tired -- a lot of the time

The title of this post is merely to excuse my lack of posting as of late. Pancake has been a sporadic sleeper and therefore so have I. She has slept through the night twice in her five months and they were both nights last week. Since then she has completely regressed back to waking up four to five times between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. -- excruciatingly frustrating.

I have a lot of updating to do here and because I am . . . yes, that's right. . . tired, I'm not going to do a very thorough job. So, without further ado, my 300th post:

1. Our trip to Vermont was great. We were gone for ten days and it felt like we were gone for a long time. It felt like we had a real break from our normal lives, which was much needed. Mr. D had been on the second half of his paternity leave so I didn't have to prepare for our trip by myself, well I mostly did, but he was home to watch the kids while I did so. And we had a week at home with him after we got back.

We rented a fantastic house on Lake Champlain in Colchester (just north of Burlington). The house itself wasn't huge, but the location couldn't be beat. We had great lake access, a view of the lake, a bike path directly across the street that fed into a large network of bike paths, a fantastic playground and huge park just a five minute walk along the path from the house. Not to mention the proximity to Burlington. We swam in the lake, which was about 70 degrees so even on days that weren't super hot we went in the lake. Doodle did a great job in the water. He went in up to his neck and didn't wear his life jacket at all. He fooled around with Mr. D floating on top of him and jumping around. It was great to see so little fear of the water since he doesn't like going into the ocean (neither do I). The beach at the lake was fantastic -- all sand in and out of the water and no seaweed or milfoil. Doodle had a great time playing in the sand with the toys that were at the house.

I rode my bicycle (with Doodle in the trailer behind me) to Burlington one day. Mr. D and Pancake drove the car with the empty bike rack and met us at the waterfront. The ride was fantastic. The views from the bike path are great and the path is so well maintained and used. It was really great to see. We loaded the bike and trailer on the car and went to play miniuture golf where Doodle made three holes in one! He golfed par for some holes and way way way over par on the rest.

We shared our house with some of my relatives who came to town for my brother's wedding. We attended the rehearsal lunch on the Friday before the wedding which was fun. It was great to see some of my brother's old friends from high school who I remember. They looked so different -- older, married, some with children.

The wedding was on a boat on Lake Champlain. Unfortunately, it was the worst weather day we had the whole ten days we were there. It was cold and rainy. The ceremony was outside under a cover while the boat was docked, after the couple were officially married the boat took us around the lake, into Shelburne's bay and back to Burlington. Dinner was on the boat then drinks and cake and dancing were at the boat house a block away from the dock. A freight train was about to block our only access to the sidewalk to the boat house when my uncle managed to get the engineer to stop the train so we could all cross, including the bride. Because of where the train stopped we had a narrow opening to cross. We had to climb over some wet, tall weeds, step over the uneven rocks between the tracks to get to the other side. My cousin took a great picture of my sister-in-law in her wedding dress climbing over the tracks with my uncle maintaining eye contact with the engineer.

The next day we packed up the car, straightened up the house and left for our nine hour drive to Philly.

2. Doodle had his first day of nursery school on Thursday -- well, technically he started school last fall, but since he/we dropped out after three days, I'm not counting it. He had slept with his backpack the night before and had been talking about going to school for days leading up to Thursday. He had a new backpack (Thomas, of course), new shoes and a new water bottle to commemorate the day. I packed him a healthy lunch of half a pb & j, sliced apples (he eats more of the fruit if it's sliced), a small bag of pretzels, cranberries and a bag of animal crackers (which we call cookies). I put a change of clothes in his backpack along with his lunch bag and we were off. We walked there -- Doodle in the stroller and Pancake in the carrier on my chest.

Doodle did a great job. He didn't cry or even look afraid or lonely when I left him there (at 8:30). I explained to the teacher that he's potty trained, even though we have yet to have consistent success with pooping in the potty. At noon Pancake and I picked him up. He was sitting at a toddler-size table with two other kids eating his lunch. He must have just gotten started because most of his food was still there. The only missing item, the bag of animal crackers, of course. He asked me to pick him up, which I did, which is when I noticed that he was wet. He had had an accident at some point and didn't tell anyone. I alerted both of his teachers and then changed him into his dry clothes that were in his backpack. Then we went to get a donut to celebrate what a big boy Doodle is. He ate his donut, sandwich, cranberries and apples at the same time.

3. Doodle can write all of his letters without assistance, capital letters that is. He made a birthday card for our neighbor and wrote HAPPY BIRTHDAY on the front, her name on the inside and signed his name on the back. He hasn't mastered the concept of writing the letters in succession. Instead, they're scattered all over the page and you have to search for them. Some are on top of others which makes it extremely difficult to read.

He also started reading a few days ago. He's shown interest in how to spell various words for months and has known what sounds each letter makes for even longer. When we were reading Hop on Pop the other night he wanted to read the back page which has lists of rhyming words grouped together, like this: ALL, CALL, BALL, TALL, SMALL. I told him how to pronounce ALL, then he sounded out the remaining words saying SALL for SMALL. He read all of the groupings before he went to sleep. I'm so proud of him. He continues to amaze me, since he was born.

There you have it, my 300th post. I hope to post again before too much time passes.