Caer Corvus

Mostly Picture Post

March 12th, 2012 by janice

A picture post from Disney and random cuteness…

Sleeping Beauty

Swinging on the rope during gymnastics class

Supervising Jo's snack

My new fave pic of Alexei and Jo-jo

Awkward sleeping position (Sazerac)

Awkward sleeping position (Alexei)

Alexei and his lovie Jo-jo in one of the old Autopia cars outside Goofy's Kitchen

Yeah, guess which kid wouldn't look at the camera. Sigh!

One of the few of all four kids - bonus for mostly looking at the camera!

Hey, Kix, I ALMOST got all five of ya!

Keir and Alexei on the Mr. Toad car (Alexei did NOT like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride)

Yes, we did a lot of this while waiting in lines...

The Monorail was a hit though

He REALLY wanted to ride Big Thunder Mountain. Someday, kid.

Petting the goats was also a big hit.

Alexei on Casey Jr. (which was another fave despite the solemn look here.)

Alexei and birthday girl Vivien on one of the cars in Toon Town (which was also a big hit)

Alexei, Vivien, Ava and Keir on car in Toon Town

Keir didn't really want to share steering responsibilities

Alexei gets a turn alone

I want a hot dog and beans (seriously, he kept trying to order that on every phone!)

Birthday girl Ava making her order

Hello, slide, my old friend!

This thing is very silly, Dad.

Alexei meets T-2 (Kirsten) and Aaron

Cathy, Alexei and Keir

Keir and Alexei being silly

Three T-wimmin in one picture - now if only any of us was looking at the camera. Heh!

(Edit to add for those not in the know: the T-wimmin are my college best friends. T-1 (Kix) T-2 (Kirsten) and I all worked at North Campus food services at UCLA for years and T-4 (Laura, who couldn’t make it) was my college room mate for 2 years. The reason behind the name is kinda silly and probably not even remotely funny to anyone who wasn’t there.)

So Disneyland for two days was awesome. Stayed at the Disneyland Hotel which I’ve wanted to do since I was eight. It was nice but next time we do that we’ll stay at the Grand Californian which is much closer to the parks and a nicer hotel altogether. (Plus bonus private entrance to California Adventure.) Alexei had a grand time and enjoyed most of the rides. He hated the character breakfast, though – predictably he is scared of the characters. Sorry, kid! He did have fun playing with Ava, Vivien and Keir. The girls were really good with him. But I think Keir was a little jealous when his Mommy and Mama paid attention to another boy! LOL!

Darren and I usually don’t go in much for the shows but I was so glad we went to see World of Color. It was made from awesome. And they’ve made some good changes as Cali Adv though all the construction right now is super annoying. Next time will have to try to spend a little more time over there as there is a bunch Alexei can do. Alexei and I discovered that first thing Sunday morning is like the best time to be in Disneyland proper, at least on a weekend. (Darren and the Ryen clan all got a late start Sunday morning.) We walked on to almost everything we wanted to except for the Finding Nemo ride and there we only waited 10 minutes.

It was awesome to see Kix and Cathy even though we spent most of the time wrangling kids and talking about them. Heh. How things have changed since the T-wimmin were serving up meals at North Campus, eh? Also so glad to see Kirsten and Aaron if only briefly.

So I did end up biting the bullet and getting an Annual Pass since with the special SoCal 2-day park-hoppers we got for this trip we’d half paid for one anyway. Just the SoCal (though not the lowest one) but it does offer some good perks and I’m fairly sure we can make enough visits in a year to make it worthwhile. I think my next trips are going to be sans Darren though. Lol! He doesn’t care for Disney or crowds so I love him and thank him so much for indulging us this far.

Ok, that’s all for now, folks. Enjoy!

Love and bright blessings,

Janice

Posted in Life with Alexei, Travel | 2 Comments »

March?!

March 7th, 2012 by janice

Good grief! How did that happen. Last time I looked it was Christmas. LOL!

OK, so I thought I’d put up some pics first before the wall of words…

2011 Holiday Card

Cars PJs!

Sportin' his CNY togs

Blue door in the Children's Garden at the Huntington

Ravens rock!

