Family Tradition

We arrived safely in NY last Thursday and Joseph has been having lots of fun getting spoiled by Grandma & Grandpa since the moment we arrived. He had all sorts of new toys waiting for him and someone constantly there to give him what he wants. In fact, he has already learned to run to Grandma every time Mommy tells him "no". Grandpa loves giving him big sugary popsicles right before dinner and Grandma always lets him run around naked for 30 minutes after his bath (apparently she is less concerned about urine stains on her carpets than Mommy is).

So far the best part of the trip has been the trip we took to Hoffman's Playland.

For anyone who grew up in the Albany, NY area, all you have to say is "Hoffman's" and a flood of childhood memories is sure to come to mind. The place has been there for over 50 years. It's filled with kiddie rides (carousel, mini-boats, mini-ferris wheel, a train, etc.) and was one of my favorite places as a little kid. I can still remember our parents asking us "Do you guys want to go to Hoffman's?" and nearly falling over ourselves to get into the car. This was especially true because a trip to Hoffman's usually involved dinner at Ponderosa (another Albany establishment) where my brother and I loved the buffet with fried chicken wings and macaroni and cheese.

So on Sunday with Joseph's visit to Hoffman's, it marked 3 generations of our family having fun at Hoffman's.

A picture of my mom on the boats - circa 1962:

And me on the carousel - circa 1983 (I am sporting the cute pink sweat suit and Reebok kixx.)

So when we arrived with Joseph, the place pretty much looked exactly the same as my last visit - which was probably circa 1991. I was hoping to take Joseph on the boat ride since I also had a picture of me on the boats and was looking forward to posting 3 generations of photos of our family enjoying the boat ride. Unfortunately, parents can't ride the boat ride....which basically limits Joseph from riding it until probably age 8. A hyper-active little boy and a ride that involves water are not a good mix. So instead Richard started him off on the balloon ride (which actually is new since I was a kid).

Mommy & Joseph tried out the Jolly Caterpillar (and if Jolly Caterpillar had lasted 30 seconds longer, Mommy might have lost her cookies).

Grandpa took Joseph on Mommy's favorite from when she was a kid, the Helicopters. Mommy was a little nervous to take Joseph on this one because it goes up and down and Joseph can be pretty wriggly sometimes....

After 3 whirly, twirly rides, we decided to slow things down with a ride on the train. The little train takes 2 trips around the park. Joseph had enough of the train after about 1 1/2 trips. It was a little slow for him and he had already seen it once before and we had all we could do to keep him from climbing out.

(That last picture is from the first trip around when Joseph was still curious as to what was going on. Have I ever mentioned my kid has zero attention span?)

The train let us off right near the Bumper Cars and the big kids in the group (i.e Richard and my Dad) decided to challenge each other - my Dad won. (Although, please note that Richard claims there was something wrong with his car).

To end our trip, we took Joseph on the Carousel. He was pretty amused by it when we first got on. However, he started to lose his patience while we waited for the ride to start (unfortunately for him some lady had to come around and make sure everyone was properly buckled on their horse - and Joseph just really didn't have time for that). Luckily, his mood perked up once the ride started.

In this last video, Rich was getting Joseph to ride "no hands" and he was loving it. You can hear his giggle on the video.

The Carousel wrapped up our visit to Hoffman's. Surprisingly, Joseph was not interested in partaking in the tradition of eating some cotton candy when we left (yes, we actually tried to give this hyperactive child pure sugar). I am sure this will be the first of many visits to Hoffman's for little Joseph!

A Traumatic Few Weeks

Sorry for the lack of a recent blog update. We have been busy mourning the death of Michael Jackson. Between the constant CNN watching of the latest drama and crying ourselves to sleep at night, there hasn't been time for blogging.

(Joseph reacts to the death of Michael Jackson as news breaks - he put his hand on the screen and just sobbed "No, Michael, don't leave me.")

We also had Joseph's first trip to the ER in recent days. After falling and smacking the front of his face on our brick step, his face swelled up and we rushed off to the ER. After only an hour's visit and a diagnosis of just a bad bump, we were sent home. Surprisingly, his face looked pretty good the next day and we never got the crazy bruising the doctor thought we would see.

A picture from the next day:

Please focus on the egg and bruise on his forehead and not the food hanging out of his mouth.

