I had a pretty terrible week last week. On Friday, I had the chance to take Maddox out for a quick lunch. All morning I had been getting him excited about going to get burgers and fries at an awesome diner in Merrimac called Skip’s.
We were both excited and starving by the time lunch rolled around. But, in a pretty good representation of what my week was like, we drove up to find the place closed for the season. I drove into a nearby spot and just rested my head on the steering wheel.
“Yook! They’re open!” Maddox said, pointing to a window replacement store next door (his l’s currently sound like y’s — yook, yock, yight).
“They don’t have hamburgers there, buddy.” I replied.
“Oh. That’s sad. Hamburgers are closed. That’s sad,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Wait! I know! Pizza is happy! Pizza makes you not sad! Get to it!” (“Get to it” is a random phrase Maddox has latched on to recently).
And thus, we drove around the corner to Flatbread Pizza in Amesbury, and lunch was saved.
We just got back from a wonderful vacation in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We booked it spur of the moment last month after finding and amazing deal, and invited my mom along as a Christmas present.
We took an early morning but easy flight out of Manchester, New Hampshire. Maddox was great nearly the whole three hour flight – he seems to becoming a pro at the whole air traveler thing. We got in on Wednesday noon, stopped for pizza, and then checked into our hotel, the Hilton Beach Resort. We lucked out with an upgrade and had a corner room with a wrap-around balcony and great view of the ocean.
Maddox was a huge fan of the elevators. He got quite good and guessing which one was coming next.
We spent that afternoon hanging out on the beach with a few sand toys. The weather the whole week 80 degrees and sunny, such a nice change from the mild but still chilly winter in New England.
We went to a delicious Cuban restaurant that night where Maddox (and I) both tried yuca root for the first time (tastes like potatoes!). The next morning we went to the amazing Flamingo Gardens, a non-profit wildlife preserve which is home to local injured animals.
Afterwards, we stopped for a picnic at one of the city parks. There was something pretty cool about having a picnic outdoors in late January.
We spent that afternoon at the beach again. This time mom and Nonny went swimming for awhile while dad built up sand walls which Maddox promptly destroyed with the help of Mingo, his new toy.
Friday morning we woke up and made a beeline directly for the beach. This time we ventured a bit further south to the town of Hollywood, which featured a 7 mile long beach. It was, quite simply, gorgeous. Even Dad went swimming for awhile!
That afternoon, we went shopping on Las Olas Boulevard and found a wedding dress for my sister Cassie.
Ok, not really. But there was some crazy fashion on that street. We went to dinner at a somewhat disappointing Mexican restaurant, but made up for it with some delicious gelato.
The next morning, we dropped Nonny off at the airport. Our flight was a couple hours later, so we went to the Anne Kolb Nature Center and took a nice trail through the mangrove swamps.
All in all, it was a wonderful vacation, and very, very hard to come back from!
Maddox had his first ever school performance tonight, the Winter Gala. I was excited all day about it – I felt like such a parent!
I had measured expectations though. I mean, these kids are 2 1/2 years old. Can you even get them to stand in one place?
Turns out the answer is, kind of. But not Maddox. Much like I did at that age, he would much rather sit in his mom’s lap than partake in any school activities.
I am thrilled. I finally have a friend to play video games with. He’s a little grabby at times, and needs some work on his eye-hand coordination. But he certainly doesn’t lack enthusiasm.
Mads has always been somewhat interested in the video games that we’ve played on the computer and iPad, but for some reason he’s completely gravitated towards this game called Kingdom Rush.
I can’t say why it appeals to him so much. It’s a game where you try to stop orcs and bats from attacking your castle by placing defenses along a road. But he loves it!
The two favorite things he likes doing are calling down meteors and placing reinforcements. For the first he’ll look at my quizzicly and ask, “Fire?” I tell him to go for it and he says “Okay!”, touches the iPad to drop the meteors, and yells “FIRE!”.
He still has good manners though. When the orcs and knights fight on the road, he always says “That’s not nice.” He also refers to the game as “Time out” because of all the people hitting each other, and the fact that the only timeouts he has gotten in his life are from when he hits people.
Something weird is happening. Maddox is making us into “outdoor people.” Today we drove out to Plum Island to walk along the Hellcat trail, which went through a series of dune and then marsh. If you had told us, oh, four years ago that we would have voluntarily done this, I would have called you crazy. In fact, there are pictures of me (and my sisters) sulkenly lying on the plankboard trail about ten years ago, when my family went here for a vacation.
Today though, we had a great time. It’s amazing to find such a vast amount of open space in the area.
Maddox loves trails, and always has — he is still endlessly entertained by the simple act of moving forward. A trail just seems to drive him on.
Plus, there were stairs on this trail. Can you imagine being of the age where stairs fill you with happiness and wonder?
I’m also still amazed at his energy. The trail wasn’t strenous at all, but he was halfway running the whole time. He did stop at one point, plop himself down, and request water and raisins.
He made it nearly two miles before he requested a piggyback!
