Babymoon for James

This year's trip to the Keys was definitely a last hurrah for James! He got so much one on one time with me, one on one time with Anthony, and time with just the three of us. I was worried about how James would behave away from home since he usually is a big fuss pot when we do anything different from his routine, but he was an angel! (Aside from his 2 year old 'tude that he has developed). He acted like he was made for vacation! I think he really soaked in all the attention we were able to give him. Even though it wasn't the most exciting of vacations for me since I spent most of my time watching James at the rental place while Anthony snorkeled/lobstered, I felt really good about the experience we were able to give James.

The drive down to the keys took a lot longer than we expected because of some bad traffic. It was a lot of time spent in the car! We had a few new toys that we spread out throughout the day and he loved them, especially these pineapple sunglasses! He talks about pineapples all the time now :)

On the drive James got to have his pacifier, which is a big deal since he usually only gets it while sleeping. He also got to watch movies on the kindle, which he only gets to do in the car. It was a great distraction! He barely watched anything on the way down, maybe only 30 minutes or so. The way home was another story! He watched Cars over and over and over for almost the entire 8 1/2 hour drive.

Our vacation rental had a back porch with a lot of rocks and a little hole in the porch for (I think) water drainage. James loved picking up the rocks and throwing them in the "tunnel"

I knew that we would be spending a lot of time at home while Anthony was out fishing and lobstering so I came prepared with new games and activities for James to do. One afternoon it was all about balloons! We had  balloon rockets that you blow up and then let go so it can fly across the room, balloons that we used as volleyballs, and balloon swords. I love that I got to learn how to make things out of balloons, it is a handy trick to have up your sleeve!

Another night we did poppers on the back porch. It was a hit!

Anthony did some kind of fishing or lobstering almost every day for at least a few hours, but he planned one all day lobstering excursion where he would leave early in the morning and not get back until bedtime. Since he had to take our car, we were stuck in the house all day by default. I pulled out as many of my planned activities as I could! Some of them didn't work out as I had imagined, but we gave it a shot. First I tried out cloud dough (moldable flour made from flour and baby oil).

 It smelled great and James seemed to like it, but I soon realized it is an outside activity when James started flinging it around with the spoons I put in there for digging. So we moved outside and he flung all of it out of the pan and all around the porch. Then he demanded more, and when I told him we didn't have any more he had quite a meltdown.

I decided it would be a good idea at this point to get out our inflatable pool and hose that I brought for the back porch. That way I could get him in the pool and wash off the flour as well as hose off the porch. Every time I would pull out my phone to get a picture, James would exclaim, "No pictures!!" and get mad, so I didn't get any pictures of him playing in the pool. He did enjoy himself though! He said he was swimming and looking for "lomsters" like Daddy does. He also took a break from the pool to put his golf balls into the hole in the middle of the patio table. He was very determined to get them in there!

We also spent a lot of time with him during the week playing with foam airplanes, looking for bugs, cooking, and looking for him around the house. He loves to tell you that he is hiding, point to where he is going to, and then wait for you to find him. He also loves to be chased! He will start running away from you and say "Run away!!", all the while looking behind him to make sure you are following him. Anthony chased him around the house one afternoon and I don't think James has ever been happier.



Some other things I want to remember about James on this vacation:

• His imaginative play has really started to take off! He had a toy fishing pole and would run over to the hallway and cast it, as if that was the water, and then he would run back to us in the living room to "show" us his catch. He would tell us if it was a "big lombster" or a "tiny lombster" on his hook and we would make a big fuss over it. Another time he took the phone receiver off the desk (we disconnected the phone from the wall first thing when we got there), put it on the arm of a chair, and sat there telling us that he was "putting gas in the car". I could kind of see how he would think the phone looked like the handle you use to pump gas. It is amazing the connections that he makes!
• While we were at the aquarium, James found a dime and instantly became attached to it. An hour or so later while we were walking back to the car, Anthony asked James what he was going to buy with his dime. He immediately said, "sharks". Anthony asked him again a few minutes later to see what he would say and this time his response was, "turtles" :)
• We finally succeeded in getting James to call my mom Grandma! He has been calling her Papa for forever (which is also what he calls Anthony's dad) and nothing we did or said ever convinced him that her name was something else. He started using Grandma on the trip and eventually even started correcting himself when he would call her Papa. I haven't heard him call my mom Papa at all since the first few days of our trip.
• For a kid that really likes TV and usually begs me to watch Mater or Sesame Street, it was surprising when he decided that he would rather play with us and have our attention than watch TV. If the TV was on, he would run over and turn it off and if we turned it back on he would get really mad and yell "TV off!". Now that we are home, it has carried over and he will tell me "Ipad off!" or "phone off!" if I am looking at them when he wants me to be playing with him.

I'm so glad that James had such a good time on this vacation. It really makes me feel like we bonded that much more before his world and ours gets turned upside down with a new sibling!