Ramblings.

In a few hours, we will be leaving to go to visit my inlaws in New Jersey.  We are flying into JFK, which is normally utter chaos, but also saves us a ton of money.  Since Alex knows NYC like the back of his hand, I don't complain too much when he suggests flying into JFK rather than Newark.  I can totally handle Newark on my own - but that's more my turf than his, you know?

So anyway, we're staying at my father-in-law's house.  His wife (I hesitate to call her Alex's step-mother, because Jack and Nadia married just a few months before Alex and I did - so she was never really in Alex's life until the last six years or so) will be working much of the weekend.  Alex's brother, his wife, and their two kids are also coming to stay for the weekend.  I'm slightly (okay, more than slightly) frustrated by this.  I know that it's more economical for them to stay at Jack's house rather than drive back and forth (over an hour) to see us, but Jack's house really isn't that big.  The more I hear about room assignments and sleeping arrangements, I have realized that Reed doesn't have a place to sleep.  What will likely happen is that I will sleep in the bed with Reed and Alex will sleep on the couch, but still, that kind of sucks.  I told Alex jokingly (or maybe not so jokingly) that I would scope out hotels close to Jack's house.  He just rolled his eyes at me, but I have a feeling that after one night at his dad's house, he might agree.  I keep telling him that we should be going to Austin rather than to New Jersey, but he's excited about going home so he's not finding that amusing.

Reed has a new friend at daycare.  His name is Riley, and he's as much of a pistol as Reed is.  I snuck in yesterday afternoon and watched them for a while.  The rest of the class was sitting down for Dee to read them a story, but Reed and Riley were playing with some Matchbox cars that Reed had brought from home.  Dee was asking them to give her the cars and come sit in the circle, and Reed told her no.  She asked him once more, and he told her no again.  She counted to five and then took them from Reed.  Riley just collapsed and threw a fit.  Reed, seeing Riley upset, started crying as well.  About that time, she turned around and saw me.  I think she was embarrassed that I'd witnessed that exchange, but heck, I deal with it at home all the time (minus Riley).  She proceeded to tell me that this is kind of a common scenario between Reed and Riley.  Without disclosing too many personal details about Riley, she told me that his homelife is not "normal" and that this type of reaction is not unusual for him.  She also said that when he and Reed are playing together and she tries to redirect them, Reed resists because he doesn't want to upset Riley, but when it's just Reed, he's agreeable and follows directions well.  It makes me sad to think that Riley has something else going on in his life that is affecting him so much.