When daddy's away...

Danny went to a four day bachelor party in Key West this weekend, starting on Thursday at 4am. I have to say, I won't be sorry when all our friends are married just so this ridiculous bachelor/bachelorette weekend chapter of our lives can finally be over. It's just been getting more and more ridiculous, as single people's income increases with age and desire to spend it recklessly is inversely proportional to how long you've waited to get married. But the good news is that Danny scouted out our next family vacation, a house boat in the Florida keys! These will be just some of the sites we will see (that I have been enticed with via text message all weekend):



So stay tuned. I'm sure we'll have an excellent trip to report just as soon as we get this new baby thing out of the way, get our finances straightened out, reaccumulate the vacation days we are going to blow through as maternity/paternity leave, and catch up on all the sleep we're about to lose. Check back in about 16 years.

While daddy was gone, Jack and I entertained ourselves with lots of play dates! We went over to Rebeccah's house for an epiphany/three kings party on Thursday and slept over, much to Jack's delight. Then he got to stay there for the whole day and play with his friend Maya. THEN he had ANOTHER play date with his friend Ki, who came over for dinner, and who he took to the choo-choo store because mommy had been promising him a little eagle puppet all week long but kept getting home too late to follow through during store operating hours. Jack never gave up though, every night he reminded me and I would tell him "it's dark out sweetie, the store is closed." And every morning on our way to whatever childcare I had lined up for him that day, he would tell me "choo-choo store open! eagle, eagle!" Something tells me distraction and redirection are not tools that will work with this child. Anyway, as if that wasn't enough, right after Sam and Ki left, our dear old friend Liz showed up, just in time to read him a story and tuck him in bed. What an embarrassment of company, and I'm sorry I lack the photographic evidence to commemorate how popular Jack was these past few days. Too busy socializing to take pictures!

Yesterday, though, we went down to see nana and I finally remembered to get out the camera. Jack just loves spending time with her so much, and I never feel like I really capture how excited he is to see her. This came close.



The first thing he told me this morning upon waking up was "kiss the toe," holding it out for me like that. But I still didn't quite the reaction from him that she does. Look at how he looks at her.



So delighted. So expectant. (That's the aforementioned eagle she's holding, by the way.) On the way home from nana's house, Jack announced to me: "Mommy! Happy!" And I asked, "Are you happy, Jack?" and he said "Yeah!" I'm not sure I even realized he knew what emotions were, or what to call them. But I looked back at him, and he was sitting there in his car-seat, swinging his legs back and forth, grinning.

Yes, Jack misses his daddy, but it's nice that he has so many people to give him extra love when daddy's away!