April 16, 2006

Well the last load of laundry is in the dryer so I thought I'd take a minute to tell you all about our fun trip! (I think I did 8 loads of laundry today though I'm not sure, I lost count).

We had a very fun time in Philly. Jocelyn LOVED the pool. Actually - Jocelyn LOVED everything! She's such an adaptable kid - she was happy the whole time. Well, almost the whole time. On the last day we brought one of those wheely things that you put luggage on into the room and she thought it was her personal stage and was playing on it but we had to take her off it to get it loaded up and she was NOT happy and proceeded to cry for 30 minutes. It was pretty much the only time she cried while we were there.

We arrived Wednesday and managed to get settled in and give the boys a bath and get all the kids in their pajamas before we headed over to Susan and Jonathan's for the Seder. Jocelyn managed to stay up until about 9:30, which was pretty good. Timothy stayed up the whole time Morgan fell asleep on the couch around 10. I had a short snooze myself around 10:30 - the baby gives me quite the queasies in the evenings. Timothy found the afi komen, which he very much enjoys hunting for, and we all got presents. We got back to the hotel around 12:45am and it took Timothy about 15 seconds to fall asleep. Unfortunately, it took Morgan a little longer, and since they were sharing the pull-out couch...

Jocelyn barely even whined when we woke her right after the Seder to bring her back to the hotel, and was asleep again within 15 minutes or so.

Thursday morning we got up (promptly at 7) and went swimming - it was COLD! The kids didn't seem to mind too much - and Jocelyn didn't care at all. She LOVE LOVE LOVED splashing around and didn't care if her face got wet (something new in our family!). I decided to try dunking her under - so I blew in her face, plugged her nose, and fully submerged her. She came up surprised, but didn't care and went right back to splashing. So I did it again, and this time a little choking but no big deal. I tell ya - what a weird kid!

After the pool, Jocelyn and I had a shower - I put a towel down in the shower so she wouldn't slip and let her walk around while I showered and then soaped her up as well. She loved that too! We all got dressed and went over to the mall. Morgan isn't much into keeping kosher for Passover so we got the kids Wendy's. Then we all sat nicely and quietly in the relatively busy food court while the kids ate. Who knew? Even Morgan didn't seem to care much, as long as we kept the fries-a-comin'. (We've since decided this was quite promising and may even try eating at Country Buffet in the near future).

We walked around the mall a bit and then went to Susan and Jonathan's for lunch.

Jocelyn liked the stuffed bunny and bear that Grandma keeps at her house and kept finding them and walking around the house with them. Too funny. The boys wrestled with Grandpa and Uncle Jeremy. We all headed back to the hotel after lunch for a nap - but unfortunately only Josh and I actually WANTED to nap. Morgan fell asleep about 30 minutes before we were to leave to go back for the Seder - ahhhhh well.

The 2nd Seder went a little quicker than the first. Jocelyn went to bed before it started (I TOLD her she should have taken a nap!) and Morgan made it until about 10 I think. The nice part was that Morgan spent a good amount of time sitting at the dinner table and participating in the Seder. There's one song that has a repetitive line that he was able to pick up so he got to sing with us for that song and he did quite a good job.

We all take turns reading and Timothy's reading even impressed me. I think the only words he tripped over were Exodus and circumcision (which he read as circumstance - hee hee). Else he got the rest, and there are some pretty fancy words in the story of Passover! So Thursday night we were back at the hotel around midnight.

Friday the kids slept until 8 and then we decided the skip the pool but we did go back to the mall. It seems whenever I pack for Timothy we get somewhere and I realize he's outgrown everything I packed! So after more Wendy's for the kids we headed over to the Children's Place to get him some new jeans and also to get a couple shirts for the boys to wear to Shabbos dinner. Of course they had a sale on girl stuff so Jocelyn got lots of new stuff too - oops! Then we headed over to Susan and Jonathan's for lunch and the boys played a little baseball.

We tried for more naps after lunch, but again, Morgan was the only one that slept. By now Josh and I are dragging pretty good!

Friday night was a shorter night because Shabbos is shorter than the Seder so we were back at the hotel a little after 10. I decided to lie between the boys on the couch while they fell asleep, which seemed to help keep the peace. Morgan watched a CNN special on polygamy with me before he fell asleep (Timothy, once again, was out within a minute of hitting the pillow).

We left Saturday after lunch and hit some traffic in NJ due to an accident but else it went pretty smoothly. Because we're bad parents, we listened to a Lewis Black special in the car, which Timothy found quite entertaining. We got home a little past 7 and emptied the car.

Today was laundry day! I also cleaned out Jocelyn's drawers for season and size.

Oh, and a funny story from today. I've been working with Morgan on getting him to ask for a number of cookies instead of just asking for cookies, so when he asks for cookies I say how many cookies and he usually says 3 (because that's usually what I give him) but if he says 2 or 4 then that's what I give up. So today he comes running into the room and urgently yells - COOKIES?? TEN COOKIES??? I said No you can't have 10 cookies! So he says "3 cookies?" What a great kid.