A little trip to Monterey

I have been itching to get away for a while now. Unfortunately I have a job that doesn’t allow me to really get away so Frank and I decided to kind of get away this weekend. Frank was on spring break last week so we took advantage of his Friday free from class and headed down the coast as soon as I was free from work. Our destination was Monterey one of my favorite places in California.
It was very brave of us but we took Miles with us for our little weekend get away. I thought it was time for him to go to the aquarium and I figured a weekend full of fun outings would do him good. But as I have said before Miles is a man that needs structure and a schedule. Keeping a schedule on the road is hard to do. Miles did pretty well during the day (Frank might argue with me about that) but the nights and morning are a whole other story. The first night when we laid him down Miles cried and fought off sleep for and our. The second night we decided to keep him out and get him good and tired. We put him down around 830 and he was asleep within seconds. But for some reason he decided to wake up early. When I say early I mean EARLY. Miles woke up at 3:30 AM. Frank thinks it was 4:30 and I would love to let him continue thinking that but I looked at the clock and it was 3:30. Needless to say, this was not a trip full of rest and relaxation. But it was a good weekend having fun as a family and despite my lack of sleep and the often cranky Miles I had a wonderful time.

We got into town Friday afternoon. After a not so tasty lunch we decided to rent a surrey. This is something I don’t think I have done since I was like 7 and it was still just as awesome as it was back then. Miles loved it too. It had a little bell for him to ring and would say “Weee!” as we peddled along the water front.

Saturday was the big aquarium day. We got up and out of the hotel early so we could beat the crowds and the monster Miles turns into when it is nap time. We did manage to beat the crowds but Miles was a troublsome fellow. He enjoyed the aquarium for about 30 minutes and then he was ready to do things his way. So we saw what he would allow and got the heck out of there.
We did get to see the seahorse exhibit and it was amazing. What strange little creatures seahorses are. Here are a couple of my favorites.

After the aquarium we dicide a nice scenic drive would be good for putting Miles to sleep so we took the 17 Mile Drive. It was beautilful but not so good at putting Miles to sleep. He didn't actually go to sleep until the very end of it. At the start for the drive there was a beautiful bit sandy beach where let Miles experience the ocean for the first time. He insistsed on calling it "Ba Ba" but he really enjoyed. He would run out to the water and run away as quick as he could when the water would come in.

We also descovered a awesome park that we took Miles to Saturday and Sunday. It is called Dennis the Menace Park and is full of uber fun stuff for kids to enjoy. Miles loved the slides the best and they had many varieties to offer. This slide scraed us a bit. It was super long and twisty and bumpy. This first time he went down by himself and it scared the crap outof both Frank and I. But he got down to the bottom in one piece laughing histerically and immeadiatly ran around to go again. Miles fears nothing I guess I have enough fear for the both of us and we went down together the rest of the time.

And when it is time to go Miles will let you know

Doctor's Visit

Yesterday we took Miles to the doctor for a check up. They verified that he is indeed a giant. He weighs 31 pounds and he is 35 inches tall. That puts him in the 90th percentile for weight and the 95th for height. Giant.

They doctor went over normal development questions. When he asked how many words he uses I said 20 and then immediately second guessed myself and said 15 - 20.

I decided it would be a good idea to make a list of words and phrases that Miles is currently using regularly.

baby, ball, dog, car, food, mama, dada, Stacy, night night, walk, trash, blocks, all gone, rice, banana, yogurt, juice, bird, cheese, bye bye, spoon, nap, socks, this, snack, outside, bear, bath and here.

That is more than 20 and I am pretty sure there are more that I am just not remembering. He will probably remind me when I get home though. He also has his own words that he uses for things. His blanket is "be" and he must have his "be" in order to sleep. Cups and anything else that does or can contain water in a "ba ba". We are trying to teach that things like puddles and toilets are not "ba bas" but he insists that anything containing liquid must be a "ba ba".

Miles has a very strict schedule it generally goes something like this
Wake up - 7:30
Breakfast #1 - 8:00
Breakfast #2 - 10:00
Lunch - 12:30
Napping - 1 - 4pm
Wake up and snack - 4:30
Dinner - 6:00
Night night time: 6:30

As you can see a good portion of Miles' day is filled with eating and sleeping. Which is great his nap time if my only chance to do things like sewing and housework. Some days I can even sneak off to the gym. But really it makes it hard to go anywhere really especially for Miles who tends to freak out a bit when he misses out on either "foof" or "night night". Frank and I have almost forgotten what it is like to go out after dark.

This weekend for some reason we decided to push the limits and break up the all important schedule a bit. We went out for dinner and lunch when Miles would have been in bed. I got really brave and strapped him to my back to go to the Vintage expo during what should have been his nap time and lunch time. I must say that Miles did quite well. There was some whining and hair pulling (my hair mainly) but over all he was pretty well behaved. Perhaps it is possible to have a life after all.

Here are some pictures of Miles from our trip to the park on Friday afternoon.

My Fussy Baby Kitty

Yesterday after a short nap with daddy on the couch Miles came into the sewing room and insisted that I put his kitty hat on him. After I finished up what I was working on I took him down stairs to make him some apple juice. I was just so darn distracted by how cute he was in this hat that I picked up the camera and started taking pictures of him.

Miles was so frustrated by the lack of apple juice making going on that he took the kitty hat off and threw it on the ground. He pouted fussed (which is also super cute) around the kitchen until his sippy was full of delicious watered down apple juice.

Starting to remember

Frank and I have been realizing how incomplete memories can often be. Even with pictures it is hard to fully remember a moment and all its beautiful detail. Frank had the idea that we have a blog where we can write down milestones and moments that we have with Miles. Since I am horrible with things like baby books and journaling with actual paper I thought it would be a good idea. So here we go!