We had to get up at 3am to make our flight at 6am. I was hoping Dex would stay asleep, or at least go back to sleep, but he didn't. He did okay on the flight out, but was screaming "BE QUIET! I'M TRYING GOT LISTEN TO MUSIC!" and "NO CRYING! STOP CRYING!" to the other babies on the plane. While quite funny, he was probably more disruptive and louder than the little ones crying.
We had a short layover in Denver which was good to let Dexter stretch his legs and run around for a while before we got on the tiny plane to fly us into cowtown. That plane is so small that the only seats together is the 3 in the last row. Dexter was asleep while we were waiting to take off. Poor guy didn't get much time to sleep though because the flight is only an hour long.
He was fairly well behaved at grandma and grandpa's house, but he was definitely testing his boundaries. He is a major challenge at this age because he's learned he doesn't have to do what we say and likes to see what will happen when he disobeys. Screaming tantrums happen 2-3 times a day and sometimes that's a good day. We've been blessed with a healthy, intelligent, athletic little boy, but he is too much to handle sometimes.
The first thing we did is ride his little blue 4-wheeler that he's been talking about for weeks. Unfortunately, that was the only time he got to ride it because the rest of the week we were there it was too cold and windy. A winter snowstorm was supposed to give us a white Christmas, but it just dusted the grass. As much as the news was talking about it and everything was being canceled, you'd think that the snow could have at least covered the grass. Because it was such a big storm that didn't happen we were unable to plan where we were going to go on what day until the last moment.
When we would've been able to travel, my mom dropped a large can of pineapple on her foot and got the nastiest bruise I've ever seen. She went to the ER to make sure nothing had been broken. She tenaciously cooked Christmas dinner without being able to stand. She just sat on a chair with wheels and kept her foot up whenever possible.
The next day, my dad got ill. It is the sickest I've ever seen my father and he couldn't do anything but lay in bed. We barely got to see him for the rest of the week because he was so sick. The weather, or lack thereof, also prohibited us from visiting with my oldest brother and his family because we needed to visit Mike's family the day they left instead of the usual Christmas Eve. It seemed like a glum Christmas this year because of the weather, the injuries, the illness, but it was very fitting for how awful 2009 was. However, it was still fun to see people even if it was for a short time. I wish I could have seen more people, but it's always hard to plan around the holidays.
The highlight of this year's Christmas is that Dex finally figured out how to open gifts. I'm not sure if it's the best thing, but he figured out how to rip the paper open. He'd ask me to take off any ribbon that might be in the way, but otherwise he's gotten down the RIP! I'm sure next year he'll have the paper off in 10 seconds or less. At least this year, there was a little time for him to watch him pull it off.
We flew back to SF on an evening flight and that seemed to work out ok. Dexter had a bit of a hard time getting to sleep on the flight from Denver to San Francisco, but still slept at least 2 hours. We got home around midnight and it was a real challenge to get him back to sleep. Everyone's schedule was a little off for a few days and I spent the following week napping every day while Dexter napped.
I'm glad we had a week off after going to Kansas. We started our "nesting" and rearranged our kitchen to be more efficient. We also put up all the tikis which is an undertaking. I think we have 30 or so of them. Unfortunately, Mike ended up coming down with a cold late in the week. He went out for New Year's which made it worse, and he still hasn't shaken it a week later. Our Christmas tree is still up and the Christmas decorations haven't come down yet thanks to the round of colds that now everyone has contracted in the last week.
On top of having a cold, I failed my 1 hr glucose challenge test for gestational diabetes. I had the 3hr test and I passed it, barely. given that I had GD last time, I'm getting a blood sugar monitor to see if my sugar is high during my normal routine. I'm having a hard time controlling my appetite lately, so this should be interesting. I am always hungry and I can't seem to feel satisfied no matter what I eat. I'm doing my best to surround myself with healthier choices, but it's harder this time around because I know so much more about portion and what a healthy meal should consist of. I don't always eat the healthiest even if I am trying to.
Dexter has continued to be a handful. Some days I just don't know how I'm going to handle 2 of them. Tonight he broke my favorite vase after I'd told him to stop throwing a ball around. It's probably the angriest I've ever been at him in his whole little life. He got really upset because I was mad at him. It wasn't the single event that made me mad, it had been building all day with him not listening to me and getting into trouble for everything under the sun. Combine the terrible two's with a grouchy, always hungry pregnant woman and that's not a battlefield anyone wants to be around. I think I need a vacation from motherhood for a bit before adding another on to the brood. I adore my son more than anything, but some days I want to run for the hills.