Running with the Moon (in the Children's Garden at the Huntington)

Running with the Moon (Children's Garden at the Huntington)

Fish spotting (at the Huntington)

Giggling during story time

Future's So Bright

Alexei's First Ride

Yes, boxes still make the best toys

Well, it’s been a very busy couple of months, as per usual.

Alexei had a little bit of a hard time transitioning back to daycare after a week off with Mommy and Daddy. It was the first time I’ve ever seen him resistant to going to Mrs D’s and dealing with the tears was not easy. He did settle out after awhile but now we are going through another round of clinginess and sleep issues since Darren started back to work. I know it’s all age appropriate, but of course it also raises red flags on the attachment score. So we’ve gone back to a few of the old attachment builders and I’ve put off making some other changes I probably should make until he’s a little more settled again. This dance is a tough one.

January and February blew by in a blur. Alexei’s continuing to learn and grow and keep us on our toes. He’s developing some serious opinions about the world and the way things are supposed to be and gets very put out when we or the cats or life refuse to arrange ourselves the way he would like them to be. I guess he’s asserting himself more at daycare which is both good and bad. He’s certainly asserting himself a lot at home. LOL. He is especially unhappy about the cats not paying attention to about anything he says. One amusing example is when we were going down the stairs one morning and the cats ran past him; he yelled “Kitties, hold!” (SCA reference for those who aren’t familiar.) Yeah, that didn’t work. Hee hee. But it amused me as all get out.

He’s also getting even more scary observant and copying a lot – both what we say and what we do. Heh. Gotta watch ourselves here.

We tried to go to the Chinese New Year celebration in Camarillo this year but the huge wind storm blew out both our normal visit to the stables and the event. So Debbie kindly invited us to go to the Huntington Library celebration with her membership. That made for a very nice day. Alexei really grooved on the gardens, especially the kid’s garden. We remembered to bring water shoes and a change of clothes so he could indulge in playing with the water fountains. He actually sat still for quite a long time listening to the traditional Chinese musicians in the Chinese garden and of course loved the koi in the pond.

Also one of the coolest examples of Alexei’s scary observant nature came out of watching the group that did the Lion and dragon dances. They also did an exhibition of Kung Fu. It lasted for all of about 20 minutes but for literally weeks afterwards Alexei was doing kung fu moves and pretty darned well. Seriously, if I didn’t know better I really would have thought he’d had some actual classes. He does similar stuff with gymnastics, copying the stuff the big girls do. He’s not listening and following directions quite well enough to consider martial arts classes but I foresee them in the not too distant future.

In other news, work has been a lot more interesting of late. We’re doing some pretty major projects and it’s fun to get my hands dirty in server side stuff. But it is also a reminder of how hard it is to do real IT projects on a part time schedule and I am starting to get very serious about looking for a new full time gig. It worries me though how that will effect Alexei since we are together a large part of the day now and that just wouldn’t be possible on a full time schedule. Not to mention how that might effect a potential second adoption (yeah, we’re still thinking about that.) But I am tired of working just to pay for daycare and just breaking even with everything else.

Darren seems to be enjoying the new gig – at least in as much as he is happy to be back doing interesting work. There are definitely a lot of challenges but he’s already made some positive moves and getting positive notice. The hours are pretty long though and we are all still adjusting to this. It’s really hard for Alexei though, as I already mentioned. He walks around saying “Daddy work” a lot which is just heart rending let me tell ya. But hopefully it won’t be too long before we all get into a groove and Darren’s hours will settle out some.

Jo-jo is doing really well. We started him on glucosamine a few months back and that has really made a noticeable difference for him. We love doing gymkhana Sundays together. I’d like to get back into doing SCA Equestrian but that may be a little while yet. Sigh. May be able to make some of the Friday practices this summer if the stars align as Darren has work-from-home Fridays. So we’ll see.

The kitties are pretty much full-grown now but they still have terminal cases of kitten brain. Can’t wait for the adult brains to grow in. LOL.

