A trip to Florida followed by a relaxing weekend

As you may have noticed, there was no blog posting last week. We (Dave, Eli, my step-father Michael, and I) went down to Florida for a few days to visit my grandfather. It was a good trip, and Mudgie was very well behaved, but it was exhausting. Combine that with the fact that we had no pictures from our trip, and I just couldn't muster the energy to write about it last week.

We started the trip on Wednesday night, when we drove out to Western Mass. Mudgie fell asleep in the car, and fortunately, let us bring him inside and put him right back in his crib, so we could all go to sleep early. We were up at 4am the next morning to catch our 6:45am flight, although Mudgie didn't mind one bit. He loved the airport. I think I need to say that again, just so everyone can understand the magnitude of that statement. He LOVED the airport! Once we got to the terminal, he was glued to the window, watching the workmen, planes, and trucks do their thing all over the runway. I almost felt bad making him get on the plane, although fortunately, he seemed pretty excited about that too. He was amazing on the flight down there, and before we knew it, we were in Florida.

It was a jam packed few days down there, and the only realy Florida experience we had was an hour spent at the beach, but Mudgie had a blast there, and it makes us even more excited about our trip to the Bahamas next month. The rest of our time was spent visiting with family, and trying to work around Mudgie's nap schedule. We ate out at least once a day, and for the most part, Mudgie did well in all the restaurants. Our favorite restaurant moment of the trip was when he was scoffing down some ice cream, happy as could be, and then all of a sudden he started screaming. Dave, ever familiar with this, knew right away what was wrong...brain freeze! And just like Dave, that didn't stop Mudgie from inhaling some more ice cream and causing it to happen again!

The flight on the way home was little tougher than the one down there, but only because it was during Mudgie's naptime, and he was too excited on the plane to take a nap. Considering how overtired he was by the end, he did very well on the flight, and fell asleep practically as soon as he got in the car!

This weekend was much more relaxing. The only commitment we had all weekend was dinner with some friends on Sunday night. The Holman Family came over, and they have a little boy named Collin who is 6 months younger than Mudgie. This was the first time Mudgie has really had a playdate at our house where he's been expected to share his toys, and I was more than a little concerned about how it would all play out. Fortunately, most of my worrying was for nothing, and while there were a few "mines" and grabbing of toys, for the most part the two boys played really well together.

Mudgie's vocabulary continues to amaze us. Dave and I tried to count the number of words he has and uses on a regular basis, and we got to about 75 and decided to stop. He can count to 3, and we are working on 4. He has a big enough vocabulary to make most of his wants and needs known, though he continues to come out with new words every day. He loves to be "nakie", and while he's nakie he will point out all of his body parts: 2 elbows, 2 armpits or "pits", 2 nipples, 2 eyes, and his belly, though he still seems to like Mama's belly best!

Mudgie also continues to be very excited about getting to spend time with babies, which is good, considering he's going to be a big brother this summer (if anyone doesn't know yet). I can pretty much get Mudgie excited about going anywhere if I tell him there might be babies there! He just seems to get cuter and cuter every day, and I'm ok with that.