Okay, ready for stories? I’ll tell them in bulleted form with as little background as possible so that I don’t lose you before the end of the first one (no, me? I’m never long-winded!). Oh, and they’re not going to be even close to chronological order.
–The very first night we were there, we put all three babies in the same room for bed (remember my niece who’s the same age as BabyN was there too). She’s not used to sharing a room, so one of the boys disturbed her just as we were all going to bed, and she woke up crying. Her crying woke up both boys as well, so we had three parents trying to calm three crying babies at midnight. I took BabyN into the other room to nurse him back to sleep (something I rarely do), and put him back to bed close to one. When I crawled back in my own bed exhausted, I felt something damp. I smelled it: urine. Apparently the dog peed on my side of the bed. I ended up getting a very short, very interrupted night of sleep on the couch. I also couldn’t nap the next day because the only available bed was ours, and it took all day to get the sheets washed.
–Two more nights were no-sleep nights due to one teething baby (as we realized on Saturday when he suddenly had another tooth). I could go into all the gory details of walking a baby for hours and nursing him on and off all night, but I think you get the picture.
–And yet another night was no-sleep thanks to something else. The night M and I were at the B&B, the one devoted to endless “marital activity,” started out great with some shopping, a nice dinner, and a movie together. But about the time this marital activity would begin, I suddenly started getting some stomach cramps. I spend most of the rest of the night on the toilet suffering what was most likely a nasty case of food poisoning. What a waste of a nice, expensive room at the B&B!
–Oh, on our night away, we decided it would be romantic to share a bottle of wine. M had these great hopes of getting me a little tipsy, thinking just about everything would be funnier with me that relaxed. Since I’ve never had alcohol before and M has never tried wine, we got a recommendation from my parents that is supposedly the mildest wine ever, the first one my mom ever liked. Turns out I hate it. I had about ten tiny sips and each one was worse than the last. M didn’t like it either, even though he made it through a whole glass before giving up. I guess there’s not much chance of us becoming alcoholics.
–PJ totally showed off for his grandparents, trying just about any food we put in front of him. He really likes tomato, which both M and I HATE. He also seemed to like raw onion and mushrooms. At least he wasn’t too fond of the fried okra; I don’t think I could stand to even have that in my house, even for my son.
–We went to the zoo this past Saturday (and it was crazy hot). It was lots of fun watching PJ watch the animals. He was repeating lots of the names of the animals. He really liked the bears and the elephants, but our favorite was the ostrich. He tried to say ostrich at first and then just insisted it was a ducky. I thought it was pretty smart of him to make the connection between the birds, so we just agreed it was a big ducky.
–The last place we visited has this little-known park area that is done up like a Japanese tea garden, complete with a huge pond full of goldfish, a picturesque pagoda, and a waterfall. It’s a great place for photos, so we went armed with our nice camera. It turned out to be kind of annoying because it has steps everywhere, which is lots of fun with a 2-year-old who insists on taking each step one at a time and a baby. It is NOT stroller-friendly. And PJ was so excited about the steps that he wouldn’t stand still for a picture without throwing a fit (although the lack of an afternoon nap this day probably didn’t help). Then finally I got him to the edge of the water and held him close while pointing at the fish. He was awestruck. “I see fishies!” he said–a full sentence. We sat there for close to ten minutes pointing out the fish, the big ones and little ones, the slow ones and fast ones. And I think that was probably my favorite part of the trip right there.
–While at my in-laws, one of the touristy things we did was go to the top of the “mountain” overlooking the town (okay, it’s just a big hill). At the peak, they have a cute little park. PJ had so much fun swinging and even more fun on the slide. It was a really good time with those grandparents, and I got lots of great pictures.
–And oddly enough, I have no in-law stories to tell you. The drama was minimal, and I actually enjoyed myself this time. I’m not sure what was different, but I hope it continues for every trip from now on.
–We finally got to meet our nephew for the first time, too. If you remember he was born early, about a week farther along than PJ. He’s four months old now. He still looks and acts like a newborn. The only area he’s caught up on at all is his weight. I’m actually a little scared for him. I remember PJ at that age (thanks in large part to pictures), and this little guy isn’t even close to where he was developmentally. This baby doesn’t lift his head or smile (although they say he does–in response to some sort of physical stimulus). M and I recommended they call ECI to get him checked out, without actually letting on that we were worried; it can’t hurt after all, and we do wish we had done it earlier. I hope we just saw him on several bad days for him and that we’re dead wrong.
–The second best moment of vacation was the first night in the hotel room, with both boys within earshot as they went to sleep. I knew PJ always chattered some as we left the room to put him to bed, but I never knew what he said or how long he talked. Apparently, he talks to his brother, telling him sleep tight and even that he loves him (we think–he never says this to us). He also says all sorts of things we can’t interpret yet. He talks to him long after BabyN has fallen asleep. It was the sweetest thing listening to him talk his brother to sleep. I think they love each other after all.
And with that, I’ll finally quit talking. I think I have more stories that I haven’t remembered just yet, so I may have more for you tomorrow. I also have another post or two of deeper stuff that surfaced during the week (all good!) that I’ll delve into later this week. So stay tuned!
Posted by Kayce 
Afterthoughts 