We’re going to be going to Disneyland again this weekend. Yey! Meeting the Ryen clan to help celebrate Ava and Vivien’s 6th birthday! Wow! I cannot believe it’s been that long! We’re staying the weekend in the Disneyland Hotel which I’ve always wanted to do. Really excited!

Well, I’m sure I am missing a lot of news or milestones but I’m needed to entertain the boy. Hopefully it won’t be two months until the next entry. LOL!

Many blessings all,

Janice

Posted in Life with Alexei | 1 Comment »

First Disneyland Trip

December 31st, 2011 by janice

So I thought I’d better get in the Disney post before NYE takes over.

With Paul being out here for the first time in 5 years to meet his nephew at last, we decided we should take our little one for his first Disneyland trip. We knew it would be crowded and crazy – the winter break is one of the busiest times of the year for the House of Mouse – and that doing D-land with a toddler would be a very different experience. We also knew our boy would really groove on all the holiday lights so we decided to brave it.

We got to the park a little later than I’d at first wanted to but that was OK. Alexei did his usual observer and decide thing when we first came into the park, just watching everything and taking it all in. But he got very, very excited when we got on the train. After the ride around D-land, we got a little food and made a plan for the next few things to do. Got fast passes for Autopia since we knew he would groove on the cars. Then headed over to Fantasyland to hit some of the kids’ rides. Had an interesting incident on Casey Junior – someone left a bag on the train we got on to, but of course this somehow went unnoticed by the cast members – despite a small child trying to tell everyone – until we were all loaded on. So we all had to get off while they called security to check it out. Had to laugh because if had been a bomb the security guard and probably all of us “behind the yellow line” (about 5 feet away if that) would have probably been dead – yeah, that makes me feel so safe. Not! Ah, well, everyone knew it wasn’t anything really.

After a few more rides and some poking around the park, we decided to see if Alexei would settle down for a nap (since he’d slept all of about 30 minutes in the car) – Paul and Richard headed off to do some adult rides and we went over to the infant center. BTW, if you have infants or toddlers, this place is awesome! They have multiple changing tables, many infant and toddler supplies for sale, nursing rooms and highchairs for a quiet feed. They were very kind to let me take Alexei into the nursing area to give him his bottle. Of course, he was having nothing to do with actually sleeping so we thanked them very kindly and headed over to Toon Town for more toddler fun. He loved this area, of course. Nothing he wasn’t allowed to touch or climb on, a nice little play ground and all kinds of things to explore. Donald’s boat was a bit scary due to that weird duck thingy in the entry way, but once we got past that he grooved on all the stuff to play with.

After that we popped by the Big Thunder Ranch to get a look at the reindeer and Santa’s cabin, then over to check out a bit of Frontierland and Adventureland! After a quick bite, it was time to hook up with the boys again. By then, it was getting on toward Alexei’s bed time, so we decided to hit one last ride together, Astro Blaster. Then we sent the boys off again for one last ride while we got Alexei into his PJs at the infant center and went to buy him a balloon.

Thankfully when it came time to pick balloons, Alexei by-passed the blinking ones for the more traditional style (although when did they add those silly outer balloons to them?) Now he has recently been learning his colors, though he only actually says a few of them (purple, blue and yellow) of which blue is his favorite, so when the balloon seller asked what color he wanted, I figured he’d name that one. So I was completely caught off guard when he said “pink.” LOL! Well, he was happy with it and both Darren and I were just glad we wouldn’t have to hide it under something to get home without blinding the driver.

We walked around a little bit more to say goodbye to the castle and the rest of the park, stopped to get Alexei’s first mouse ears and the Main Street Mad Hatter, then caught the tram back to our car. Alexei was asleep about 30 seconds after the tram started moving. So all and all a successful first trip.

So glad we got to share his first trip with my brother and cousin. Thanks guys for being such troopers and riding all the kid stuff with us.

Pics to follow. Next post will be in 2012.

Stay safe out there!

Blessings,

Janice

On the Tram

First Picture at D-land (Let me at it, Mom!)

Train!

Had to show Dad the train too.

