{day with mommy}

Ayden didn't have school today. Instead of going to school (well no one was there anyways), he spent the day with me. Normally on days when he doesn't have school he attends the YMCA Great Escape Days Off Program and he should have gone there today, but he didn't. Here's the thing... when I signed him up at the end of last school year for this school year's days off I was given a piece of paper that indicated the dates I had signed Ayden up for. Silly me, I 'misplaced' that sheet sometime between last May and now. I know, how I could I lose such an important sheet of paper within the last six months, haha! Normally when there are days off from school and the Y is holding their program you get a reminder in the mail (and or email) reminding you that your child is signed up for the day off. Well with no mail coming last Friday I was thinking that if Ayden was signed up, we'd probably get the reminder on Saturday or Monday when it was too late. Worse comes to worse and I would just call the Y on Monday morning to see if he's signed up or not. I don't have class until 10:30am on Mondays so it wouldn't have been a big deal had I needed to call.

The weekend comes and goes and no reminder comes. Jay doesn't get any emails (they send emails to his address) and so I began to assume that we had probably not signed Ayden up for the day off. And then I began to think that maybe we didn't sign him up for any days off. I went through his school calendar and most of his days off are on Fridays and I don't have class on Fridays so he wouldn't need to attend the Y program. In any case, I ended up calling the Y at 8:00am when the child development office opened and left a message asking them to call me back and let me know. 8:30 comes and goes and still no call back. By this time I pretty much assumed that Ayden wasn't signed up for today's day off and told me him that he could come to school with me. He really wanted to come with me anyways and was excited about that. I did end up getting a call around 9:00am letting me know that in fact Ayden was signed up for today. I let them know that he wasn't going to be there and Ayden and I headed off to school shortly there after.

Having him come to school (and work) with me wasn't really that big of a deal. I only have one class on Mondays and it is just an hour and a half. There are only two students in my class, myself and Katie, and the professor is in Madison. I set Ayden up at the end of the table and he wasn't even on camerea so I don't know that anyone in the Madison class even knew that he was there. I brought along a bunch of things to keep Ayden busy with and he was an absolute angel during class that I almost forgot he was even there! He didn't bother me or interupt at all. After class I needed to go to work for a little bit. My job is awesome in the fact that if I show up for a few hours Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and stay on top of what my boss needs done, she doesn't really care if I leave early here or there or if I have a visitor with me. I was able to get the majority of what I needed to done today at work and Ayden had a great time helping me. Once again, he was an angel!

After work we went through the little museum that is in our campus library before walking back to my car and coming home. It was a good day for the most part. Would I have preferred not to bring Ayden with me... yeah, probably, but he was so well behaved that it didn't really make my day any harder and everyone liked to see him. Turns out I had him signed up for two other days for the Y days off program as well. I wrote those down so I wouldn't forget them. I also treated Ayden with a Redbox Wii game rental for the night for being so good while we were out and about today. He deserved it.

I booked a mini family vacation for myself, Jay, Ayden, my mom, brother, sister, and her boyfriend to the Dells shortly after Christmas today. It was my sister's idea and actually she had originally suggested just a mother/daughter thing, but since a trip to the Dells can be rather pricey I thought a whole family trip would be fun and this way if there are any water slides that Ayden cannot go down and Jay and I want to try, we will have someone to watch him. I think my sister might be a little apprehensive about her boyfriend coming along and having to share a room with her whole family at the same time... especially since it will be probably only the second time we are meeting him (and that's if he can make it to our cousin's wedding in two weeks). But I think it will be a lot fun! We haven't been on any family getaways with my mom in years and despite the fact that it is just going to the Dells, I am excited about it. I mean, we are going to the Wilderness afterall... the Wilderness is fun no matter what! How can it not be fun with three huge indoor water parks?! Yeah, I thought so! And the price is pretty reasonable for all of us as well. Ended up being $99/person total for the two nights. Pray for decent driving weather there and back please! And I think we are headed to the Dells the weekend after for Jay's family Christmas, only I think the plan is to stay at the resort we stay at for sturgeon fishing which doesn't have any indoor waterparks. In any case, I'm sure that that will be lots of fun as well!

I am five and a half weeks into my Turbo Fire program at this point and let me tell you, it is harder for me to maintain weight than it is to lose it. I've been trying to be good with working out and still eating in moderation to maintain my weight, but it's harder than I thought. I've been snacking on the good stuff a little too much lately and the scale is not my friend. I have worked so hard these last six months to make my goal weight and I don't want to start heading backwards at this point in time, that would suck! I told Jay that he should probably start his P90X program again. He will most likely be done working this week and I can totally see him sitting at home all winter just eating and gaining all of the weight back that he worked so hard to lose as well. It WILL happen to him if he doesn't watch himself. I can already see him starting to eat more in just the last few days that he has been home with the bad weather. I don't want to seem critical of him about his weight, but I don't want him to travel backwards either and it will happen. But he is his own person and he needs to want it for himself just as much as I want it for him. And who knows if he does at this point in time.

CIAO! LOVE ME!