I’ve moved

As mentioned in last night’s post, I have decided to move out of the WordPress site because it has been so sloooooooooooow and annoying. To post anything take eons and I don’t have that much time, not to mention the new dashboard just doesn’t work with my browser.  Anyhow – I’m sure it works for most folks but it’s killing me. Hopefully the new setup (which is still hosted by WordPress, but now on my own website) will work out better.

So here’s the link to the new location; if you have this blog bookmarked please don’t forget to update your bookmarks to the new link. 

http://www.pescetarian.com/jadensjourney

Everything was migrated over to the new web page except for Grandma Di’s last comment, which was posted after I exported the blog to the new site (sorry!). There is also one other glitch I’m working out, and that is that the links to the pictures on slideshow did not transfer properly. I’ll get that fixed asap; in the meantime the pics are still available here!

The last day.

I wrote this last night, but somehow it didn’t get published when I clicked on “publish” so here it is now, a day later than it should have been. (Now I’m really going to look into moving to another blog host.)

Today is my last day in class. It is finals week and I am giving my last final. Of course you already know my work is just starting. I wrote all about that in a previous post. The beauty of it all, though, is that I don’t have to think about teaching another class or commuting to campus for another whole semester. Woohoo!! 

I’m seriously considering moving this blog from wordpress to one of the other blog sites. WordPress has been locking up on me lately, which is partly why I haven’t written that much. If I only have a few minutes, and I waste them waiting for the (fill in your choice word) page to load, then I can’t write anything. I looked into it and it seems the only way they can speed things up for me is if I allow them to store stuff on my computer. I’m not so sure about that whole idea. I know about cookies and all that, but this gadget they want to use to store stuff is totally foreign to me. I am so unfamiliar with it that I’ve already forgotten the name of it.

If I do move I’ll post the new blog site here, of course. I’m up for suggestions on names for the site, since “jadens journey” is already taken on the ‘other’ popular blog space. I could write in Facebook, but the integrity of that site is questionable, IMHO. I also have a website I have owned for ages now and never used. I could go there. Hmmmm… that’s a thought. 

In the meantime…. Jaden, Neville and I are all doing well. We’re counting down the last days before Christmas in which we have to do most of our shopping; I’m sure many of you are in the same boat. Jaden said “UP” again today. I was shocked, especially after he hadn’t said it since the last time he spoke it (which was when??? My days are all running together). He was watching Elmo while I was feeding him his dinner and decided he’d surprise me with one more utterance of ‘up’. I wonder what his next word will be. Probably “Elmo.”

I got a great picture of him today trying to operate the buttons on the DVD player. We have a temporary set-up with the old TV and DVD player on the coffee table so that we can play DVD’s for his majesty until we have the new set finally hooked up properly (long story). Anyhow – we still have to have our usual sea of items in front of the TV and DVD player so that he can’t get to them — which isn’t easy since he’s clever enough to get around most anything. Today he made an almost successful attempt.  He has the ’super-seat’ which is basically a three in one booster seat/support seat/entertainment center. In this particular attempt to get close to the TV he decided he would try to bypass the super seat by climbing into it – backwards. Mind you, it wasn’t opened for him to get in it in the normal sit down in the super-seat way. He had to climb over the toys and into the seat. So here he is backwards in the seat reaching for the VCR buttons. I’ll have to insert the picture from home since it’s on the other computer.

 We’re looking forward to our trip to Arizona. We leave a couple of days after Christmas. We planned this a year ago, primarily because it is difficult to get reservations at this resort during the holidays, and they only reserve one year in advance. I think Neville called the day after Christmas last year. Anyhow, we haven’t been there in a few years because one thing or another came up every time we had wanted to go. I remember wondering last year when we made the reservation whether we’d have Jaden traveling with us or not. I’m so glad it worked out that we do. I cannot believe it was nearly 2 years ago that we started the adoption process.

In preparation for AZ, Neville has been walking Jaden around the house in his really cool backpack that’ll hold Jaden until he’s 55 lbs. (Can you imagine having a 55 lb kid on your back?) Jaden is loving it. Neville does some things around the house Our floors have been vacuumed more in the past two weeks than they had been the entire time since Jaden came home… so it’s great for me too.

So how many kids get to travel from Asia to the U.S. and then across the country for vacation before their 1st birthday? Speaking of which, Jaden’s birthday will occur while we’re in AZ (I almost wrote Korea – yikes) – so we’ll have to have another little gathering when we get back from vacation. 

Well, I have digressed enough in this post so I should sign off before it gets even more discombobulated. Happy holidays everyone!!!!!

Happy Holidays!!

It’s hard to believe that it is nearly the end of the semester. Finals week is next week…YAY!!! I have a lot to do before Christmas in order to get the grades done and rolled up, but I cannot wait for that moment that I click “send” on the grade entry page to submit my last set of grades!!!

Then I can start my Christmas shopping, because – oh yes, it would not be your average holiday season if I didn’t leave Christmas shopping until December 20th or later.

A lot has been happening here at the Neville, Luna and Jaden residence. According to Neville, Jaden took a couple of steps today before realizing that he forgot to hold onto something. I was upstairs, so I missed it – boohoo. Jaden has been testing the waters for a while now – he’ll hold on to me to walk and then let go with both hands to see if he can stand up or not (at least that is what I’m assuming is going through his little yet intelligent mind). He’s been standing up on his own for up to about 4 or 5 seconds before he plops his bum down on the ground or does a face plant. Any day now he’ll start running across the room to remind us that we still have baby-proofing to do.

