, and eventually she did. I keep telling myself that, but it is still tough. Pete tells me to ignore it because Jack is doing it to get my attention and/or a rise out of me. I was doing ok at ignoring it until he started doing it on our glass coffee table--I really don't want him to get a huge glass splinter stuck in his head.

The next picture is of Elsie and Jack. If ever a kid loved and adored another kid--- Jack LOVES Elsie. He follows her, he obviously tries to impress her or does what she is doing in order to gather favorable opinion, and no matter what she is doing he smiles or laughs--hard. He has even started sucking up to her mom just so he can be near her. I think, on occasion, Tamri gets more hugs than I do. Elsie is a girl who wants her space and isn't a big fan of the overt crush-- she often pushes Jack out of the way and tells him NO! Jack doesn't quite grasp this and he comes right back for more. I can tell the next few years-- ok now until he is married-- will be quite a time.

A Few Random Things

Pete and I had our 3 year anniversary on July 2nd.  We dropped Jack off with our friends-Mark, Tamri, and their daughter Elsie-and we headed off to dinner.  We were dressed up to the nines and headed to this restaurant that we knew very little about.  Once there we noticed tons of people in jean shorts, there was no hostess, and there were babies-- not a good sign.  After waiting for a minute or so a very sweaty man showed us to our seats.  We sat there and waited and waited and waited- no waitress showed up so we left.  So we walked to the restaurant we knew we liked, but once we got there we noticed a sign saying it was closed until July 6th.  So we walked to another place, once there we noticed they had big screen tvs- again not what we had in mind.  We were running out of places to try, Lafayette isn't very large after all.  So we finally tried one more place - Maize American Grill.   It ended up being very good.  

Jack is in love with Elsie-- he follows her around like a puppy dog.  Apparently he couldn't stop kissing her while Pete and I were on our date.  He has started hugging her constantly and invading her personal space.  Sometimes she doesn't mind, but mostly she is very aggravated that he won't stop touching her.  He gives her all of his toys and tries to just sit next to her no matter what. I don't think he understands the concept of playing hard to get or acting macho to impress girls.  He just wants to give her what she wants and be near her-- hmmm- I am not sure what this means for the future.  As far as their "make-out" session we warned him that this is fine for now but in a couple years he shouldn't be surprised to see Mark waiting with a shotgun.  

I've been toying with the idea of expanding our family.  It is something I have been going back and forth with for awhile now.  Just when I would decide yes we should something inside me said no not now wait, and then things would go back in the other direction.  About three weeks ago we decided to go for it-- however--I just got my period.  Now I am sorry if this is entirely too much information, but it does affect things.  I am not someone who ovulates on a regular basis so the very fact that 3 weeks ago I made this decision and then I get my period means I decided at the correct time to try and expand our family but somehow or another it just didn't work out. I was quite devastated.  The last time I ovulated was in November-that was 8 months ago.  Who knows when it will happen again--it is very disheartening.   Pete tells me to remember that we have never had any control over this process, and we have been clearly shown that time and again.  He told me to trust that God knows when it will be best for us to have another baby and when it is time he will bless us with another pregnancy.  This I know but it is still hard.

Cocoa Beach time

Jack and I went to Cocoa Beach, FL last week-- we had a blast! This was Jack's first plane ride and it went very well overall. We had to switch planes in Cincinnati both ways, but Jack handled it like a pro, he loved seeing all the planes, trucks, and buses on the tarmac. Originally we thought Pete wouldn't be able to come, but it turned out he was able to sneak away from classes, grading, and school late Wednesday night and stayed until Sunday morning-- that was a great surprise and treat!!! Jack really needed his dad to help him sleep because when daddy wasn't there sleeping was a big headache. I was able to buy a camera and ended up taking 173 pictures, of course I couldn't put them all on here, so there are many more on our shutterfly website. I will probably do one more blog adding a couple more pictures just so you get a better idea of all the fun we had, I could only add 5 on here and that didn't seem quite enough-- I wanted to add at least 8.



In FL we had the opportunity to see my cousin Erin and her baby- Isaac. Jack LOVED Isaac!! He was so excited- he held his hand, gave him a million hugs, gave him his very first kiss, and in the car when Isaac was crying Jack sang to him--it was so cute!!


Jack loved running on the beach- it was pretty funny because even though his arms were moving fast his legs weren't.



This was on daddy's last day- Jack went to the beach to collect shells. It was so much fun. Jack even had the opportunity to run around naked.



Daddy and Danny were burying Jack's legs in the sand. He wasn't real sure how to feel about this.


Granny and Pappy taught Jack to fill up buckets with sand and water, to pat down the sand, and to make little sand castles.

Tag

Our camera is busted-- yes broken.  I took it to the pool with hopes of getting pictures of Jack with Lydia and Elsie but it didn't pan out.  During break we drank water out of the water bottle but apparently did not close the lid all the way, and when leaving I noticed everything in the bag was wet--that included phone and camera.  I turned the camera on at the pool and it worked so I thought great--yay!!  I then padded the bottom with towels and put the rest on top, but once home I tried to take a picture and nothing.  I charged the battery and nothing, I opened all the compartments I could open to let it air dry- and nothing, I ordered a new battery and nothing, and so I had to resign myself to the fact that the camera I bought in October was in fact busted.  I was devastated.  We are poor college students again and we made a decision to get a nice-ish camera in October, but now it won't even turn on!!!  I am heart-broken.  

Jack had tubes put in Tuesday-- things went very well.  Jack was given two new toys--so fun!  He got a toy stethoscope from the nurses taking his blood pressure and then the anesthesia nurse gave him a plastic snake--so fun!!  We were told that when he woke up he would be cranky and crying-so we were prepared for this child who was screaming his head off, but we weren't prepared for an angry baby.  We offered him his cup, which he took and brought to his mouth, only to have him bring back like a football behind his head and launch it across the room.  Then in the elevator he reached out for his cup, so I gave it to him, the exact same thing happened again.  It was so funny.  I couldn't help but laugh. 

Reading-- a contact sport

While I shouldn't be writing or using the computer now I just can't sleep and at the moment I am not in pain, so I thought I would share the story of my Friday the 13th.

poker chips

Jack really likes putting poker chips in his plane


He didn't realize he wouldn't be able to get them out



After he stopped crying I made him come in- he still wasn't too happy


Then he climbed into his toy box and remembered he had a truck on his shirt so life was good again.