Week 33

Week 33 was very busy, indeed. We made the long drive down to South Carolina from Connecticut over the 19th and 20th, stopping overnight in Virginia. The boys both traveled very well, especially Hayes in his trance induced by the portable DVD player that we hooked up in the car. Hayes even amazed us by staying dry in his pull-up all day long in the car, both days! We ended our long trek at Folly Beach, where my family rented a beach house. (We have, in recent years, with the addition of our kids, split the seams of my parents' house.) This was the first year that we have all been together for Christmas in four years-- and in that time, 5 new children have been born to our family! All told, we had 9 adults and 6 kids (five of them under 3) under one roof. Luckily, the beach house was humongous and afforded us lots of space to play and have a great time. I think/hope this may become a yearly endeavor.

Because I have a multitude of pictures to post from our almost 2 week vacation, I am going to post them by days or groups, rather than in each weekly update like I usually do. I will give you the weekly development update, though.

Fisher got his first tooth during his 33rd week! He is finally feeling so much better and is my happy, smiley baby again. We felt like he just stopped everything (smiling, developmental milestones, eating solid foods, etc.) during the 3 plus weeks he was sick, so it is nice to have our little Fisher back! He is continuing to reach for toys and brings them to his mouth and is sitting better and better every day.

Hayes did something wonderfully horrific the first morning that we woke up in the beach house. I should give some background first: At home, Hayes is still sleeping in his crib and we plan to keep him there until we can't any longer. The morning of the event described below, Hayes was sleeping in a pack n' play. We heard him stirring through the monitor and were dressing and getting ready for the day when I noticed that his white noise machine was off. I thought, "well, he could have easily reached it from the pack 'n play..." So, I headed to his room, opened the door and panicked at the site of an empty pack 'n play. My first thought, of course, is "holy sh*t, someone stole my baby!!!!" Then, reason returned to my brain and I horrifically realized that he must have climbed out. I nervously called for him and watched as he waddled out of the bathroom with his overnight pull-up and pajama pants around his ankles. He triumphantly stated, "Mommy, I climbed out of my pack n play to go POTTY!!!" Wow. It was a wonderful surprise that he took the initiative to climb out of bed for the first time ever to go potty. And horrific, of course, because he is no longer contained by his bed! So, we blew up an air mattress and he slept on that the rest of our time at the beach house. He actually did really well--I'm so proud of him! I guess we'll have to see about converting his crib to a toddler "big boy" bed when we get home...

Stay tuned for MANY, MANY more posts and pictures from our vacation!