Disney!!!

Mickey Minnie

Riding the tea cups

Cool kids

Loving the merry go round

Daddy and the Mickey bus

the nemo ride

The long awaited trip has come and gone....sadly. We had the best time! The weather was absolutely perfect (85 and sunny) and Will was such a trooper.

My strictly scheduled child let loose for a couple days...took a morning and afternoon nap..and didn't go to bed until 9pm most nights. He really enjoyed Disney. After reading all the books on how to take your toddler to Disney...I basically ignored all the advice except for packing lots of our own snacks. Half my suitcase was full of snacks. Every time he got close to cranky..I gave him food.

We had hyped up Mickey and Minnie so much before we got there that he wasn't the least bit scared of either character. He kept kissing and hugging them. I can't say the same for Donald, Pluto, and Goofy...but I can only do so much.

His favorite ride was of course the Merry-Go-Round. And he enjoyed all the forms of transportation we used to get around (monorail, train, bus, plane, boat) even more than that. So basically we could have taken a much less expensive vacation to the Jersey Shore. But he also liked It's a Small World (Adam's least favorite ride) and you can't find that on the boardwalk!

Our only casuality is that Turtle is still vacation at the Regal Sun Resort...we left him in the hotel crib. After many calls to the hotel housekeeping..they have assured us that he is in the mail.

Now that we are back I could really use a vacation...Disney is fun...but exhausting!

Tolor

"tolors"

Hanging out with Pluto, Mickey, & Minnie

March is here and I know spring is just around the corner! Aside from the foot of snow we got earlier this week...tomorrow is supposed to be 60 degrees and I fully intend to take Will out to the beach.

This week Will has been very busy. We are eagerly getting ready for our trip to Disney World next week. We have been doing a lot of talking about the characters (his favorite is Mickey and Minnie) and have also enjoyed watching the Disney Pixar Cars movie for the first time.

Thanks to all the wonderful art supplies Will's grandad gave him for Christmas in his stocking...Will is also exploring his creative side by "toloring". Coloring seems to be one of his favorite things to do these days. I started a little sketch book and put the date at the top of each page of his art work so we can chart his progress. No suprise...he likes the markers better than the crayons!

Last night, Will also had another first. He threw up for the first time! (Besides all that baby spit up). Adam was here and said it appeared to just be a mild upset stomach because he was fine afterwards. But he was very confused and said "sowwy" afterwards. Poor guy!

End of February

So the rest of this month has turned out to be super busy and super fun. Sara had February break from school shortly after my last post and we spent the week together doing "mommy" things. Among other things, we took Will to Monkey Joes, an inflatable indoor playground, which was really fun. Will enjoyed bouncing in the tot area...at least until some little boy who was definitely not a "tot" started to beat him up. Will was so confused why another kid would want to hit him. I quickly pulled him out..he was sobbing. Will was fine but the worst part was that the mother of the other little boy didn't do ANYTHING! She didn't even say "don't hit". I have found that this age is such an important time for discipline. Will is so eager to please that reprimanding him really hits hard and works. We spent a few more minutes during which this same little boy knocked over a little girl and made her cry. I love watching Will interact with other kids at this age, but I'd never seen anything like this before. Needless to say, I don't know when we will be heading back to Monkey Joes.

We also took a quick trip to PA last week and it was great to see my family. Will really enjoys the dog and the cat and having lots of room to run. He has become so much more interactive as we head toward his second birthday. He is also putting two words together in small sentences which is very exciting. His ability to sort laundry has also come in handy. He knows which things are "mama's, dadda's, or willie's". It's actually really helpful and fun.

Our trip to Disney World is just around the corner and I can't WAIT to get into the warmer weather.

My real valentine

Will with his stuffed turtle souvenier. He calls it "Froggy"

Getting tired..note hair grabbing.

He enjoyed the statues more than the real penguins.

Outside checking out the boats.

Daddy and Will by the entrance.

So...Adam is of course my Valentine. He has been working the last couple days straight and is continuing through the weekend...so I wasn't expecting anything special. But he bought me roses which I discovered on the table this morning. So it was a great start to this holiday of love! Then he went to work.

Luckily Lisa was in town and hung out with us today. We went to swim lessons, ate donuts, finished planning our trip to disney world, and watched her get ready for her date. Then we were all alone. So Will and I made these brownies that are supposed to have cookie dough in them. Well they tasted awful so that was a bummer.

So I wouldn't feel to lonely, I let Will stay up late and we watched the Charlie Brown Valentine's Special and now that he is in bed I'm getting ready to enjoy a Lifetime movie...I really actually enjoy these...I'm not trying to sound pathetic :-)

Anyway..here are some pictures from the aquarium as promised!

Aquarium

We have been so busy lately. Let's see...over the last two weeks we have had lots of visitors..Emily, Abby, Lisa, and even Sara spent the night once. We have also had some great playdates with Braydon and Abel and Gwendolyn at our house. So being indoors hasn't been to bad this month...but the last two days the weather has been in the 50's and I forgot how much I missed it!