Family shot on the train

Mom and Alexei on Casey Junior

Mom and Alexei on the Carousel

Paul, Dad and Alexei waiting in line

Dad and Alexei waiting for the car

Best ride yet!

Had to do this one again!

That's a funny piano

This is a great chair!

I wanna drive the boat!

What's that?

Nice view of Toon Town up here!

What does this do?

I love Disneyland!

My first Disney balloon

Did I mention I love Disneyland?

Waiting for Buzz!

Castle all lit up

I don't wanna go home!

First Mouse ears!

What is this thing, Mommy?

Uncle Paul steals Alexei's ears.

I'm not tired, Dad. Let's go....

Posted in Life with Alexei, Travel | No Comments »

Happy Winter Holiday of Your Choice

December 25th, 2011 by janice

It’s been yet another busy month full of big milestones and some setbacks.

Alexei continues to be the light of our lives. He is growing up so fast. He is very much no longer my baby and moving into being a big boy. He’s achieved the “do it myself” phase of development which can make daily life interesting.

Alexei’s language acquisition is amazing. He is learning several words a day now. Yes, it is definitely time for us to start watching what we say around him. He still calls some things by the noise they make, especially animals, although he clearly knows what the real name is. Cameras are “cheese” (because that’s what you say when you see one, duh!) and all horses are still Jo-jo. Lol! He is finally saying a lot of the words he once only signed though, like “please” and “milk,” so that is good. He’s knows concepts like up and down and on and off, though he sometimes still gets them mixed up. Also, somewhere along the line we stopped being “Mama” and “Dada” and became “Mommy” and “Daddy.” I’m a little sad about that. But it does warm my heart when he pats me and says “Mommy” with a great big grin on his face, which he does many times a day now. Awwww!

Both his gross and fine motor skills are also getting so amazingly good. He’s doing a lot of things in gymnastics without my assistance. He climbs up on absolutely everything now and I think it is only by because he fell out once and scared himself that he doesn’t climb out of his crib now. Almost time to think about converting to a toddler bed. He’s gotten way too good at taking the caps of bottles and in case you didn’t already know that “child proof” caps are a laughable concept, let me tell you authoritatively that they are. He’s been trying to learn how to take off and put on clothes. He can do up his own zippers and is getting pretty scarily close on buttons. He can already take off his diaper. The only thing between us and Naked Boy is that he cannot get his pants off all alone, yet.

We finally painted Alexei’s room and moved the crib in there. Alexei got to pick out the paint, a lovely shade of blue, which is his favorite color. Although purple was a close contender for a bit, but blue made the final cut. He LOVES the new color. For days after we finished painting he would just light up every time he saw the room and yell “blue!” He even literally hugged the walls. LOL! So we felt pretty confident about moving the crib. And he has done very, very well. He was all excited about the bed being in a new place and immediately wanted to play in there again. The first night he was a bit confused by going night-night in there but he slept pretty well. Since then we have had only one bad night (knock on wood) which was mostly due to him being sick. We actually think he is sleeping better on his own and I know I am. He’s pretty good about mornings, playing in the crib for a while before finally deciding between 6:30 and 7 most days that Mommy has slept enough and yelling for me. Hee, hee.

He is fascinated by babies right now. One of his daycare playmates has a new baby brother and Alexei will spend full minutes staring at the little one when little Jackson comes in with his mom. Whenever I pull up pics of other people’s little ones on the computer he jumps up in my lap and he loves to watch baby videos on YouTube. Sigh. Really makes me wish we could give him a baby brother or sister but that may not be in the cards. (More on that later.) He also still loves to look at pictures and videos of himself on my iPhone. Have I mentioned that he can use our iPhones, really, really well? If he knew the passcodes on those things, he wouldn’t need any help from us to use them at all. Apparently my phone is mostly for pictures/videos and Darren’s for games and music.

Darren and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary last week. So forgot to put up a post. Sigh. Facebook has made me an even lazier blogger than I was before. LOL! It was a very nice day. Alexei was at daycare so Darren and I went up to Santa Barbara for lunch and a spa day at the Biltmore. Yey! Then Aunt Sally and Richard babysat so we could go have a very nice dinner at Saddle Peak Lodge (which is becoming our traditional anniversary spot.) I’m so happy to have been with my best friend and love of my life for a decade now. Here’s to many more decades to come!

