birthday

As our schedule has been a little crazy lately, we've been doing my birthday celebration in pieces - so it has lasted for several days.  It's been awesome.  Friday morning Scott made me pancakes, and Saturday we went to lunch at Chevy's to use my free birthday meal.  Monday we went out for dinner at my favourite Chinese restaurant (which is pretty close to my favourite overall restaurant).

Jed made friends with our waiter:

And so the waiter gave Jed his own fortune cookie.

All of those things were fun, sure.  But SUNDAY. Sunday we had CAKE.

Jed helped me blow out my candles:

He was very pleased with himself.

He thought that since he did such a good job blowing the candles out, he should be rewarded with some cake to eat.  Candles would also be acceptable.

I didn't let him have any cake (or candles), but gave him some wrapping paper to eat instead.

He didn't love the way the tape tasted though.

I got some chocolate pretzels and some silverware that looks like silverware but is actually plastic.  I prefer using plastic utensils, and my dad thinks I look like a hobo.  So now I can use plastic but "look like an adult", according to him.

But the best present ever was this little baby!

Here are some cute videos I've taken of Jed recently:

We went to our friends' house last week to play.  Jed and their little girl, who was born 3 days after him at the same hospital (with the same midwives), like to "play" together.  Which generally means that they both pick up the same toy and chew on opposite ends of it (because whatever toy one of them has, the other one suddenly decides that of the huge pile of toys between them, THAT is the one they have to play with).

Or sometimes, the toy to eat is the other baby's head:

Some of you have seen this video already, of Jed's favourite activity - blowing raspberries.  I'm totally fine with it as long as he doesn't do it while he's eating!!!

Here is another favourite activity of his - bouncing in the bouncer that hangs on the door.  Here I'm popping in and out of various rooms, and he loves it.  You can't see me in the video, but watch for Jed to get quiet while he can't see me and REALLY excited when I pop out from around the corner.

space and baseball

After such an exciting day of grilling and fireworks, we took July 5th pretty slowly.  Jed spent much of the day playing with blocks:

Friday, though, was another adventure-packed day.  It started off quietly; we played in the apartment, sat outside on a blanket for a few minutes, and organized baby clothes.  But after lunch, we met my friend Emily and her family at the Goddard Space Flight Center and went on a tour, given by a mutual friend of ours.

We started off at one of the robotics labs:

We then continued on to see one of the clean rooms (through a glass window of course), the vibrations and acoustic testing centers, a model of the James Webb Space Telescope - which will eventually replace Hubble, if they ever get it off the ground - and a centrifuge (which simulates the g-forces on the astronauts).  It was very cool.

Jed and I didn't go to the visitor's center, because we had to run to the grocery store before we picked up Scott from school and we were running out of time.  We got through the store as quickly as we could, raced home, and packed our stuff to go out again.  This time we were on our way to a Nationals baseball game with Scott and Jeff.  Jed and I brought Scott some chicken for dinner, and the 3 of us headed to the metro station.  On the way, we heard that there was no metro service between PG Plaza (our stop) and Fort Totten, due to a derailed train at West Hyattsville - which is the stop between those two.  So we drove to Fort Totten and got on the metro there, and once we did we had no problems getting to the ballpark.

Now technically, Jed had attended a baseball game prior to that one, in my belly, but at that point I didn't even know I was pregnant yet.  We wouldn't find out for another week - at which point, I would be 4 weeks along (pretty much the very earliest you could possibly know).  But since he was still smaller than the size of a pea, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it doesn't count.

It was about a million degrees outside, and even when the sun went down it was so humid that it made little difference.  I had brought a bandana to soak in water to keep us cool, and for most of the game we gave it to Jed.  He found multiple ways to wear it:

Jed spent some time flirting with the teenage girls sitting next to us, and when I asked one of them if she'd like to hold him, she was thrilled. 

The Nationals lost in style - though we thought they were going to make a comeback in the 9th inning.  But we got to see Strausburg pitch and Bryce Harper bat, so we still enjoyed ourselves.  Jed didn't want to go to sleep with all the excitement, so he stayed up WAY past his bedtime again.  But it was totally worth it.

And just for fun, here is the best picture EVER.  So glad I caught this on film.

the fourth of july

Jed spent last year's 4th of July in my belly.  We didn't know his name was Jed yet, and in fact we didn't even know he was a he.  At that point, we were just calling him Blueberry.  Despite being in a dark womb, Baby Blueberry didn't miss out on the fireworks - we were in Austin, TX and fireworks were banned and all firework shows were canceled because of the drought the area was experiencing.  Instead, we went to see a show of tesla coils - which B-cubed enjoyed and showed his appreciation of by kicking along to the music.

This year, Jed was able to both hear AND see the Independence Day festivities, and he stayed up WAY past his bedtime having the time of his (short) life.  We started the day by going to the 4th of July breakfast at church, where we heard the United States' entire history in about 20 minutes, watched the Boy Scouts raise the flag, and ate pancakes, eggs, and sausages.  I even got gluten-free pancakes, which I wasn't expecting but certainly appreciated!  After we got home, we spent a few hours doing some housework and relaxing before company came over.  My Dad and Debbie, and our friend Jeff St. Clair, all came over to eat delicious food that Scott grilled for us (he's a grill master).  While the food was cooking, Jed showed everyone his mad bouncing skills:

These pictures were *actually* taken the day before, but this is approximately
what he looked like that day.  Here he is dancing to the Beatles.

After we ate, we drove downtown (sadly, there were 5 adults and a baby and we had to take 3 separate cars, because we were going in wildly opposite directions after the fireworks).  My dad works at the Pentagon, so we were able to watch the fireworks on the Mall from the terrace that overlooks the river.  First my dad gave us a short walking tour of the inside of the Pentagon (of a tiny part of it, anyway - there are over 12 miles of corridor in that building.  There are displays along most of the corridors, so you could really spend ALL DAY walking around the museum that the Pentagon is).

When our feet got tired (and Jedidiah got a little fussy), we went back outside to sit in the grass and wait for the show.

My Dad and I played Frisbee on the lower lawn, and Jedidiah had fun playing with his Grandma Debbie, his red Solo cup, his hands, and his toes.

At one point, a man came dressed in costume, stood on a box, and recited the entire Declaration of Independence (it was pretty impressive).  He was gesturing so wildly that I had a hard time getting a picture that wasn't blurry, but when I took one with the flash it helped:

The fireworks started shortly after 9pm.  They initially startled Jed, who grabbed my shirt upon hearing the first loud booms (they echoed quite well off of the Pentagon behind us), and I could feel his heart racing.  But then his grip loosened and he turned to watch the lights exploding in the sky with fascination.

They were beautiful.

As the fireworks got bigger, brighter, and more complicated, Jed got really excited and began bouncing up and down on my lap, flapping his arms wildly.  The pictures I was taking started looking more like this:

By the time we got back to the car, it was almost 10pm.  I had expected Jed to be asleep before the fireworks even stared - he's usually out by 8, or 8:30 at the latest - but I guess the evening was too exciting and he seemed to have no intention of sleeping.  I thought for sure that when we started driving home he would pass out, but he was so wound up that it took him a good 20 minutes of trying to eat his toes and chattering to himself excitedly to finally fall asleep.  Though he won't remember this day when he gets older, so far it's the most exciting thing that's happened to him.