Yesterday I took Will to the beach just to run around thinking we would be the only ones..plus a few dog walkers. But lots of moms had the same idea! There were tons of kids...some even had their sand toys out! Today Adam and I decided to make our trip to the Aquarium in Boston because walking around the city is always much more pleasant in warmer weather than cold.

We took the train in which was clearly the highlight of Will's trip. He was amazed by the whole thing. He enjoyed most of the aquarium. We got there when it first opened so we were pretty much the only people for the first half hour. We were able to see the feeding of the penguins, which was really fun and watch the seals do some exercise. Will wasn't really interested in the tanks full of fish, but he did like the really big turtle named Myrtle. One fun thing about the aquarium is the big circular tank the floors are built around. Will had the best time running up and down it..which is really no surprise.

When the school groups started to come in..we decided to make our exit. Not without a stop to the gift shop first! We had to commemorate the first trip so we bought Will a little stuffed turtle which he has affectionately named "Froggy". Hmmm...

Anyway...lots of fun. Now Adam is on a six day stretch at work so Will and I have planned a few things to do to keep us busy...more playdates..church..maybe a little shopping. It should be too bad!

P.S- I will post pictures as soon as I can get the camera working. I can't figure out how to connect it to the computer for some reason...but we've got some great shots from today!

Great article!

A friend in my MOPS group sent me this article today and I thought it would explain to you..my non-mom friends...some of what I do all day. This article was a response to a reader that asked the question: My friend stays home with her kid all day at when I call her at night says she is tired and was busy all day and could barely get everything done. Is she lying? Does she just not want to talk to me? What does she really do at home?

Answer: When you have young kids your typical day is: constant attention from getting them out of bed, fed, cleaned, dressed; to keep them out of harms way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, car keys, and supplies for the trip out; to keep them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them least they get hungry, tired, bored, any of which produces lots of screaming. It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes 15. It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant regulation of your needs to second tier.

It's constant scrutiny and second guessing from family and friends. It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything- language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiousity, carefulness, creativity, empathy. Everything.

It's also a choice, yes, and a joy. But if you spend everyday all day with this brand of joy, and then when you get your first 10 minutes to yourself wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of catching up with a friend, a good friend shouldn't complain about you or marvel at your productivity and how you spend your time. *

I personally don't have an issue with friends bothering me at night..I love to catch up with people...but I thought the answer gave a pretty good idea of why even a day with just a toddler can be exhausting, demanding, and stressful. It's really wonderful too..but it's definitely a full time job!

All in a Days Work

I should have known it was going to be a crazy day when I was woken up at 5:30am by Will who peed the bed. No..we are not toilet training yet. My son just seems to have crazy amounts of pee and when he starts peeing through a diaper...I realize its time to run out to the store and buy the next size up. So I made a note to myself to do that...

Not long after I tried to put on Sesame Street for Will (he LOVES elmo) so I could make a phone call to church concerning a conference I am organizing this Saturday. Not only did the tv decide to not work..but my phone call was spent with Will crawling all over my body and the constant..."can you hear me now?" because my phone decided to stop working too.

After that call...Adam rang from the hospital to say that he left his cell at home. He needs this during work because he keeps medical search engines on his blackberry that he references in his ER...so I bundled Will up and made the 20 minute trek out and back to Melrose and saw him for about one second.

After that I decided to go to the gym...I needed some alone time. This went pretty well and we got home just in time for lunch and I even remembered to swing by the library and return our now over due books. While Will napped I was supposed to be doing gobs and gobs of reading for my class..but of course I fell alseep on the couch exhausted and missed the opportunity.

Once Will woke up I took him out the grocery store. As soon as we got in the store..Will announced that he had pooped. He is getting really good at this letting me know when he craps his pants thing. (Sometimes he confuses it with gas..but rarely). So I didn't even have to check his diaper or sniff the air to know that he was telling the truth. Caught without a diaper, I shopped as fast as I could...and apparently as expensively..some grocery bill!

When we got him I made three trips to the car to unload the groceries while Will spent time unpacking them and taking everything out of the bags. This is sometimes helpful and seems to keep him busy. I knew he was starving so I preheated the oven for the delicious frozen pizzas we were having. On my third trip into the house...Adam informs me via text that his patient has coded and died. This doesn't happen to often to him..usually to a doctor..and he was pretty upset about it. So we texted back and forth while I tried to console him meanwhile putting the pizzas in the oven.

Well turns out I wasn't much help to Adam...he still seemed pretty upset in the end...and I put a pizza right on the rack that wasn't supposed to go right on the rack and fell through the oven creating a disgusting and hot mess. So much for dinner. At least Will was unpacking the groceries....and spilling the box of Kixx cereal all over the floor!

It has just been one of those days that I wish I had a few more hands and a few more minutes. Tonight I have to spend the time on the classwork I didn't do..and I have to clean...lots of visitors coming! I never used to care because everyday is really the same to me....but thank goodness tomorrow is Friday!!