Weekend Report from Charlotte

John hiding behind the sheer curtains in the hotel room:
The baby has begun imitating us blowing our noses, including with sound effects, as seen here:

Climbing on the round pillow is all fun and games until it rolls out from underneath a person:
Asleep after a long day of driving:

John and Daddy having a fun boys' outing to Costco while Mama took respite in the hotel room (cell phone photograph):

Chris took us to a fun Japanese restaurant with a hibachi in the middle of the table. John was not afraid of the flames and enjoyed playing with the chopsticks.

Here is John, transfixed by the new electronic lights-and-sounds phone I bought him in anticipation of our plane ride tomorrow. Having just spent four days traveling with my sweet boy who is utterly not sweet when trapped in a car, I was more than happy to spend $10 to let him have a distracting toy for our next three days of travel.
As has happened before when we travelled, John was thrown so far off routine and got so few good naps that he was over-exhausted as of last night and spent half the night having night terrors. Those are so hard on Mama!


Other tidbits: John is now "babbling" in sign language. Sometimes when he thinks I don't understand him, but I really do (for example, when I do not let him play in the toilet), he stands tall, holds his arms out straight, and starts squiggling his fingers emphatically. It's both cute and impressive to see that he understands that there is a separate "language of hands" and he is trying to use it, even when he doesn't know the specific sign already. And it is certainly more pleasant in those moments than hearing him shriek!

Chris has already left for his next business trip, about twelve hours after we got home. I've lost count of how many weeks Chris has been on the road, usually Monday through Friday. John is really missing his daddy. John now calls both of us "Mama," but I know the difference. I don't know how I know, but sometimes "Mama" means me and sometimes it means Chris and I believe that I know which is which. Today when John saw Chris' suitcase in the hallway, he became agitated. Then we all walked downstairs and said bye-bye to Daddy, watching him go out the front door with his bags. As soon as I shut the door, John threw his head back in my arms, flailing and weeping, "Mama! Mama!" (meaning Chris, not me), while waving his hands "bye-bye." I took him upstairs for some soothing time. The bright side of when we finally move to our new home town is that Daddy will be home a lot more often with us.