Alexei is grooving on the Christmas season. He loves, loves, loves any representation of Santa, be it a picture on wrapping paper or the big blow-up Santa in front of his daycare. But he still wants nothing to do with live Santas, though, so no Santa pic this year again. Sorry, I just feel no need to make my child cry for a picture. He loves the lights as well and we’ve had to have a few walks around the neighborhood to look at them. May have to hit the after xmas sales to pick up decorations for next year. We didn’t do a tree this year – neither Darren nor I can do live trees and we generally don’t like the look of fake ones. Sally offered us hers but we decided against because the kittens are in to absolutely everything and would probably have the thing down in no time. Maybe next year.

He way grooved on opening presents, and there certainly was no shortage of them for our boy. Many thanks to all the friends and family who provided our boy with a bunch of new things to play with. His favorite though was the guitar followed by the toy camera. But trains, cars and the talking puppy were all big hits. (Time to purge the toy collection though!)

We had a nice little Christmas Eve. Paul flew home for the holiday and finally got to meet his nephew. Yey! Aunt Sally and Richard came over as well as Auntie Boo (LE) who is the first person outside of Mommy and Daddy that Alexei could identify by name (OK nickname) in pics and asks for constantly by name. We need to have you over more, LE!

SO unfortunately in the midst of the merriment, Darren was laid off from his job. D being the major breadwinner, this is a bit worrying, though he got a very good severance and we have savings etc. But this does make the job search a little urgent. He has some pretty good leads so we have every reason to believe he’ll be working again soon – and hopefully at a job he enjoys again. But any good job search mojo from y’all would be most welcome.

In addition we are slowly coming to the conclusion that we may be done with family building. I have been researching like mad for other options that we feel comfortable with for a second adoption and we are just coming up with nothing. All of the international programs are seeing issues which are slowing them down, closing them down, or shifting focus to special needs and older child adoption only. The one program that is still placing infants with no identified special needs is fraught with ethical and political baggage and we just cannot go there. We even started looking into domestic adoption again – and I actually had some hope for this route as there have been some changes in how some agencies do business vs when I first looked into it 7 years ago. But I wasn’t really able to find an agency or attorney I felt really comfortable with. I understand it is a business but I just kept getting the feelings that these folks were either making promises they couldn’t keep or had to be putting inordinate amounts of pressure on the birth-mothers to get the to place their babies. And with both domestic and IA there is the pretty good chance we may be waiting 2 or more years, which is a little hard to think about when I’m about six months shy of a big round birthday… Sigh! So unless some program shows more promise soon – or some other miracle happens – it may be one and done. I’m not really ready to say I am done yet though. But we shall see.

Ok, so you’ve waded through the walll of words so you deserve the pay off.

The Ultimate "cheese" face

Paul home for the holidays!

Yes, most of that is for Alexei

Avidly opening his loot

How do you get this thing out of here?

Guitar!

Ready for bed after a long day

Anyway, I’m ready for 2012 now. How about you?

love and bright blessings,

Janice

Posted in Life with Alexei | 1 Comment »

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 24th, 2011 by janice

Just a quick note for now. Pics later.

Much love to all my friends and family. I am thankful for you all!

Bright blessings,

Janice

Posted in Adoption Related | No Comments »

Hallowe’en!

October 31st, 2011 by janice

OK, getting in a post before October (!) is over, so this seemed appropriate.

Alexei has been doing so well. His language is getting better and better. He’s starting to repeat back words – time to start watching our language! LOL! He’s starting to say a lot of words he used to only sign and he’s using more and more sentences. All in all he is doing so well for having to throw out his first language and learn a totally new one from the ground up!

We’ve had more struggle with sleeping but he’s been doing pretty well both with attachment and with sleeping in his own bed that we’re going to make the transition into his own room in the next month or so.

Unfortunately the cold season has been upon us for sure. He hasn’t been sick nearly as often as last year (thank goodness) and (knock, knock) no asthma issues.

