nanas and papas and hohos oh my!

Jack, who will be 10 months old a week from today, started swim lessons today.  Now, some people think this is a little premature.  And yet one thing you must realize is that we have a pool in our backyard, and this type of lesson, called Infant Swimming Resource (www.infantswim.com) is a sort of drown prevention.  I highly recommend this for all kids but ESPECIALLY if you live near some sort of water.

So a few different things happened yesterday...
First, yesterday was Jack's first day of lessons and despite him loving the bath and never wanting to get out, he basically screamed the entire 10 minute lesson.  I was so overwhelmed and needing reassurance that we were doing the right thing but tried to just put it to the back of my brain, knowing that it was right and these were my own issues about hearing my child scream that I needed to get past.

Also, Nana went back to Illinois yesterday.  Nana's birthday present from Jack was a plane ticket to come out and visit us for the long weekend.  Jack loved his time with his Nana from Illinois and is so blessed to have his other Nana and Hoho living right here in Virginia Beach!  But it's always sad when Nana goes away. Of course, Nana from Illinois went home yesterday but Papa from Illinois is coming to visit today (he didn't want to take away Nana's time).  AND Jack gets to spend the night with Nana and Hoho here this weekend!

Finally, Jack got to go to the aquarium this weekend and was so enamored by the fish, turtles, sharks, rays, seals, and so on.  It was so amazing to watch him take it all in and learn every second!

So why do you care about every second of Jack's weekend?  It's just that we can't go about our lives without thinking about what our family will look like when we finally get to bring our baby home.  The opportunities we will get to share with our little James from the aquarium to swim lessons to time with Nanas and Papas and Hohos (oh my!).  I know we are still a good year away from that experience and yet, I long for it every day.  We love you Jack and James!!

An aside:  Jack's grandfather is called Hoho because he looks JUST like Santa Claus and, in fact, plays Santa throughout the Christmas season.  So please don't take anything from that other than that is his grandkids way of referring to him as Santa.

home sick

it appears the sickness has hit our family.  Jack has had something going on for about 2 days now (although he still plays very hard all the time), my father-in-law (who watches Jack during the day) started getting sick last night, and then today as I was home with Jack I began my own process.  needless to say, it's not been fun.  i'm REALLY hoping Justin doesn't get it as he is in the middle of working as a long term substitute and it does not bode well for him to miss a day of school.

if i begin to digress or head off on a tangent in this post it is most likely because i have just taken some theraflu and may be getting drowsy.

Despite all the wonders of parenthood and having changed Jack's clothes 3 times and my own twice today, and not feeling well myself, I still love that little man and wouldn't rather be anywhere but with him.  And it makes me long for our little James.  While I don't ever desire to be covered in kid juices (and i'm not talking apple or grape), I do get sad thinking I will miss out on James' first sickness and hate that I won't be there to comfort him.  I think if he knew we were all home sick today it would make him very homesick.  But we know this timing is out of our control, and so we wait for word from immigration that our I-600A has been approved!