A Spring Break Recap — Part One

So about a week ago, I promised recaps on how our three weeks back in the US went. I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that I was totally lying. Ok, not totally lying, but I’ve just been really lazy. What I’ve been attributing to jet lag this past week, I now think is a more long-lasting version of all-around tiredness called “being in my third trimester.”  Anyway, with that caveat aside, here is a long-promised update using the least amount of brain cells as possible…

For our big vacation this year we decided to visit both of our families in the US, which meant spending a week on the East Coast followed by two weeks on the West. Of course it all sounds nice and clean on paper but in real life it translated to a buttload of traveling. Thankfully, Noah was a huge trooper. Despite having only slept 4 hours on the 14 hour flight to Toronto, he was in high spirits during our 8 hour layover:

Naturally he crashed as soon as we checked into our hotel room in DC:

DC was a blast. Mark’s younger brother lives there so we got to spend quite a bit of time with him while he toured us around and took us to some of his favorite restaurants. Noah also got some nice bonding time with his Uncle Eric, whom he is totally enamored with.

Eric, Noah and Mark in front of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool:

One completely exhausted toddler:

Noah was suffering from a little bit of jet lag so we tried to keep our days pretty low key — limiting ourselves to one museum a day rather than doing huge day-long outings. Then again, when you decide to visit DC during Spring Break week and additionally decide you want to go to the more popular of the Smithsonian museums, any outing is pretty much guaranteed to be an arduous one. Still, we managed to take him to the Air & Space Museum and being only three-and-a-half, Noah didn’t care too much about how crowded it was as long as he got to see the planes and the rockets. Here he is fondling a moon rock:

My friend Cristina also happened to be in town with her family and some friends so on Tuesday we decided to meet up and hit the Natural History Museum together. We like to joke that we’re going to make Noah and her younger daughter, Arden, marry each other (because Noah likes blond girls) so it was really cute to see them together. Noah kept trying to hold Arden’s hand — which she adamantly refused to hold — and inviting her and her sister to our hotel room. But her biggest endorsement came shortly after lunch when Noah told me, “I like Arden. I want to take her back to my hotel room and I want her to meet my Uncle Eric.” Ahhhh, young love.

Arden, Noah and Lily checking out the fish tank at the Natural History Museum:

Cristina and Mike rocking out in their 3-D glasses:

Me and Cristina:

Later that evening Mark’s parents flew into town from Texas. We went out for dinner:

and the next morning we all set out for Pennsylvania to visit Mark’s older brother and his family. Noah was totally excited to see his cousin Gabey again. He’d been talking nonstop about Gabe for weeks, saying things like, “My cousin Gabey is a silly guy” and “Cousin Gabey is my favorite” and “Can I share my toys with my cousin Gabey?” Obviously he’d forgotten that the last time they’d met, back when the boys were just shy of 2 years old, they’d fought like crazy. Of course they say time heals all wounds and sure enough, when we finally arrived at their house, Noah and Gabe ran off together and were pretty much inseparable for the rest of the day:

Mariannette had planned on having the boys dye Easter eggs the next day, but Noah and Gabe had found the little dye tablets Wednesday evening and eaten them (hooray for non-toxic dyes that turn your mouth and fingers blue for hours) so Thursday morning the boys painted suncatchers together instead:

After that, it was almost like they suddenly recognized each other as long-lost enemies and they spent the rest of our time there fighting like crazy. And when I say “fighting like crazy” I’m talking about scratches, pushing, hitting, and arguing over the most inane things. Like…

Noah: I can fly
Gabe: Me too. I can fly too.
Noah: No you can’t.
Gabe: Yes I can.
Noah: No you can’t.
Gabe: Yes I can.
Me: You guys! Neither of you can fly so cut it out!

Or when Gabe opened the front door on Friday to find Eric, newly arrived from DC…
Gabe: It’s Uncle Snapper!
Noah: No! That’s my Uncle Eric!
Gabe: No! He’s my Uncle Snapper!
(fist fight promptly ensues)

So, it was interesting to say the least. And prompted Mark to turn to me at one point and say, “Cat, I don’t know if I can handle having two kids.” Luckily for us, one of our kids won’t be able to talk for about a year so that should hopefully cut down on the arguing. Despite the two boys’ fighting it was still a fun week, especially since — being so geographically spread out — it’s pretty rare for Mark’s family to get together all in one place like this. Mariannette had arranged an awesome Easter egg hunt for the boys before we had to leave on Saturday so the boys parted on a high note. And sure enough, before we had even gotten onto the freeway, I heard this from the backseat, “(sigh) I miss my cousin Gabey so very much.” The stinker.

By the way, I know there are a ton of pictures in this post, but you can see even more pictures here:

Spring Break — East Coast