No, William, 5:00am is not morning-time!

William had a rare bad night last night. Usually he's asleep at 8:30pm and we don't hear a peep from him until the next morning at 7:30ish. So it was very alarming to hear him screaming "Mommy!!!!!!!" with some urgency at 4:30am. Anne went and tended to his needs (he though he saw a bug in his book basket) and came back to bed. Then again at 4:45 with the bug thing, this time in his laundry basket. Dozing off around 5:00am and the screaming resumes! So I got him and brought him into our bed.

Unfortunately, the sun started coming up which in William's mind means it's time to get up. So he laid there restlessly for about 15 minutes before I finally got up with him. Let me remind you that there's not a lot to do at 5:15am. He played some games, drank some milk, then started distracting me (I was trying to do some work remotely)

So I got dressed and we took a trip to Wegmans to get some groceries, then came back and unloaded, then ate a donut. OK... 6:15am. :(

So we went back to the games and some TV and some tinkertoys. That stretched things out until I was finally able to go to work.

Unfortunately for William, today is an action packed Seabreeze with friends day. Anne and I were taking bets on when exactly he would conk out. I predicted before lunch, she said just after. So at about 1:30pm, he started getting really whiney and impatient, followed by a need to "rest" in the stroller, immediately followed my sleep.

Racquetball or Whack-a-mole?

William has always had a hard time saying "whack-a-mole" and I thought it sounded like he was saying racquetball. So whenever he said that word, I would reply with the other word. This has gone on for quite some time now, and now that I'm actually playing racquetball again, it's gone into high-gear.

I overheard Mary Grace say today "Mommy, I love you just as much as you love me." They're both starting to say some really cute things lately. We can tell that William is processing a lot more, then coming up with new things to say. It's so interesting to hear the things that the kids come up with.

First amusement park trip of the year!

We got another season pass at Seabreeze this year and took our inaugural trip there last week. This year is extra special because the kids are tall enough for two new rides; the teacups and a really high airplane ride. We had a great time although we ran out of cash at the end and had to bypass all the games in favor of ice cream!

Daddy and the kids on the teacups.


Mommy and the kids posing pretty

Overnight Trip to Buffalo

This weekend we decided to take a trip to Buffalo and spend the night at a hotel with the kids. It was their first time at a hotel so Anne and I were in full observational mode. They seemed to both do very well with the concept of a bunch of strangers all sleeping in different rooms of the same building.

We checked in and immediately decided sleeping arrangements; Mary Grace wanted daddy and William wanted Mommy. So far so good. Next, we decided to take a dip in the pool. When we got there, we were surprised at how big and nice it was! The shallow end was 3' deep, so the kids required a parent each. They had such a good time in that pool! I don't think either of them stopped smiling ear-to-ear the whole time we were there!

We left the pool to have dinner with my brother's family (yum, thanks guys!), then decided to all go back to the hotel to swim some more! Again, very excited and happy kids, especially since we brought back some pool toys with us.

William and Mary Grace generally are in bed by 8:30, so it was quite a shock that they were still going strong in the pool at 9:30pm! We decided not to push our luck and risk a tantrum and left the pool for our room. William climbed right into bed, he was exhausted. He was asleep by 10. Mary Grace, on the other hand would-not-go-to-sleep. She was up past 11, whining and complaining about this or that, but finally the power of sleep overcame her reluctance.

The next morning, we got dressed and had breakfast at the hotel, then proceeded to our other destinations.

All-in-all, the kids took the whole "not sleeping in their own beds" thing in stride and had an outstanding time in Buffalo. I kept thinking about how much fun it would be to stay at a hotel with a pool in the dead of winter. So hopefully we'll be doing that.

Eating habits

I was thinking about how those two kids eat and wanted to jot down some notes for posterity.

Mary Grace refuses any and all vegetables, except for corn (on the cob and off) and she will open up sugar snap peas and eat the peas inside. She used to eat "ronis" with sauce but now will only eat them with butter. She does eat ravioli with sauce though.

She loves french fries and potato chips but won't eat any other potato (fried/mashed)

William will at least try new things and enjoys broccoli, peas. He tried mashed potatoes the other night and seemed not to hate it too much. I think he had a consistency issue with them. Tonight he tried baked beans. Consistency problem again.

Their agreed favorite food? Mommy's special recipe mac&cheese. Also hot dogs, ham/turkey roll-ups (especially with toothpicks), and believe it or not, they both LOVE Garden Burgers.