Micaela's New BFF

I have to admit, it was nice having a quiet and somewhat clean house for the first few days after Mari and the girls left, but I'm ready for them to come back. When Micaela's source of entertainment left, I became a poor substitute; dinner all last week was mediocre at best (except for the day Shellie came over and cooked for me); and Jon is completely off any sort of schedule and will probably be up all night (he's been sleeping for 5 hours and it's only 9pm). The good news is that Kurt is home now and will hopefully help with all of the above problems, but when he leaves for the Instructor Pilot course next month I'm in trouble.

Let's see, not much exciting has happened in the last few days for me except Kurt coming home. Micaela, on the other hand, started cheerleading and made a new best friend. I was hesitant about putting her in cheerleading, but mom and Mari convinced me that it would be good for her and they were right. She thought gymnastics and soccer were okay, but she LOVED cheer. She got to dance and jump around and it wasn't very serious, just fun. Then on Friday she came to meet me after school and asked if she could have a playdate with her friend. Her friend came down and told me that they lived on Calle Maria, which is conveniently our street too, so it worked well. I met the girl's mom and she seemed nice and told me she would walk Micaela home after a few hours. When they brought her back, this friend went crazy and started running all over the house, including the upstairs which is Kurt's and my office and bedroom. I was about to yell at them when they came downstairs and ran out into the backyard. This girl started playing on all the baby toys and then yelling that she wanted to go in the playhouse out back. I told her that it was full of spiders and rats and that she couldn't go in it, but she didn't listen and continued to whine that she wanted to go inside. I kept saying no and was getting irritated that she wasn't listening and that she was behaving so badly in a house she had never been in before. I didn't yell at the girl because her mom was standing next to me and we were talking (the mom is nice). Then the girls ran into the garage and the friend hopped on Micaela's bike and started riding around the garage. There are still a lot of boxes in the garage and it's no place to be riding a bike. Her mom finally realized that her daughter was getting out of control and told her it was time to go. The girl threw a little fit about not being able to have a sleepover, but she finally started to follow her mom out. Just as they were getting to the door (after her mom telling her at least 10 times that they needed to leave), she saw my massage chair and flopped down and turned it on. After a minute her mom told her it was time to go, but the girl wouldn't get up. Her mom said she was leaving without her and walked out the door. When she still didn't follow I stepped in and told her that if she didn't listen to her mom, she wouldn't be allowed over. She finally left. After I shut the door Micaela told me how they were best, best friends. I was ecstatic, best friends with a poorly behaved 8 year-old... great. The girls attitude had worn off on Micaela and she got an early bed time and a talking to about what her friend did that was wrong (just to make sure she knew not to act like that). Despite that episode, we let Chloe come over for a few hours on Saturday and Micaela did a great job of letting her know what she was and was not allowed to do. I'm still not sure about letting them have sleepovers, but Micaela is very happy to have a new friend on our street.

On to Jon. He is growing fast. I don't really see it by looking at him, but when I put him in his bouncer I can tell it needs to be raised again (we just raised it when Mari was here). He's also learning new things, like how to grab stuff, rolling from his tummy onto his back, making razz/spitting sounds, and high pitched squeals (happy ones). He's been good for everyone who has watched him and starting tomorrow I'm going to try to get him back on a normal schedule (fingers crossed). I've taken a lot of pictures of Jon recently, so here they are:

Despite all the Steelers apparel, I'm not a big NFL fan,

but we compromised and at least he's wearing a Polamalu jersey

I asked Micaela to show me her new shoes and I got a whole leg,

but she was proud that they were Penn State colors One more funny picture of Jon and Jude
I laughed that Caroline took it upon herself to empty Mari's diaperbag,

but I know a year from now it's going to be my bag getting dumped on the ground

And some videos:

This was the first time I had seen Jon figure out how to roll the toy on the bouncer

Jon's new sounds

What happens when Kurt gets the camera