Cape Cod, Part 2

Our vacation ended well.  Our biggest problems were:

• The boys didn't always want to eat when or what we were eating.  Especially breakfast, Asher would totally skip, and then around 10 or 10:30 he would go nuts yelling, "Eat food! EEEAAT FOOOOOD!" At which point he would devour whatever I offered, like cold pancakes or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
• Asher is in love with pajamas.  He doesn't want to take them off, ever.  Every morning we would go to the pond to play and swim and he would scream, "No clothes, no! No swimsuit! No!" as if I were killing him.  Once he was in his swimsuit, he was fine.  And once his swimsuit was wet, he was only too eager to get into his clothes.  We are having none of it- even if it is 2 adults wrestling him into a pair of shorts.
• Benjamin fell in love with a cheap plastic front-loader we bought for him to play with on the beach.  He played with it the whole time we were at the beach, and would then insist on taking it to bed with him, which filled his bed, and ours (when he climbed in in the morning) with sand.

Content Benjamin: cookie, iPad, front-loader, milk

We had some adventures, of course.  One afternoon we went to the ocean beach to have our afternoon snack, and the boys were eating granola bars while walking up and down on the sand. It was a beautiful afternoon, and apparently also high tide.

Playing on the beach at high tide

Shortly after I took that lovely picture, I heard a rumbling noise.  I turned to Elana and said, "that sounds like a big wave!" and the next thing I knew, a huge wave came crashing over the sand.  I leapt up and grabbed the camera and the bags that were holding our phones and ran for it.  Well, what kind of mommy am I?  I forgot to grab my children!  Fortunately another kind woman grabbed Asher, and Benjamin got knocked over (the water was shallow, but the pull of the tide when it went out knocked him down).  When Benjamin fell, his granola bar got washed out to sea, resulting in major tears and hysterics.

a little wet, and missing his cookie

Beautiful beach baby

The boys got lots of quality time with their grandparents.  They are in love with my parents.  Every morning they would wake up and we would hold them in our room until 7, but they would ask for my dad, who they call "Nee," and sometimes my sister, who they call Lana.  I actually think Nee is universal for both Nick and Meema, a nice combination of the two names.

watching a movie with Grandpa Nick

Reading with Meema

Our other difficulty was with some discipline.  We told Asher he couldn't have ice cream if he didn't eat any of his dinner.  Well, he decided he didn't want to eat any dinner at all.  So no ice cream.  Everyone else put on their shoes and left, and Asher and I had to stay home.  It was really heartbreaking for me, to hear the excitement in his voice when he said, "ice cream!!!!" and ran for the door, and i had to tell him we were staying home.  He stood at the door and cried hysterically for daddy for a few minutes, and I went to clean up from dinner.  He came to me after a little, and we looked at his baby pictures together, which he loved.  We both recovered well, but it was not easy for me to be the disciplinarian- this is definitely a weak spot of mine which I hadn't anticipated before I actually had children.

On our last night on the Cape, we had dinner on the bay.  The light was beautiful. 

Bear in a buoy

Look at those lips!

Benjamin in the buoy

23 weeks

Forget lobster, I'm having Benjaboo for dinner!

I was really sad to leave.  I am having a lot of anxiety about having another baby.  We have so much fun as a family of 4, and this was probably our last vacation as just the 4 of us.  It went so smoothly, I can't believe I'm going to go and throw a wrench in everything by having another baby!  The ride home yesterday took forever- partly because we stopped for about 2 hours in New York City to see our friends Alissa and Greg and their 2 week-old baby girl, but the boys were so great and really didn't complain the whole time.  They are getting so mature, already!

Today was back to real life, and I felt very stressed out by it.  We got the paperwork for the boys' preschool, and I am having a hard time thinking about sending them out to school 3 days a week, but that is another post in and of itself.

We don't have anything big or fun planned for the fall, and I am having the end-of-summer letdown.  I guess I will have to plan some fall activities for us to enjoy- maybe this year we will actually get it right with apple picking!