So long! Farewell!

With about 24 hours until we fly to Indiana to see mom and dad for the month of November, I'm packing, cleaning and generally trying to get the house back into its "normal" state before Barbara gets here. Jake is not helping this process one bit. In fact, it seems like he has chosen today to throw everything he's got at me to ensure that I won't miss him too much; like he's saying, "have a nice trip--here's a few parting gifts for you!"

He started out the day by ripping his diaper off and decorating his entire crib, surrounding floor and wall with his own poop, throwing larger pieces out into the room and smearing the rest in finger-paint style smudges on his sheets, appendages and the slats of his crib. I picked him up, held him at arms length and deposited him in the empty tub while I stripped his sheets and scrubbed off all visible poop from his crib. I went back to the bathroom and turned the shower on Jake to wash the poop left on his body (he was not happy about this) and then wrapped him in a towel, put a diaper on him and put him back in his empty crib to drink his bottle while I cleaned the rest of the mess. I went to throw away the sheet (there was no salvaging it) and heard the tub water running again. James had gone to get Jake up and found him smearing poop I hadn't seen on one of the slats of his crib all over the mattress.

He took another bath and went into the kitchen for breakfast. He ate two bananas, some rice cereal and some cheerios and then played in the living room for a while until he and Finn's playing escalated to screaming and they both went in their beds for a little rest. Jake did not want to be in his crib and so screamed and cried for about 20 minutes until the point when, I can only imagine he got bored, and fell asleep. Finn (who is sleeping on the lanai in the pack and play) drummed on the surf boards for a half an hour and talked to himself.

We got them all up for a bike ride during James' lunch to be out of Anne-the-cleaning-lady's way and sitting in the trailer, Henry and Jake took turns stealing the others' plug and ripping the broken a/c remote out of each others' hands and shrieking. We stopped at Burger King for a little snack and Jake arched his back against the straps of his seat belt and screamed at the top of his lungs while we got situated at a table outside, making the drivers of cars pulling into the drive thru shake their heads and frown at me until I handed him a french fry (I'm not all homemade baby food) to stop the head ache all around. He nibbled on one fry after another until I cut him off starting the crying that lasted throughout the entire bike ride home until sitting in his high chair eating chunks of purple sweet potatoes.

He's down for a nap now so the house is quiet again but it does make me wonder if he knows we are leaving or if he is missing all the attention he was getting over the weekend with Scott and the Rohls here or if he's just having a bad day. Either way I love him but he's making it awfully easy for me to pass him off to Barbara tomorrow for a much needed break.

Good luck Barbara. He's adorable, he's smart and he's a handful.