Some random pics:
Archer’s first birthday party:
After nearly 600 miles of driving we are finally home. During our trip back from Oak Grove everybody except me slept 95% of the way. At one point everybody, even Silvio, was snoring. A made out like a bandit. We barely had enough room in the van! One more box and I would have had to strap stuff to the top.
We had a really great week. We had Christmas at C’s parents, another at C’s grandmother’s, went out with the Matsons, had another Christmas at my mom’s, and had Sunday dinner at C’s grandmother’s again. It’s a good thing the Matsons wanted to go out. C and I hadn’t done much of anything by ourselves for quite a while and it was really nice to be able to leave A with C’s parents and have a night out. We went to this little restaurant in Westport called One80 that makes an awesome flatbread pizza. When we finally stumbled home at 2 o’clock A was still fast asleep and we had a good night’s sleep.
Between C and Tina, Arch was looked after every morning. I got to sleep in EVERY DAY, once until 2 in the afternoon. Now that I have caught up on sleep I feel like a completely different person. 🙂
We are almost done with A’s second Christmas. Holidays are always accompanied by a bunch of driving and this one was no different. This time it was home to Oak Grove, Dover, and back to Oak Grove. Tomorrow we’re headed to Hamilton and back and Sunday will be Dover again before we head for home. It has been really nice to see everybody.
A has handled all of it really well so far. He is big enough now that we turned his car seat around and that made a big difference. He really likes being able to see us and looking at everything out the window. He still doesn’t like to ride for more than am hour at a time, though.
I have been thinking about getting a couple tapes for the VCR in the van. I always said I wouldn’t me one of those people who uses movies to entertain their kids on car rides but now I’m willing to give it a shot. A seems to really like watching short cartoons while he eats so we’ll have to see of they work in the car, too.
I took A in for his second flu shot today. C had to work so it was just the two of us. We had to wait for about thirty minutes but we had a good time monkeying around in the waiting room. A spent most of the time playing with a three year old boy who had just had a checkup. It was neat watching A try to figure out how the other boy climbed up on the seats.
When we finally got in I was relieved to find out we got the good nurse. It was only one shot this time so it was over pretty quickly. A only whimperred for a couple seconds. He was a real trooper.
We had some friends over tonight and A did his best to entertain everybody. He loves showing off Paul, the cat we’re fostering. I think he’ll be sad to see it go next week. Silvio is getting much better at playing with A but Paul follows A around begging for attention. He doesn’t even seem to mind when A pulls his tail and ears.
Everybody is sick. The runny noses, headaches, sore throats, and lack of sleep have combined to make us all look like zombies.