Holidays 2008

Mele Kalikimaka!

Time seems to go faster as we get older. Jordan turned the big 3 in June and it was an opportunity to have a real summer party complete with water slide, wading pool, cake and ice cream. It was truly a madhouse but very fun and the kids had a blast. When it was all over, the house was still standing and no one got injured – thank goodness!

This year marked another milestone in Jordan's young life as he 'graduated' from the Mommy & Me class he's been attending since the age of 1. He entered St. Mark's Preschool summer session in July, attending 2days/week. It was tough emotionally in the beginning (and for Jordan too!) but after a few weeks he’s learned to really enjoy the class with his old friends and also made some new friends.

In April, John went on a work trip to San Francisco for a conference and it seemed like a good time to schedule a family vacation to the Bay Area. While John sat through day-long work sessions at the Moscone Center, Lauren and Jordan frolicked and laughed their way around SF with Uncle Henry. After the conference ended we all drove to Monterey, spent time in Big Sur and visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Grandma Lucy took a 2 month long trip to the Philippines to visit family and friends. We missed her a lot and are glad to have her back. Uncle Naz moved back to San Diego after several years of living in Miami and Jordan loves playing with him!

For our ninth anniversary we decided to revisit our honeymoon location, the island of Kauai. Jordan’s a real travel pro and took to the island lifestyle well. We hung out at the pool or the ocean and played in the waves while Daddy snorkeled. We spent 10 days between the Hilton and the Westin, both were beautiful properties with plenty to keep us busy. The best part was the daily $5 Mai Tai specials which were timed beautifully during Jordan's naps.

This year was an adventure at Halloween as we hosted our first dress-up party for about 20 preschoolers and grownups. Han Solo, Princess Leia and SuperWhy/Diego the Animal Rescuer had a blast as we went Trick or Treating in the neighborhood with our friends.

The rest of the year we managed to stay busy with our full time jobs while maximizing fun. Lauren traveled a few times this year to Wash DC and Alaska. On the weekends, we sneak in short trips to Disneyland or the airplane museums. Jordan is going through an airplane phase right now, and would be able to identify any airplane ever made and could tell you all about the Wright Brothers!

We are thankful and blessed to have our family and friends, and wish you all peace, love and laughter this holiday season.

John, Lauren and Jordan

Preschool Continued

We're deep into October and Jordan is really thriving in preschool. It started out tough for all of us in the summer session, but once we returned from Hawaii Jordan began to really settle in and get comfortable with his new teacher Ms. Dee and his classmates. Of course it helped that his buddies Jack & Tommy from Miss Rita's class joined him every Tuesday and Thursday. Jordan has done so well that we decided to extend his day to 3PM. He gets to rest/nap, play and spend more time with one of his favorite teachers, Ms. Molly. It is also fun for us to hear Jordan sing new songs or come up with interesting new quotes we've never heard before (this part may not be so fun in high school). We are also getting closer to Halloween. Originally Jordan was going to be SuperWhy but I think he has settled on Diego the Animal Rescuer. Stay tuned--the rest of this month is going to be fun!

Hank Easton and Steely Damned

Sunday night John and I went down to Anthology San Diego to catch show by The Steely Damned. It's been a long time since we last saw them, and they can still rock the house! It was quite an amazing lineup of local talent: Tripp Sprague on sax, Bob Tedde on lead vocals, and Ruby (from the Red Hots) on backup vocals, and the guys from Rockola. But by far the star of the show was Hank Easton who was smoking hot on the guitar! There were 12 people on the stage and they all jammed really well together. They played to a packed house on a Sunday night, and had everyone dancing by the end of the show. Hopefully they will get to play more often, even if it's on Sunday nights. If you like to listen to live music, check out Anthology - great venue for music and good food. Their burger was pretty darn good and try their orange ginger mojito!

Hank Easton does a pretty amazing medley of Steely Dan Guitar Solos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZs4pK-aBuE

Preschool is not Las Vegas

You've seen those commercials on TV - "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas". Well, it's a good thing preschool isn't Vegas because I love getting the daily notes and pictures from Jordan's preschool teacher. Call me a helicopter parent, but one of the cool things about Jordan's new preschool is that the teachers do so much to keep the parents in the loop. Every night they send out by email a brief description of what each child did during class that day as well as pictures and videos of the kids doing their activities at school.

