A Crazy Morning

This morning was one of those times when I felt I had gone back to our days in Bulgaria. I felt lost, was forced to make sense of public transportation and I had to run around like a crazy person to get somewhere on time.

Just last week we started to make the transition to one nap with Jesse, so I thought it would be nice to get out and enjoy our long chunk of time in the morning. Today was the last free day at the Shedd Aquarium until June, so I also thought it was a good opportunity to take advantage of that. Plus, I thought Jesse would be fascinated by all the fish and turtles and other underwater creatures.

Jesse and I headed out this morning about 8:20, making a quick trip by our car to grab the umbrella stroller before we went to the Metra station. We bought our ticket and made it to the platform with about 5 minutes to spare. It's a bit challenging to get on the train with a stroller and then get your baby out of the stroller and fold it up all by yourself, but we managed to do it without making a big scene. Within 10 minutes we were on the Museum Campus and we waited in a short line to get our free tickets. We walked around and saw most of the free exhibits, and we stopped by the Caribbean Reef for me to give Jesse his morning yogurt.

I had planned on us spending 45 minutes to an hour in the aquarium, so at about 5 till 10 I decided we ought to head back to the station to buy our return ticket and wait on the train, which was coming at 10:25 (that would give us way more time than we needed, but at least we wouldn't be rushing around and worried about catching the train).

As we were riding the elevator down to the exit, I realized that I must have dropped Jesse's coat somewhere along the way. So, we headed back upstairs and searched and searched and searched, but couldn't find it anywhere. I asked several museum employees if a coat had been found, and also visited the information desk to see if they had it, but no one had seen it.

It was getting to be late enough that I was worried about us making it back for our 10:25 train ride (the next one was at 11:25 and Jesse would be starving and tired by then). I would have just left and come back for the coat later, but it was cold enough outside that Jesse really needed his coat. The good news was that after retracing our steps numerous times, I finally spotted it. The bad news was that we had less than 5 minutes to get out of the building and catch the train. I hurriedly put on his coat and socks in the elevator and as soon as we got out the door I started sprinting towards the train, which is maybe a quarter-mile or half-mile from the museum. According to my watch, I was three minutes late, so I had an inkling that I was out of luck. And I was...no one was on the platform, which is a bad sign.

I was feeling pretty bummed by this time, and really had no clue what I was going to do. I couldn't call James to come rescue me, because he has back-to-back class all day on Tuesdays (and plus, by the time he walked to our car from campus and came to get us, it would probably be time for the 11:25 train to come anyway). I also didn't have a phone number for a taxi company, and couldn't look it up since I am still in the Dark Ages and don't have Internet on my phone. So I figured I would ask around about getting a bus back to Hyde Park (surely somebody would know, right?). I was definitely feeling anxious at this point, but I also had a strange peace that God was going to provide for us to get home somehow.

As I was leaving the train station, two men started walking in, and so I asked one of them where the next train was going. The guy told me it was coming at 10:35 (we had a few minutes to spare) and headed south (good) and would stop in Hyde Park around 53rd Street (also good, though not as close to our home as the 10:25 train would have been, but I couldn't complain about having to walk a few extra blocks).

I headed back down to the platform at this point, but when I went to one of the machines to purchase my ticket, I realized that it didn't accept credit cards. I asked someone about it, and he said there was no credit card machine at this station. After rummaging around in my wallet, I finally managed to round up three one-dollar bills, but the train was already coming, so I was out of time.

The doors opened up and I asked one of the train people if I could just pay on board, since I didn't realize that there was no credit card machine at that particular station and didn't realize I had any cash until it was too late to buy a ticket. Just as he was explaining that I could not do this, a lady happened to be boarding the train and offered me an extra ticket that she had. She told me that someone had done this for her once, and she had been wanting to pay it forward. Wow! Words cannot describe how thankful and relieved I was!

We got on board and it turns out that the guy was wrong about the train stopping at 53rd Street. It actually stopped at 57th Street, which meant we would be walking an extra 6 blocks home, but that was ok. I was very turned around when we got off the train, but lucky for me, street addresses correspond to which block you are on (numbers get bigger the farther south you go) and so I was quickly able to get us going in the right direction. Jesse fell asleep about two blocks from our building, but he woke up and ate a good lunch and just went down for his nap a little while ago. It is always interesting to see the ways that God provides, even for little situations like this, which seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

P.S. I wish I had some pictures to share, but I opted not to take the camera, since that would just be one more thing to lug around and take on and off of the train. In hindsight, I am so glad that I didn't bring it!

Spaghetti Face

I'm glad we decided to take his clothes off before he ate dinner tonight!

The Slikovni Slovar

Jesse absolutely loves his Slikovni Slovar (an English-Slovenian picture dictionary that his Uncle Matt and Aunt Elizabeth gave him for Christmas). He has so much fun looking at all the pictures on each page and seems to especially enjoy the transportation and bath pages. It's fun to watch him recognize and name different objects that he already knows, and to point to things he wants to know about. For a while he was really fixated with the hand mixer on the kitchen page and would constantly point to it...now he says "mih" whenever he sees it.

Just to give you an idea how much he really loves this book, here are some pictures. Jesse never, ever stays still or allows us to hold him for extended periods of time, but he will snuggle up with us to look at this book for ten to fifteen minutes at a time.

Our Awkward Family Photo

I've been working on putting together a photo book of Jesse's first year, and as I was looking through some pictures tonight, I stumbled upon this terribly awkward one. James looks really angry, Jesse looks like he's just seen an angel come down from the sky, and I look either so happy or so sad I could cry.

