Ugh, I'm having a tough time writing lately.

Not that there hasn't been lots going on, because there has...

Last weekend I went away for the 2nd annual girly weekend. There were 10 of us this year and we rented the same house as last year right on the coast. Not to sound all Oprah about the experience but it was really wonderful. It still amazes me that I know 9 other women that I would actually want to spend an entire weekend getting drunk with. And these are some really fantastic people. And it is a children free weekend (unless you happen to be pregnant like 2 of the girls are) so it really was a weekend where the only responsibilities were to figure out which bottle of Pinot to open first. Plus there was a hot tub. On the beach. Seriously.

While I was off indulging myself Dan and Will got some good father/Son bonding time in. Last year I had to drag Dan to the Pumpkin patch, this year he went without me. He took Will to some place that you took a boat out to the patch and then a train back. Seriously, the only way Will could have been any happier with that scenario would be to somehow involve a bike and a garbage truck. The kid was in heaven. He apparently was also a 2 year old and sat down in the pumpkin patch and refused to move unless he was being carried by Dan, whose hands were a little full with the pumpkins and wheelbarrow and such.

Will had his two year check-up yesterday and all is well. 35 inches tall and 29 pounds. Dr. Fabulous says he is going to be over 6 feet tall. Also, I will put up some new pictures soon including our weekend adventures to 'Halloween at the Zoo'.

Little Man manners

We have been working on manners with Will. Dan and I are really big on the 'Please' and 'Thank you' thing. We use both phrases pretty regularly with each other, people at the grocery store, gas station, restaurants, Taco Bell...we tend to think it is a basic respect thing that seems to be getting lost in a lot of communication these days. Before we had kids and realized that there are some things you just couldn't force them to do, we both would get really annoyed by kids who don't seem to know what these words mean.

So, since Will is starting to put actual sentences together we feel now is a good time to both lead by example and prompt him. I figure if he can say "I want juice mama!" he can also say "I want juice please." We started out by straight out telling him "Will, say thank you to the cashier" and have graduated to "What do you say Will?" This works pretty well most of the time.

This morning, I brought him his milk and asked "What do you say Will?"

His response? "please thank you welcome"

I guess he wanted to make sure all his bases were covered.

Lucky

I have been amazingly fortunate enough to experience many different kinds of love in my life.

* The safe and protective love of my parents
* The "ohmygod I'm totally in love" of a 16 year old. I was a sophomore, he was a senior...it was all very big and very serious to my 16 year old self.
* The young adult love in my early 20's that was so adult and so young in so many ways.
* The wonderful love of friendship.
* The all-consuming, passionate, calming, life-changing love that came into my life with Dan.

But all of those things really couldn't prepare me for how heart-bursting hearing this would be:

"I love you mama"

I am very lucky.