Teach Me How to Mommy

This is a quick review in case you ever thought of traveling to the Dinosaur Place in Montville, CT.  Long story short, regardless of the travel, price and heat, this place is still worth it. When Jerry gets home every night the first question he asks is, "Which adventure did Mom take you on today?"  Shortly after, he states that he wishes he could be there.  Even though I Snapchat all our adventures for him he still gets pangs of jealousy.  Understood - I'm exhausted but it's for all the right reasons. So this weekend we took the kids to the movies for the first time ever.  The experience was great, but the movie kind of sucked.  Cars 3?  I guess I should've seen 1 & 2.  There was a lot of talking in it - you know like the cars talk to each other a lot.  I kept waiting for the great music - there was none!  Give me Trolls! So on Sunday we thought we would keep the adventures going.  We received a gift card two years ago (...

Vacations with toddlers aren't really vacations.   This will end up positive, I promise.   But back to the start.  Preparing, packing, traveling and then living on vacation is no joke.  Challenging?  Yes.  Worth it....  For the second year in a row, Jerry and I have traveled to Maine to spend time at his Pepere's lake house.  Along with us come many members of extended family.  The kitchen table is always full of cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.  Every bed is full and so are the couches.  Shoes don't have a rightful home, but laughs, beer and memories certainly do. So even though it takes nine plus hours in the car to get there, once you're there it's magic.  Limited internet, surplus of trees, off-road vehicles and lake walks.  Magic. Even better?  Plenty of 20-somethings, grandparents and teens who don't see my children as much as I do.  To them, most things they do are cute.  T...

It's Good Friday and what a good Friday it has been.  In fact, it's been a really wonderful vacation, the only bad thing being that it's almost over.  Amy talked about the "last stretch" . Fourth quarter is here, summer is around the corner.  She's right, well kind of.  May hasn't begun, and even though it's nice out, I still worry the cold air will come back and the work days will still be long.  Anyways, let's just go with her mindset - summer mode . We did a lot of things this vacation, including hosting a birthday party, a night away at the beach, the Aquarium and more.  Although many people we know went on vacations to Florida, California or further the farthest we went was outside of Boston to the Great Wolf Lodge.  I have to say that it looked really cheesy from all the ads, but it came highly recommended by a few people we know.  We wanted to take the kids somewhere  - some place new, exciting before we tackle a longer, farther vac...

Our friendship spans over two decades, but it's this photo that really marks the start of this blog.  Three kids just months apart hanging at their grandmothers' beach.  They organized themselves from tallest to shortest and most to least hair - just kidding, this was the best we could get.  They knew how to walk, but not that great yet and whether they knew it or not their futures as "beach babies" had already been determined. We may joke, bitch or even exaggerate (what Amy and I..how dare you!), but always in our hearts and in our every thought are these three blondies.  We live for the summers which makes January especially painful.  But we will make it there again and take this same photo - as we will be doing until our walkers don't push on the sand. Happy Flashback Friday all - let's hope for an early summer.

I am fresh off a wonderful trip to Maine.  More on how full my heart is later.  For now, let's just quickly recap how awful a 9 hour car ride can go, even when you plan everything right. For the record Jerry was nervous about the drive.  I naively assumed all would go well. Since it was a 9+ hour drive we wanted to maximize the kids' sleep/nap time.  Sooooo, Jerry and I woke up at 2:30 am.  The car was packed so we scooped up last minute things and attempted to transfer the kids peacefully. That damn milk cup. The kids were so excited that they got up and stayed up.  They wanted to know when we were "at Maine."  John chugged a milk cup about 4 hours too early, but who cares, right? Well, apparently we should have.  He puked it all up within the first hour of the car ride.  That's right, milk puke on him and the car seat. We cleaned up as best as we could in the dark, at 4am, off an exit ramp with no stores open. After 7 hours ...