Friday, February
29th
Happy Leap Day! I was almost born on Leap Day; missed it by
only a
couple of hours. We went out today and saw a couple sights
around Maui.We have a backpack carrier that Caden can ride in.It was fun.
I think one of
his favorite things to do so far has been just hanging around in the
hotel room, especially on the big hotel bed.He loves rough-housing on the bed and playing and being
silly.I’m not sure why
it’s different than being at home, but he is very animated here in
the hotel room.I got
some great photos of him today.
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Thursday,
February 28th
We’re staying at a hotel with a really neat swimming pool so we
wanted to high-tail it down there today and get wet!We wanted to give Caden the opportunity to try out all of the
new swimming skills that he’s learned over the past two months.
He had a blast.Swimming, dunking under the water falls, and just hanging out
on the beach chairs.
This is the life!And
Caden got a taste of it today.
He slept great
last night in his tent. Of
course, his “clock” won’t be making any automatic adjustments for
Hawaii time.It is two
hours ahead here.So he
was wide awake at 6:00 am this morning.We pretty much expected as much but I was just happy that he
slept well.I’m OK
having early mornings here even though I’m the
last person in the world
you’d call a morning person.
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Wednesday,
February 27th
We got Caden his own seat for the 5+ hour flight to
Maui
today.He’ll be able to
spread out a little bit although he’s going to be sitting in his car
seat during the flight.Everything went great today and was on time.Caden did great too.As long as you have a bottle in their mouth during the
pressure changes on takeoff and landing, babies don’t seem to have
too many ear problems.
He didn’t cry at all.
We love Hawaii.We dressed Caden up as a tourist today and pushed him around
in his stroller.People
were cracking up.
Given our
previous experiences trying to get him to go to sleep in a hotel
room with us (which never really worked well), we decided to try
something different.We
bought a little sleeping tent called a Peapod Plus.It looks just like a tent and he sleeps inside it.It zips closed so he can’t see out (one of the biggest
challenges we’ve had in hotels so far is that he can see us and so
he doesn’t want to go to sleep).We’ve been “practicing” sleeping in it for a couple of weeks
at home so hopefully it will work well here in Hawaii!
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Tuesday,
February 26th
Grandma and Grandpa Zenker came to Caden’s swimming lesson today.When they first showed up, he seemed really confused.It was kind of like, “wait a minute… aren’t you supposed to
be back at your Grandma and Grandpa house?”But then once we got in the water and started swimming, he
could see them watching him and started to really ham it up.He was so cute, acting so proud and really trying hard to
swim well and do all of his skills.I’ve never seen him put on such a show. When we were all
done and Grandma and Grandpa were telling him how well he did, he
had this huge smile on his face and this amazing look of pride.It was so sweet.
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Monday, February
25th
We’re going to Hawaii!John and I have made it a tradition to try to go on a trip
for each of our birthdays.Some years we can afford a nice trip.Some years we can’t afford much.It’s my birthday on the 1st and we have enough
airline miles saved up that we can get to
Hawaii
and stay there for almost free.Plus, it’s a great place to take a kid.Anyway, we leave Wednesday and will be there for a week.I can tell already that we’re bringing WAY TOO MUCH stuff.
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Sunday, February
24th
We had all of John’s family over at our house to celebrate a number
of birthdays.Caden
loved all of the attention.His older cousins Megan and Derrick got to feed him lunch!
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Wednesday,
February 20th I suppose like any kid, Caden hates having his face wiped or
cleaned after eating. He really hates having his nose
wiped. But look at the strange thing that happens when you try
to clean his hands...
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Tuesday,
February 19th
Life is over. Mr. Caden is crawling.What is the first thing he did?Crawled right over and tried to stick his finger in the light
socket.Apparently he
read that somewhere in one of the baby books.Of course we haven’t bought any of those little socket covers
yet.Gotta run out and
get those in the morning!
In reality, you
can only child-proof your house so much.There is no such thing as a totally child-proof room, in my
opinion.It would be a
padded room with nothing in it!
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Saturday,
February 16th
John and I have been together for 14 years today.It’s our anniversary.We had planned to go down to Paso Robles overnight but with
Caden feeling so crummy, we thought about canceling.My mom convinced us to go anyway and said she doesn’t mind
taking care of a sick kid.So, we did and we had a nice time.They’ve got a ton of new wineries in Paso these days.
Caden had a
fabulous time with Grandma and Grandpa.I think it made him feel better to get a little Grandma-style
TLC this weekend.
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Friday, February
15th
Caden has got a rotten cold.He’s only been sick about two or three times so far and the
viruses have been pretty mild.This one seems a lot worse.He probably got it from that brat on Wednesday night.Anyway, I feel terrible for him.We’ve got the humidifier going and we’re suctioning his nose
as much as possible.
There are no medicines on the market anymore for babies so all of
our treatment is going to have to be au natural.
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Wednesday,
February 13th
Until we finalize our adoption in court, we must still attend
monthly “support group” meetings with our agency.It’s kind of their way of keeping in touch with us to make
sure that Caden is still in good health and we’re both, well, not
incarcerated.Pretty
high standard, huh?
Well, as you can
imagine, after you’ve attended a few of these meetings with the same
people over and over again… the same stories get told over and over
again.It gets to be
kind of the running joke.Everyone kind of tolerates the 2 hours you have to stay
there.Hopefully our
finalization will happen soon!
Tonight there
was a new couple there who had just adopted a baby.They also had a toddler who was basically running rampant of
the entire meeting room.The parents seemed oblivious.I had Caden sitting on the floor, happily contained with a
couple toys, and this kid would charge up and get his hands and face
right into Caden’s face.Clueless parents.I finally told the kid to take a hike but he kept wandering
back to pester us.
Brat.
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Wednesday,
February 6th
Since John is out of town this week, Caden and I went to the hockey
game alone tonight.We
usually hold him on one of our laps during the game but tonight
Caden had his own seat.
He was in heaven!I
brought in his car seat and sat him up in the stadium seat and he
acted like a King on a throne during the whole game.Everybody around us was laughing because he was acting so
grown up and really watching the hockey action.
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Sunday, February
3rd
I was trying to take some photos of Caden for John today because
he’s away on business and I sat him up at my computer and got these
hilarious pictures.He
was being so silly.
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Friday, February 1st
John is leaving town tonight for a week-long business trip to
Malaysia
and Bangkok.I can tell that he’s got significant heartache about being
away from Caden.I told
him that I’d e-mail him a new picture every day if I could.
Given how fast
this little fart is growing, he’s going to be crawling by the time
John gets home!
Everything went great today and was on time.