Welcome to our (not so clean) home!

If you were to step into our home at any point in the day when Jesse is awake, this is what you would find (multiply the number of small objects on the floor by 10):

Yes, you would see that cute little boy named Jesse, but you would also see (perhaps trip over) an array of toys. I am exaggerating (slightly), but some days I feel like I am just constantly picking up toys.

Jesse begins his day by going to his toy bins and methodically throwing as many toys as possible onto the floor. Sometimes he just picks up a whole bin of toys and chunks the entire thing across the room.

Then, he might find one toy he wants to play with for a minute or two before proceeding to do the same with all of our things (he doesn't get very far in that endeavor, though, before one of us stops him).

A term I learned in my high-school chemistry class has been running through my mind a lot these days: entropy. It's a measure of the amount of disorder. This kid creates a high level of entropy, or in other words, a high level of disorder, wherever he goes.

Lucky for me, it really doesn't take very long to put everything back where it belongs. He's a pretty fun kid, too, so that works in his favor as well :)

He's a Walker!

Jesse has been taking lots of steps in between pieces of furniture, but he would rarely walk to one of us on command until tonight. James got home early today, and Jesse decided he would take off walking. He was standing by the coffee table and was trying to get James' attention (he was at the computer) with a big, huge grin on his face and then he took off walking towards me. From that moment on, he has been walking back and forth between the two of us and even out into the open room. He loves it!

Valentine's Play Date

Jesse and Alyse had a little play date this morning. I just had to snap some pictures since they were both dressed in their Valentine's attire. Jesse has a long way to go in making impressions on girls. Right now he gets their attention by chasing and rough pats on the head.

Playing quite nicely side-by-side:

This was Jesse getting really excited about the camera that I was holding:

Here they are playing with my phone, which they used this afternoon to call/text numerous people in my address book. The ironic thing was that somehow 3 out of 4 grandparents were contacted in some way, either by text or phone call.

Here is Jesse taking some steps this afternoon:

And playing peek-a-boo with me:

13 Months

Jesse has changed so much over the past month. He is more and more our little boy and less and less our little baby. Here's what he's been up to over the past month:

• Eating three good meals per day, a small snack in the late afternoon, and nursing three times. After dropping two nursing sessions over the past month, he has had an increased appetite for solids and began to eat good dinners. He loves his cow's milk, especially at dinnertime, and is probably drinking about 8 oz. per day. He has continued to show interest in eating veggies (mostly peas, green beans, yellow squash and zucchini). Some new foods are clementines, strawberries, ground beef, salmon, pizza and lasagna. He loves almost any fruit (with the exceptions of blueberries and applesauce), puts away beans like crazy, and also really continues to love cheese, yogurt and turkey (but the turkey must be smoked, not roasted).
• Some new words are duck, bath, water, two and beans.
• He has a new-found obsession with the garbage truck. It stops under his bedroom window every morning between 7:30 and 8:00 to load all the trash from our building. We usually hear it beeping as it pulls up to the trash room, and so I take Jesse and stand him up in the window so that he can watch the man dump all the trash into the truck. Then we wave bye-bye to it. He loves it! The past two days I have asked Jesse if he wants to see the garbage truck and he gasps and gets this really excited look on his face and starts looking for it.
• He has gotten pretty bad about throwing food off of his tray. He looks up immediately to see what kind of reaction he is going to get. When I scold him he just smiles, but sometimes he gets pretty upset when James gets onto him. Keeping less food on his tray usually helps the problem.
• He is so close to walking. He stands alone all the time--not on purpose, but because he gets distracted by a toy in his hand and doesn't even realize he's doing it. Just this week he has consistently been taking steps between pieces of furniture. I think he just needs a little more confidence/motivation. Right now the knee walking seems to be serving him just fine (he is able to keep toys in his hands, yet doesn't have to worry about falling).
• He is more and more snuggly these days and always snuggles up to me when I sing to him before his naps and at bedtime. Also, over the past few days, I find him randomly laying on the floor on his belly, or with his head resting on the couch, as if he's just taking a short little break.
• His favorite toys are my phone and keys. He will literally play with the keys for hours, taking them with him wherever he goes.

Approximate daily routine at one year:

6:30 Wakes up and nurses

8:30 Eats breakfast

9:00 Morning nap

11:30 Lunch

1:30 Nurses/Afternoon Nap

4:00 Snack

5:30 Dinner

6:30 or 7 Nurses/Bedtime

Taking a break from his exhausting life:

How a Jesse Eats Bread

Jesse recently began refusing the tiny bite-sized pieces of bread I was giving him, so I decided to see if he would be more enthusiastic about eating larger pieces. I wouldn't go as far as saying that he gobbled it up, but he definitely acted more interested in it.

Kisses

A couple weeks ago I started doing a "baby swap" with a friend of mine here in the building. She takes Jesse for an hour or so every week so that I can get out and run errands or just have some time to myself, and I do the same with her daughter Alyse, who is a couple months older than Jesse. It has been so nice to have a little time to myself each week and to have the freedom to get out and do something without a baby in tow. I am so grateful for good friends here in our building.

Yesterday morning Alyse came over to play. The two babies have lots of fun "playing" together. Here is some proof. Jesse is being uncharacteristically gentle in this video. His usual way of interacting with Alyse involves lots of rough pats on the back and face. We are working on understanding what "gentle" means.