My little bundle of cranky

All bundled up and ready to do some walking around downtown. The darling hat is courtesy of Grandma (see Mom, he's outside and the hat is ON - mittens too!)

He was such a trooper today even though I KNOW he was not feeling well. He was fussy all morning in the hotel room and then I bravely packed him up to walk around downtown and shop. Courtney and Eli joined us around noon and we had lunch across the street from the hotel and then Laura got off work early so she came along as well. My little cutie slept all the way to the mall and then again on the walk back 3 hours later. He was so darling in all the shops, just content to be there and was even charming when I took him out of the stroller for some down time at Starbucks. It was funny when we walked into Starbucks, there were 3 velvety club chairs all arranged for chatting available so Laura and I snagged them while Courtney went to get the highly sought after Caramel Apple Ciders she'd been trying to get for 3 days now (each SB has been out of Cider). Three adults, three chairs, should've worked out splendidly but when Courtney returned, Eli had decided that her chair was JUST RIGHT for HIS little hiney and there he sat sprawled out, no room left for Mommy. He refused to buge and Court looked so defeated until I suggested she use his chocolate milk as a bargaining tool. Ahhh, the power of chocolate milk. When all else fails, you can usually bribe a kid with chocolate...

Laura and Peyton, snuggling at the Starbucks...

After Starbucks, we walked back to the hotel along the river and the backside of the convention center. I pointed to the general area where Ian was and told my sleeping child that Daddy was in there. A minute later my cell phone rang and it was Ian, when I looked up I saw him standing on the other side of the glass looking at us. He came out for a minute. They just happened to be on a five minute break at the exact time we were walking by and had stopped to photograph the geese in front of us.

After Ian left, we tried to continue our journey but suddenly the geese made an aggressive move and started after us in this big group. We were screaming like girls and backing away (I've been chased by geese before, it's darn scary!). Finally Laura and Courtney decided to blast through them with the strollers and I snapped this photo right before I dashed on through. Whew! That was a close one...

Ian, Peyt and I had dinner with Ian's Senior Engineer, John. It was fun but Peyt started getting really fussy and was tugging a lot at his left ear. It's either teething or an ear infection and I really hope it's the teething. He doesn't have a temp so it probably is. Nevertheless we came home and I put him to bed with some baby Tylenol. I hope he sleeps comfortably through the night, my poor sweet baby...