He’s still loving gymnastics and gets more coordinated every week. He’s finally got two-footed jumping (as opposed to the skip/hop thing he’d been doing) down so that make the trampolines even more fun.

In September we went to the zoo with Brian, Tina, Bran and Killian. The older boys had a great time together. Bran is very sweet with Alexei and his little brother. All three boys seemed to enjoy the day and of course we had to go on the train which was a big hit with the two bigger boys.

The whole Hallowe’en season has been fun. We went to a pumpkin patch in Santa Paula with his daycare friends a couple of weeks ago. He enjoyed that very much though you could tell it was a bit overwhelming at times. He did love crawling on the hay bales and running through and trying to pick up the pumpkins. He loved the pumpkin chucker as did Mom.

This past weekend we went with Auntie Boo on the Fillmore and Western Pumpkin liner – it’s a 20s vintage train the takes a short ride to a pumpkin patch just up the the 126. Alexei was sooooo excited about the train, especially when we were watching it move from the outside. The pumpkin patch was nice though I don’t think as nifty as the one in SP – still he enjoyed it even if he had no desire to go on the Jolly Jumpers. Fell asleep on the train ride home as I figured he would but he loved the whole experience I think.

Anyway, I can hardly believe it is almost November and we’re heading into the Winter holidays. Looking forward to t-day and x-mas this year though. Paul will be out for x-mas – haven’t seen him in ages so it will be nice. And he gets to meet his nephew. Yay!

OK, not the most exciting of updates, but you really just come here for the pictures anyway.

ETA: Pics tomorrow. Boy had other plans for the evening.

Blessed Samhain and Happy Halloween.

Love

Janice

This is how Bran and Alexei spent much of the walk around the zoo

Not a great pic of it but he's doing his own sign for flamingo

Alexei and Bran loved the dinosaur show.

Alexei and Killian were not as thrilled at this Bran hug though

The train!

Playing with koi

Fillmore and Western Train

Alexei and Auntie Boo

Oooooh!

Corn!!!!

More koi!

Ride 'em, cowboy!

Posted in Adoption Related | No Comments »

Family Day

September 5th, 2011 by janice

One year ago today our lives changed forever: we became a family.

Happy Family Day, my beloved ones!

Posted in Adoption Related, For Alexei, Life with Alexei | No Comments »

Alexei is 2!

September 2nd, 2011 by janice

Happy Birthday to my little man!

I love you so much you just don’t even know.

Dad and I are so happy that we got to be with you on your special day!

I know you probably won’t remember it but you had a pretty good day, even with the sinus infection you managed to develop just before your big day. Daddy time, your first In-n-Out cheeseburger, toys from Grandma R and the family in Boston, time playing on your birthday present from Mom and Dad and only one time out… LOL! Yeah, it was a good day.

Tomorrow, we party with the family!

Sleep well, by beloved child. We are so blessed and lucky to have you in our lives.

Love,

Mom

Alexei's b-day present from Mom and Dad

Best. Ramp. Eveh!

"Helping" put together Dad's birthday present

Alexei and his other best pal

Sharing!

Posted in For Alexei, Life with Alexei | 2 Comments »

Family Visits and Train Trips

August 30th, 2011 by janice

So it’s been another busy month. It is so hard to believe it is nearly September – nearly one year since we got on a plane to bring our wonderful boy home!

We had our last post-placement interview with our social worker early this month and the completed form went to our agency last week and should be winging off to China in a few days! So, yey! Done with social workers for now. And the CCAA probably forever (somewhat sadly.)

A few weeks ago Darren’s sister Mindy and her husband and kids came out from Boston for a visit to SoCal so we headed up north one Saturday morning to visit them at Grandma and Grandpa G’s house. It was a really nice day. Alexei especially adored his cousin Kyle and Uncle Craig was pretty fun, too! He played catch with the whole family, chased feral kitties and ran up and down Grandma Sheri’s gravel pile for hours. He really seems to like all those crazy people we’re related to. LOL!

