Vanessa Graduates

desiini&thegraduate
Originally uploaded by globalgirl246.

We took our first Jones Family Road Trip to Philadelphia on Monday night for Vanessa's graduation on Tuesday morning.

Because we are rarely in cars, DJ gets car sick rather easily and vomited heartily before we even got out of NYC. We had to wait till we crossed into NJ to pull over to a service station to clean him and the rental up. We were there for about an hour making trips back and forth to the bathroom. A whole new way to travel for us!

Desi did enjoy watching all the cars, saying "beepbeep" and pointing out buses and trucks. We also sang songs, tickled each other and listened to music. Nate is the avid CD collector in the family so he brought a selection for his listening pleasure. He conveniently forgot Desi's CD with some fun toddler tunes but he did bring one of my favorite CDs that he's discovered recently to actually be good, "Black Eyed Man" by the Cowboy Junkies. I happily put it in after an hour on the road and sang and enjoyed myself. But when I was into about the 5th song on the CD, Desi began a distressed, "byebye" plea and soon it escalated to, "byebye music byebye!" We laughed quite a bit at him and I quickly skipped ahead to my favorite song and promised that it would go "byebye" after this song. Nate then took over saying that Desi liked one of his CDs, Aqua, and popped it in. A euro techno beat filled the car followed by a most cartoonish woman's voice. Desi grinned widely. Hmph!

He vomited a couple more times before reaching Ini&Vanessa's place. What a mess! We were in the outskirts of Philly by then so kept driving till we reached the house and hustled him off to the bathtub (that turned out to be the extent of his throwing-up, amazingly his body adjusted and there were no more problems).

The three of us had to sleep in the same bed that night and once Desi discovered this he couldn't go back to sleep for about two hours. I stood my ground and refused to nurse him. We quit middle of the night nursing about 6months ago and I wasn't about to start up again, esp. now that we'll be sharing the same room again (once grandma&grandpajones arrive for a 1month visit) and the same bed while traveling in UT for a month at the end of this summer.

Vanessa's graduation was at the Academy of Music at 10am the next morning (Tues). We decided to bring Desi along as we came into an extra ticket -- we had previously arranged for Soofy, a friend from South Philly, to play with him in neighboring Rittenhouse Square Park. After the first 5 minutes in our plush seats we regretted our change of plans, Des was *not* going to sit still or be quiet for longer than 60 seconds in such a stimulatingly new environment. Nate and I took turns taking him out and letting him run around the corridors for the next 2.5hours. UGH! As far as we could tell he was the only child under 6years there. NEW TO PARENTING!!

Vanessa looked gorgeous and was so almost-adult that it was incredible thinking we had known her for so long and seen such a transformation. She was so happy and proud.

Nate and I used to live just a few blocks from the Academy, where Vanessa obviously visited us frequently, so after the ceremonies were over we all knew exactly were we wanted to go for lunch to celebrate... Bertucci's!! Yummyyummy pizza! Our friend Moonsun joined us for a little bit to say hello -- it was her first time seeing babydes. But for the majority of the time it was the 4.5 of us talking and laughing like we used to. It was good to see our friends again and the city we love so much.

(The photos aren't many or very good -- the battery in my camera was low and I hadn't recharged extras before leaving... :::gurrrr:::)