We got the new TV – which is sweeeeet, but we haven’t been able to pick up the HD cable box yet, nor have we had the soundbar/dvd player installed (we’re going to hang it on the wall). So now, instead of having one TV to worry about, we have two. The new one is fenced in with a Super-yard, and the old one is on the coffee table with the VCR hooked up to it (we can’t live without Elmo DVD’s) and all of the bulkiest toys surrounding it to keep smarty-pants away from it. 

We had another word come out- he said “up” while watching the “Opposites” Elmo’s World DVD — which, as you probably already guessed, does a skit on ‘up’ and ‘down’. Grandma was here at the time, and we both looked at each other when he said it like– ‘did he just say up?’  So we didn’t want to assume he was saying up (even though he said it twice more before the DVD was over), until the next morning. When he woke up the next morning I went through my usual routine of taking him out of the crib, bringing him into my closet and putting him on the floor to wait for me while I get dressed. When I picked him back up, he said “up” —most definitely. I was amazed, and thrilled, and proud, and excited all at once. Wow – I couldn’t wait to hear him say it again!! I brought him right downstairs and told Grandma and Grandpa (who were staying for the weekend) what happened. We waited for him to say it again……

Well, that was it. The last time he said it. It’s like “mama.” He said it over and over for about a week and a half, then one day just stopped. The same thing with the ASL sign for “more.” He practiced and practiced, and then we never saw it again. So now we wait for him to do any of these things again. Maybe he figures he got it down, so why bother with it anymore when there are so many other things to learn? Who knows.

Last weekend we went to JC Penney in Meriden to have Jaden’s picture taken for the holidays. What a waste of time that was. Jaden didn’t want to sit alone for the picture, so you would think the photographer would have a few tricks up his sleeve to get Jaden to smile even if only briefly, but no. This guy was Mr. Personality himself. Seems like the photographers there get paid by the hour (not by the photo sold) so they don’t care whether they take a good photo or not. The photographer said “this isn’t going to work” and that was it. We left. Zero pictures.

We went home and set up some ‘gifts’ and other holiday-looking items near the fireplace and took pictures ourselves. There was only one problem; Jaden wouldn’t smile. No matter what we did. Well, it was no wonder. The poor baby was covered in hives from his neck down to his ankles. We still haven’t figured out for sure what did it; I suspect barley or egg whites (both of which I gave him recently–accidentally— for the first time) –  but the doctor said that the most common cause of hives in infants is a cold and congestion. How odd. Who would ever have guessed that one?  I’m still banking on the barley and/or egg whites, since they are two of the most allergenic foods in infants. 

I’d better start blogging more often so I can remember what I’ve written and haven’t written about yet. The brain starts to lose track when too much time passes by unnoticed.

How much is too much?

Jaden and I have our schedules relatively ironed out now. He gets up shortly after Daddy, and heads to the kitchen so that Daddy can start to feed him his oatmeal. He patiently waits for me to groggily creep out of bed and actually manage to get the spoon in his mouth a few times instead of adding to the mess all over his face. After breakfast we go through our day alternating with feedings and diaper changes, bottles and naps, more diaper changes and feedings, and of course, Elmo. In between we fit in some songs (itsy bitsy spider and old macdonald are two of our favorites), a few hundred rounds of “patty cake,” and the “where is?” game….where is the apple? …where is Mommy’s nose?… where is Elmo? (We always get the Elmo one right). 

We are all trying to get over being sick. For some reason this particular cold, or virus, or whatever it is, has taken us all for a longer ride than usual. Jaden has been sick for almost two weeks. I got it a few days later, but it is still over a week now that I have symptoms. I felt well enough this morning that I thought I was finally clearing out of it, but by mid-afternoon I wanted to down an entire bottle of Day-Quil to stop my eye from gushing and my nose from running. Jaden is fed up with us trying to clean his nose out – he screams so loud when we approach him with a tissue or the bulb that I’m sure the neighbors think we’re torturing him. 

The night terrors have stopped for the past few days – I have my fingers crossed hoping that it is a sign of the future. We had a few scares last week, including terrors during nap hour – which is highly unusual. Maybe being sick made him more susceptible than usual. The past two nights were good sleep nights – knock on wood – I hope we have many more just like these. 

I have discovered this week that as long as Elmo is rambling on about his World on the TV, Jaden is perfectly happy occupying himself. He’ll play with his toys, look through his board books, try to get “Tickle me Elmo” to roll over, and whatever else he can find to do while he keeps one eye on the TV. If Elmo is not on, he expects me to entertain him minute by minute, which includes never leaving the room, not even to use the bathroom. So I try to save Elmo for the afternoon, when Mommy has had about as much of patty-cake as she can take and needs a moment to put her feet up and ponder about whether she’ll actually get any work done.

The big question on my mind right now: Why do I feel guilty about leaving the TV on for Jaden? I’ve heard about all of those statistics – you know the ones that people talk about but no one provides actual references for – that say the more a kid watches TV the less intellectually and socially developed they end up. I wonder if this is true? Doesn’t it make a difference that most of the TV shows for kids nowadays are educational? Maybe “they” haven’t tested the kids that grew up with the educational shows yet? I mean, Noggin or Sprout, or one of those stations actually does a 10 second (or so) bit before each show telling parents what skills the show helps their pre-schoolers develop (obviously it doesn’t help parents with their memories since I don’t remember which station it was). So this type of TV couldn’t be that bad, right? Or am I just kidding myself?  

If anyone has tips and tricks about how to keep an 11-month old entertained, without dulling his mind with television or losing your own mind, I’m all ears!