Visiting family (part 2)

After spending a wonderful week in Maryland, we traveled down the Virginia Beach to spend the rest of our vacation with Ray's parents. With the exception of one cloudy day, the weather couldn't have been better for "beach week"!! It was a little cooler than usual July weather and sunny, sunny, sunny! We invited friends over for a couple mornings on the beach and spent some lovely evenings relaxing on the beach as well.

Grandma Weezie was kind enough to watch the girls several times so I could do fun things like shopping BY MYSELF, going out to breakfast with a dear friend, and going out on a girl date to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Louise spoils me!!

On our last day in Virginia Beach, we went with Grandma Weezie to Hunt Club Farm, a local farm with a petting zoo. I was hoping for pony rides too but those are only on the weekends. Boo. The petting zoo was great though! We fed the goats, walked into the chickens' pen and Maddy even fed the horse. There was a giant sandbox that the girls played in for about 3 minutes. After playing on the playground, we ate our picnic lunch and headed home.

It was an absolutely fab-fab-fabulous (Cady's word) vacation and none of us wanted to come home, except to see Daddy!

Adieu to the pacifier!

For months now, I have been planning to wean Maddy off her ever-more addicting pacifier. Apparently, children get MORE attached to the thing as they get older, so I've been dreading it. Putting it off. Avoiding it. But Ray suggested that we take advantage of our trip to visit our families and accidentally "leave" the pacifiers there.

Make no mistake, it wasn't an accident and we didn't leave them there. That makes it doubly difficult when Maddy is asking, pleading and crying for her pacifier!!

We arrived home from our two-week vacation a week ago and we started our experiment that night. We figured that Maddy would be out of sorts after the vacation and all the traveling, so might as well add fuel to the fire and go for broke. Boy, did she wail! I think I was crying just as hard as she was, and it was so hard because I knew exactly where the object of her desire was. If Ray hadn't been strong, I would've broken down.

But I have to say, since that first night, it's been bearable. Not enjoyable, but bearable. Maddy still asks for her pacifier daily but isn't crying for it. The worst side effect is that, since her mouth isn't plugged up, she won't quiet down and GO TO SLEEP when it's bedtime or naptime!! She talks to her bear, her babies, Cady, herself, whoever. It's taking her an average of an hour to fall asleep at naptime. And for those of you who know me well, you know that I don't like variations in sleep schedules ... but we're surviving!!