The next day he was less swollen but more bruised:

He is actually still slightly bruised, but pretty much over his ordeal. Now the death of Michael Jackson - he is still working through the stages of grief. I think he's finally hit acceptance.

Bluegrass and Bourbon

We just returned from 4 days in the land of bourbon and bluegrass. It was a weekend filled with grilling out, fun with family and of course, bourbon (well, for Richard - not so much for me).

Joseph did surprisingly well on the flight up. It overlapped with his normal afternoon nap schedule and Joseph refuses to sleep anywhere but his crib. Also, when Joseph misses a nap, he's pretty nightmar-ish, so we were pretty much expecting to be THOSE people on the plane. As we bordered the plane in the pre-boarding group, I could feel everyone's eyes on us thinking "Oh please, don't let those people sit next to us." And at the beginning we were THOSE people, Joseph pretty much screamed the first 20 minutes on the plane. But somewhere around 2 minutes before takeoff, this was what my child who never sleeps anywhere but his crib looked like:

Asleep with his ever present Monkey Lovey. It lasted about 30 minutes, but he woke up drowsy enough to quietly watch his "Yo Gabba Gabba" DVD and drink a bottle until we landed. (And yes, we paid for that individual seat you see him in. He is un-restrainable without a car seat or stroller).

Once we got there Joseph was ready for grilling with his Grandma & Grandpa (Cilla & Ricky), Aunt Kipling, Aunt Devon, Uncle Jason & Kairi. He ran around Cilla and Ricky's front lawn with Kairi, ate a popsicle and just enjoyed being outside with his family who loves him:

Joseph has a little nervous around my in-laws dogs, though. Normally he loves dogs - but their dogs are sort of on the big side...like a Great Dane and a mutt who has some St. Bernard in him. The Great Dane is as big as I am (she actually outweighs me by at least 20 pounds).

On Friday, we hung out with Joseph's great grandparents, Grandmommy & Papa Joe. He liked exploring their house and yard and getting loved on by more family he doesn't get to see very often.

That evening Joseph particularly liked getting to know Great Uncle David & Aunt Robin's three dogs. He thought they were about the funniest things he had ever seen. He really loved to feed them his snacks and let them lick his hands and face. He squealed anytime they came near him.


Later that evening, Joseph came down with a mysterious fever of 103.7. After a mild freak out, a call to the pediatrician and a dose of Tylenol, he had a restless night of sleep but woke up with just a low grade fever and ready for action. By the evening there was no fever. We have no idea what got into him.

On 4th of July Joseph got to see even more family members when we drove out to Great Aunt Elaine and Uncle Rick's house. They have a great big house right on a lake. Joseph wasn't necessarily impressed by the great view - but he LOVED all the stairs they had. Stairs up to the 3rd story, stairs down to the basement, a HUGE set of stairs up the deck.....there were stairs everywhere and Joseph climbed all of them many times over. Joseph was also super excited when Great Aunt Marchell gave him a special box of animal crackers she had bought for him. He couldn't stuff his mouth fast enough. This picture was taken with about 6 animal crackers in his mouth:

With all the family around, Mommy & Daddy actually got to relax for a little bit here and there. Daddy got to play cornhole with his cousin Patrick, Aunt Marchell and Jason.

And finally, on our very last morning there, Joseph got a little snuggle time in with Great Uncle David (who needed some cuddling practice because he's got his first grandbaby coming in about 7 1/2 months) and got to try on a pair of old cowboy boots that both Daddy and cousin Patrick wore as little boys. A little bit too big....but maybe in a few years, he'll be ready for them.

On Sunday, we headed home. It almost looked like our departure was going to have to wait until Monday when we got on the highway to go to the airport and were in dead stopped traffic due to a 14 car accident that had the highway shut down. We were pretty sure we were missing our flight. However, Richard in an attempt to piss off the entire state of Kentucky, drove 2 miles on the shoulder. At one point someone moved over in front of us to keep us from going further and Rich got out, banged on their window and told them we had a sick baby (which wasn't a total lie - I mean, he had had a fever the day before). They bought it and we ended up sprinting through the airport and got to the gate a few minutes before it bordered.

It was a fun weekend, but we are glad to be home, back to our normal routine and doing our normal everyday things (although Joseph does miss those dogs!).