The next week we decided to take our boy to the Ventura County Fair. Mind you we have lived here now for nearly eleven years and this was the first time we made it there. Alexei wasn’t terribly thrilled by the bus ride over, maybe because it was a school bus and really noisy and cramped, but he was way excited by the fair. All the lights and people and then the animals!!!!eleventy! Man do I wish we had room for the miniature donkey he fell in love with (did I mention all animals of a certain size with four legs are now Jo-Jo?) And we learned the wonders of corn on the cob. Yummy! He got to go on his first carnival ride – a train of course – although I think he was more excited about looking at the ride than riding on it.

Then a couple weeks ago we decided we needed to take a trip down to San Diego. Now those of you who know us IRL know we don’t drive to San Diego anymore due to some curse on our cars that makes it impossible for us to go past OC. So this time we decided to take the train, figuring if THAT doesn’t get us there we can never go to San Diego again (since there is no way we’re taking a chance with a plane!) Well, thankfully the train got us there with no mishaps and Alexei enjoyed the ride (he even napped some!) Although I am still not quite sure he understood he was ON a train. He sure enjoyed looking out the windows at all of the other trains and making us walk up and down the aisle a million times. Toward the end of the trip he made friends with a little 1 year old boy and they crawled up and down the aisle for quite a while. It was too much cute!

So the original reason to go down to San Diego was to see the celebrations of the new Asian exhibits at the San Diego Zoo. We decided to spend the morning at the farmer’s market in Little Italy (a short hike from our hotel) in hopes that he would get in a normal nap and we could spend the rest of the afternoon and evening at the zoo. We had a pretty good time at the market although it is definitely more of a trendy/touristy thang – a lot more prepared items and crafts than farm fare. Still we got some good eats and wandered around enjoying the music and dancing with our boy. Unfortunately he fell asleep in the stroller on the way to lunch, slept half and hour and promptly decided that was enough nap for the day! Ah, well, we decided to head over to the zoo a little early instead.

Got to ride the bus around the zoo and see some of the exhibits we hadn’t seen before. Also got to watch the Chinese acrobat show which was worth the price of admission all by itself! Alexei enjoyed looking at some of the animals but he was more interested in climbing and swinging on stuff especially the railing at the panda exhibit. And by dinner time he had entered the Meltdown Zone. First meal out with Tantrum Boy was tough but not nearly as mortifying as it could have been since pretty much everyone else there was with small children, too.

Night time zoo is way awesome by the way, even though many of the animals have gone to bed. Alexei passed out on the walk back to the front gate then stayed asleep most of the way back to the hotel. The one downfall of taking the train down is no car. Since taxis require a car seat we ended up taking public transportation to the zoo and back again. It was fine to the zoo but the bus “home” was 45 minutes late! Ugh!

Sunday morning we got to have a much too short brunch with Auntie Vicky at a nice little cafe. Then back to the hotel to pack up and make the train home. Alexei made yet another friend on the train ride home, a little four year old girl on her way home with her grandparents from the zoo, also, which helped make the trip back a little easier – well, other than when she didn’t quite understand that Alexei needed to nap but ah well. All in all it was a nice trip though there are a few things we’ll do differently next time including just heading down to the zoo first thing and going till he is ready to sleep.

The kittens are getting big and are increasingly Alexei’s entertainment of choice. He recently learned that throwing or rolling a ball for them to chase is The Best Game Evah and he will go on doing this until the kittens are too tired to run anymore. They now have the run of the house which both Alexei and the kitties think is great. They deal with him pretty well. Sazerac is much more patient and fearless than her sister so she’s the one who’s really our boy’s buddy.

Our attachment continues to become stronger. He gives and asks for hugs and kisses, makes really good eye contact and lots of other subtle signs that things are going well in that department. He is growing and developing so fast and except for height – and some language milestones - is right where he should be for his age. We are so blessed and happy for how fortunate we have been that he came to us so obviously well-loved and cared for and that he has adjusted and thrived as well as he has.

He’s coming up on 2 this week. And we’ll be celebrating our first Family Day as well. It’s been an amazing year and I am so excited to see where this journey takes us next.

So off to the cute!

Blessings,

Janice

Alexei showing off: