Even though Hanukkah and Christmas fall as far a part as they ever have I still ended up celebrating the blended holiday we can forever thank Seth Cohen for naming.
This afternoon I arrived at Bug and Little Man's house just in time for the Christmas tree trimming to begin. We followed that up with lighting Hanukkah candles, exchanging presents then dining on brisket and latkes and ended the evening by reading The Grinch.
One of the results of having friends who feel more likely family is that their family ends up feeling a bit like your own as well.
Let me back up and explain. This weekend my plan for Saturday had been to head out to the Eastern Shore to visit Bug, Little Man and their parents, but then I realized they were heading my way on Sunday to visit their grandparents.
Such a ham!
So the original plan got scratched and we set a lunch date for this afternoon. We walked along and crunched some leaves, heard what Bug has been learning in school about plant life (hearing a five year old talk about chlorophyll is quite impressive), had a yummy pizza lunch, browsed in a toy store and made wishes in a huge fountain before heading to their grandparents house.
Little Man is getting big!
And then as we walked along it was totally natural that I went with them, and all of the sudden it was three hours later as I was saying my goodbyes to run some much needed errands and refusing the multiple offers to stay and join them for dinner.
I had other things I wanted to get done today - some cleaning and laundry and maybe even actually getting a head start on packing for the next trip, but hanging out with this family, who may not actually be mine, but doesn't hesitate one bit to make me feel like I'm part of theirs, well, that was a much much much better way to spend my day!
I mentioned in my last post that I spent much of the past month with weekly out of town trips. What I didn't mention is the focus of those trips were the kiddos in my life.
Two beach trips, a kids gym, a little kid amusement park and a children's museum were the destinations of choice with Wiggles, Bug & Little Man.
While there's more to say about the rest, I'm starting this retrospective with the beach!
First up with Wiggles first trip to the beach and despite A LOT of rain, she still had a great time at "the sandbox."
I think one of the best and worst things about a two year old is that they have no real sense of time. It's a bad thing when any one activity only holds their attention for a few minutes before they are zooming full speed ahead into something new.
It's a great thing when 30 minutes after you arrive at the beach the skies open up into a complete and total downpour and you can pack up quickly and talk about how much fun you had at the beach without them whining "but we jusuuut got here"
Nope, instead we had a happy toddler running through the, in her words, "almost rain."
Luckily we got some beach time in the day before, and things eventually cleared up enough for an evening on the boardwalk that didn't require wet suits.
The beach involves running. And falling. And snacking.
Rides & candy. Nothing better in the life of a two year old!
Less than two weeks after leaving the beach with Wiggles, I returned with Bug & Little Man (and their parents, but we know they aren't the focus of this post).
Luckily our weather was perfect. Which is a good thing, because this is our fourth year of beach trips and there is a routine and expectations in place, all of which require good weather!
Rides + sand is the recipe for success with this crew!
On any given day Little Man strikes a perfect balance between being
the most serious 2 year old you've ever met and being totally silly.
So, on this second trip rain wasn't an issue. But that pesky ocean was. We got to the beach Sunday morning with several hours to go before high tide and thought we'd be ok sitting about 20 feet back from the life guard stand. We set Bug to work digging a 'just in case' trench in front of our stuff, but I really thought that we'd be long gone before the tide came in.
I was wrong.
We never did end up getting washed out. Our, by then, multiple layers of trenches did their job and kept our stuff nice and dry. But it was a very, very close call. The area in front of us filled in like a kiddie pool, great for Little Man who was not a fan of the ocean and would continually tell the waves to "Stop It!" when he was standing in the surf with his mom.
But while he just told the ocean to stop, his sister had a different idea of how to keep the water away...
Last weekend I made my annual Memorial Day trek over the traffic-filled Bay Bridge en route to a long weekend at the beach. Even hitting the road at noon on Friday was not early enough to beat any sort of traffic, so the drive was long and slow.
Though unlike prior years, the beach wasn't my first destination. This year I was stopping off to spend Friday night with Bug, Little Man and their parents. We had a relaxing Friday evening around their house and early bedtimes where yet again my sleep quality was 100%. My original plan had been to hit the road to the beach first thing in the morning but that got derailed when my friends invited me to go with them to the nearby Chestertown Tea Party Festival.
No, it was not a festival celebrating the modern tea party, I would have skipped that for sure, but a weekend long festival & reenactment of when citizens in Chestertown had their very own tea dumping party back in 1774, about six months after the more well known one occurred in Boston.
We arrived in Chestertown around 9:30, just in time to find parking and get to the parade route. We were surprised to see so much activity going on already - including the funnel cake and wine tasting booths with steady streams of early morning customers. Neither items really my breakfast of choice but hey, to each his own.
We settled into spots along the side of the road to wait for the parade, and oh what a parade it was!
Chestertown rocks the Colonial parade.
After the parade we wandered the festival, which was filled with people walking around in period costume like the "Kissing Wench" who left bright red smooch marks on the cheeks of random passersby and "Toss the Tory", when a "British loyalist" was captured and tossed into the Chester River. There were also more modern festival activities, like face painting, shopping and yummy food.
As we sat in the town square enjoying a yummy seafood lunch my friends commented that they were really glad they live on the Eastern Shore now. And with fun-filled days like last Saturday I can certainly understand why.
While he's been mentioned or pictured on the blog several times (exhibits A, B, C & D), one of my favorite kiddos has never been formally introduced, mostly because I didn't have a good nickname for him.
But yesterday, as I headed out to spend the night with his family in advance of our date this morning, I decided Little Man would be it. It turns out it was quite a good pick as I heard his dad call him that on several occasions last night and this morning.
Anyway, here he is:
Hi Aunt Stacy!
He turned two last month, and I did get to go to his birthday party before the crazy month of travel, but I decided that he and I needed our own outing once the craziness ended, so I asked to borrow him for the morning. While big sister Bug wasn't thrilled with a date that didn't include her, their parents were agreeable to the idea so Little Man and I set out bright and early for their local kids gym.
At first I wasn't so sure it was the best idea. We walked in and saw all of this:
Looks fun, huh?
But he only wanted to play with this:
What 2 year old boy can resist a train table?
I was eventually able to woo him away, and then we had lots of fun swinging like a monkey, jumping, jumping, jumping, playing with balls, rolling down mats and, oh, did I mention jumping?
It was awesome!
We capped off the morning with lunch at Chick-Fil-A, where Bug and their mommy joined us as well.
I am feeling pretty lucky today - to have these two kiddos in my life, and that I got to return to my quiet apartment as one was having an overtired meltdown while the other insisted she was not tired and most certainly did not need a nap.
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