Check out Ms. Molly's pictures and notes from first day of school, as well as the Rock Out ABC video from Jordan and Tommy.

First day of school!

Today was Jordan's first day of preschool, summer session at St. Mark Lutheran Preschool in Encinitas. He was so excited to be there to see Ms. Molly and make new friends. A few of his classmates came from his old preschool, so it was nice to see some familiar faces.

His teacher, Ms. Molly, came to visit Jordan at home last week to get to know him a little. Jordan just bonded with her right away, took her upstairs to show off his big boy room and his book collection. He sat on the rocking chair and read a book to her - The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

We had spent the last couple of weeks preparing Jordan for the big boy school, just by talking about it and pointing it out when we drive by. He calls it the "school with the water table". I asked him what he wanted to pack for lunch for his first day, and he says "mac and cheese and spinach and brocolli". As I was packing his lunch box this morning, already I started feeling a little twinge of sadness thinking my little boy has grown up so fast.

In his lunchbox I packed a small bowl of mac & cheese & spinach, a turkey & cheese sandwich on whole grain bread w/ the crust trimmed off, a cup of applesauce, a small box of raisins and a sippy cup of diluted juice. Did I go overboard? Jordan also brought his new scuba diver's fish card and a little fish penholder he got from my friend Gustavo who just returned from scuba diving in Honduras...The penholder made it all the way to the school parking lot, where it fell and "broke into bits", as Jordan would say. Not the best start to our first day at school but things got better from there.

This was the first time that we left Jordan on his own, so I was a little worried about how he would handle the separation. As John and I were leaving, Jordan said goodbye to us and gave us a hug and even had a smile on his face. Everything seemed to go well, but I cried in the car all the way home! I think I'm the one suffering from separation anxiety!

Box of cars

Today we marked a milestone in Jordan's development, the Box of Cars award. We have been potty training for a few months now, but didn't get serious until just lately. We found that Jordan likes to do things differently than most other toddlers. He mastered #2 first about two months ago, and only recently did he start mastering #1. At one point we felt like we hit a plateau so we decided to employ what most toddler parents have to resort to - bribing (gasp!) And it seemed to work. The reward was the Dinoco 400 box set of 8 hot wheel cars from the Disney movie Cars. At every trip to Target, Jordan used to pick up this box of cars from the toy aisle, carry it around with him only for us to return it at the end of the shopping trip. Now he can finally enjoy his "big boy" status and we can finally enjoy freedom from diapers! Well, maybe not just yet...

This "big boy" transition has been the theme in other areas as well, not just the potty. About 3 weeks ago Jordan started climbing out of his crib. While the late night or early morning visits have been infrequent so far, we're taking the opportunity to upgrade him to a big boy bed. Goodbye crib, hello daybed.

Jordan's latest obsessions have been airplanes - mostly jumbo jets, corsair & mustangs, and undersea creatures - jellyfish, starfish, octopus, garibaldi & opal eye fish. We're slowly transforming his room into a big boy airplane themed room and undersea creature themed bathroom. Our baby boy is growing up so fast!

Life with a todder - never a dull moment

I've been meaning to post something to this blog, and today something happened that really drove me to make time for this. I wanted to share a Jordan story that had John and I rolling and crying in the car. We were driving home with Jordan after spending the morning at the park, and as we always do, we have to slow down in front of Mr. Giant Pumpkin's house to see him. One of our neighbors has a giant pumpkin on their front porch which was part of their Halloween decoration and Jordan has become quite obsessed with it ever since.

As we drive by, Jordan says bye to Mr. Giant Pumpkin and says "I love Halloween." I responded with "You do?! What do you want to be for Halloween this year, Boobah?" And Jordan responds, "A penis! I want to be a penis for halloween!"

I was so horrified and did not know how to respond, meanwhile John was cracking up laughing! I was just thankful that this exchange took place in the privacy of our own car, and not in front of his preschool class.