Happy New Year!!!

We're back! I haven't posted in a while because we were away until New Years. We had a great time. It started with the drive from FL to Baltimore. We left here at 7:30 pm so that we would be able to drive while the baby slept. It worked most of the way, but we were all awake by the time we reached Richmond at 5 am. Jordan didn't fuss, but he still cost us over half an hour. We decided to get through all the winter time clothes to change the wet diaper. Then as soon as we put on the clothes again you know what he did to the diaper. This is not the only diaper story of the trip. We arrived at about 8:30 am.

Of course, Jordan was the life of the party the first day because we arrived first. Everyone loves to tell us how much he looks like my father in law. The first real highlight of the trip was visiting our fan club. We have a few friends in the area who have been following Jordan since the early days of the hospital and we had to pay a visit. I don't mention names here without permission, but you know who you are and we thank you for all of your support.

Xmas eve everyone else arrived, but the main deal was the other two kids. The older cousin was a ball of energy and Jordan had the weirdest reaction. Jordan just looked at him. Most of the time he just studied his cousin as if he were a strange toy or something. The few times Jordan tried to play with him he seemed to just hit him. He waved his arms up and down and nearly beat up his cousin that is 2 years older. We don't think Jordan was trying to harm him, but we won't be tolerating that for much longer. Of course the kids all loved each other, but Jordan didn't spend much time playing with the younger baby.

Xmas has always been a weird day for me. It seems that the adults spend the first three years trying to get the kids all amped up about the day. Then the adults spend the next ten years regretting it. Then the kids learn the truth about santa when they become teens, and the teens don't see a difference between the gifts and ransom. So of course, we spent the entire day trying to get Jordan to smile about getting gifts. That's hard enough with most one year olds, but you'll see Obama curse out Michelle before my kid smiles over gifts. He is really stingy with smiles and he saves it for people not things. Even when he plays he goes about it like a challenge, not fun. Knocking down blocks isn't fun unless we show some reaction. He has no imagination yet so he doesn't play with action figures, he just disassembles them to find out what they're made of and what they taste like. The weirdest thing was that Jordan never paid much attention to the tree. You would think that a kid his age would be trying to climb the branches and eating the lights. All December I pulled him away from the tree exactly 3 times. It got to the point where I would try to roll the shopping cart next to the trees in the store hoping he would reach out a grab one. Nothing doin. He also gave us a special gift, a freaking heart attack. As regular readers know, we went to NY in August. From August until Xmas, he had been on the 3rd floor twice. All were on the same day when we went shopping in Orlando where the malls are 2 stories. He hasn't been on stairs since he learned to walk beacause every place around here is one floor. Weel, he made up for lost time. Nama taught him how to go up once and he took off. He was so proud of himself he couldn't walk by the darn things, he had to go up. Of course, he can't even walk down a curb without holding on, but he loved going up a staircase. He didn't even need - or want - witnesses. I actually jumped when he looked down on me from 10 steps up when I walked by. Of course, he almost jumped too. I hadn't been so scared since the NICU.

I grew up on the east coast and later moved to the south. So I was excited to get the chance to visit one of my old fast food hangouts from years ago. Of course because I was eating there for the wrong reasons, I also ate too much. I was fine for a few hours. I don't think the food was bad or anything, but at about 2am my stomach made it clear that there was something wrong with it. The mama ali was sleeping between me and the bathroom. I am pleased to report that I made it past the mama Ali. I did not make it to the bathroom. My stomach emptied about 5 feet from the tree. It might have been closer to the tree if my luggage wasn't in the way. About 2 hours later I was trying to clear out a bucket that I knew I would need and I was right. I needed it. That day I didn't wake up other than vomiting and restroom until 6pm. By then my tract was completely empty from top to bottom. The next day I give the gift that kept on giving to my wife. It kept on giving her nausea, headaches, and other things she'd get mad at me for mentioning. I was feeling better. The day after, New Year's Eve, Jordan got it.

It's easy to tell when Jordan doesn't feel well because he cuddles. Usually, he is a big boy and doesn't want to sit in anyones lap or be held. He wants to walk. New Year's eve he wanted to cuddle and nap. We spent the entire day passing him from lap to lap and he enjoyed it. We actually woke him up a couple of times to force feed him some milk from a bottle. He didn't take his first steps that day until around 4pm. Every parent has a diaper story. 99% of the time the diaper is a diaper. 1% of the time it's bad. Then maybe 3 times in the entire kids life he comes up with a masterpiece. I remember the first time Jordan boldly went were no diaper had gone. He'd been home less than a month and it was cute. New Year's Eve was NOT cute. We had to change the diaper, the jeans, both shirts, and the socks. Both socks. It wasn't quite solid or liquid. It was whatever you didn't want it to be. Where it was nastier as a solid, it was solid. Where it was nastier as a liquid, it was a liquid. I will remember that diaper. I will also remember something else he did that day. About a quarter to eight he taught me a very important lesson - don't force feed the baby. We had spent much of the day feeding him milk he did not ask for. We responded by giving back to us. Of course he didn't give us back milk, he gave us cottage cheese. We did not originally feed him cottage cheese. This was the first real vomit he ever gave us. This wasn't little baby spit up. This smelled like a big kids mess. It ruined a couch. Honest to goodness the couch still smelled bad when we left the next day. On behalf of all 3 of us I would like to publicly apologize to our hosts for any and all stomach contents we left in Baltimore.

When we finally left I didn't want to try the same overnight trick. The baby waking up at the end of the trip when we were so close to the end was nerve racking. Plus I was tired after being up most of the night. New Year's day all 3 of us were healthy enough to do the drive so we left at 2pm. This is Jordan's blog so I won't talk about the entire trip, but Jordan was a real trooper. No one got sick and by 8pm he was out for the night. We got home by 3am. When I finally got to sleep in my bed I could still see that little red line from the GPS when I closed my eyes.

Later that evening Jordan broke his own record for a messy diaper. It had been nearly 3 days since he had a real meal of solid food and not milk and baby mush. He stood up in front of the TV and walked toward his room. He left a trail of bread crumbs behind him. Actually it wasn't bread crumbs because we hadn't fed him any, but whatever we fed him he left a trail of. I actually wanted to press the reset button and start that day over again. It took half an hour before I finished cleaning the carpets and tile floor and the mama Ali finished with the bath. That was the day we decided to use the next size of diapers until he got back to normal. He wasn't back to his normal diapers for about 5 days.

I told you not to feed me so many damn prunes. Now change me!

The xmas tree. One of the advantages of having a bunch of kids is that the big toy boxes always make the tree look better.

Merry Christmas mommy. Thanks for the pacifier.

The video game is nice, but the dog seems to be licking himself and I want to help.

He hadn't seen his grandma for about 3 weeks and he wouldn't leave her side while she was there. It's akward when he runs by the parents to get to grandma.

The two oldest kids. I had to hold them to keep them still long enough to take the picture.

This little baby had such a big smile. He was always happy after eating.

This is an inside joke. Everyone in the family knows who this is. For those outside the family, it isn't me or the mama Ali.