Right before the kids and I took off for our road trip, I got an email that said “Boston Red Sox Invite You to a Game at Fenway Park” in the subject line. I almost, almost deleted it, since obviously it must be spam. I am so very glad I didn’t.

I have no idea how I ended up on a list of “thought leaders” in New England, but because they stumbled over my blog somehow the marketing department for the Red Sox invited me and my family up to the park for a tour, a game and a focus group to talk about what would make us more likely to come back.

The whole thing was so professional, I almost cringe at the fact I even there. I wore flip flops and brought my four year old. No one else had their kid there (I asked! They said beforehand it was OK!) and he was kind of…a four year old. There was an agenda and a white board and notepads.  It was a small group. There was a seat marked with my name and blog name on a printed and branded place marker. They had individual bottles of Perrier for us while we chatted about family events at Fenway and their Kid Nation program. Perrier is way above my class level. It was 90 degrees and my Spanx were the only thing keeping me from literally melting into a puddle on the floor, but there I was, unable to shut up. I ramble when I’m nervous (shocking, I’m sure) and in the moment my brain seemed to think all my ideas were BRILLIANT. Gah. Gaaaaaaaaah.

Luckily I must not have totally embarrassed myself, since they sent a follow up email and invited us back to the Futures at Fenway event coming up in July. At the focus group we discussed in detail what sort of things we’d like to see at a family day event…and then POOF! Turns out that event is ALREADY SCHEDULED. And has been for the past eight years. I probably should have known about that already. Oops?

The real best part of the whole thing was the ballpark tour. I’m not the world’s greatest Red Sox fan (and if you are, feel free to hate me for being invited to this thing when you weren’t), but I am a huge nut about history and Fenway is all about history. Getting to walk around the park when it was empty, visit all the fancy and private levels, see the framed jerseys going all the way back to the very first one with actual red socks printed on it…it was amazing. Especially because I got to bring E and Evan. I choked up a little just editing my photos from the day – they don’t get to spend a lot of time together doing father-son stuff, but what can be a better memory than Evan’s first trip to Fenway? Magical, for real.

This is me throwing up my hands and admitting my poor second child isn’t going to get monthday updates anymore. I’m not going to make it to 36 months. I’ve barely made it to 30 months. I’m not going to force myself to do these when I’m already posted dozens of photos of her every week and chronicling our lives in detail. But honestly, keeping track of Caroline’s milestones isn’t useful when she’s basically done with them. All levels of toddlerness have been achieved, game over. The only thing that makes her even a LITTLE bit like a baby is wen’re not done potty training. (Honestly, we haven’t started in earnest. I’m so lazy.) Besides the diapers, she’s pretty much identical to her 4 year old brother. And TALL. I still think of her as a peanut but her legs are insanely long.

I left her with a sitter for 9 hours on Tuesday while E and Evan and I went to Boston and she didn’t care. Whatevs, Mom. Just leave me some pizza money and a Princess movie and I’m good. I picked her up at 10 pm and she was talking a mile a minute. The sitter said Caroline seemed tired right before dinner, so Caroline went and got her pillow and blankie and put herself down for a 2.5 hour nap. Because she’s a real human person. A tiny, curly-haired, amazing little person.

Two and a half is basically the very best and the very worst. SO WORST. Taking her on vacation was the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done, including giving birth. She can be incredibly unreasonable one minute and perfectly reasonable the next, so it makes dealing with her more like hostage negotiation than anything else. I’m tempted to videotape our next argument and share it, but anyone who has ever had a 2 year old can tell you exactly what it looks like. Plus I don’t want her to have MORE things to complain to her therapist about some day. Her emotions are just totally unpredictable. At the beach, she rocked over her toe with a huge rocking chair, crushed her nail and bled all over the place. She cried for like, 90 seconds and then was totally fine, even as we bandaged it up. But GOD FORBID you get tired of holding her upside down by her feet after 10 minutes, or she’ll scream at you for an hour straight.

Likes include talking, eating, talking, eating, talking, the iPad, the other iPad, my iPhone, movies, Macklemore, singing, dancing, cats, dogs, talking, running, jumping, pretending she’s a kitty, ponies, drinking water, Princesses, Elmo, pillows, hugs, climbing, dolls, gently sloping sand beaches, seashells, buckets, marshmallows, eating, talking, eating, making up songs, spinning until she’s so dizzy she falls down, ice cream, cheese, Daddy, Evan, and me.

Dislikes include swimming, swimming pools, boats, life jackets, sleeping past 6 am, being told NO, and being teased by her brother.

All pictures are from the lake house portion of our vacation, right around her actual 30th monthday:

 

 

30 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter originally, but they changed their format so these are from Evan’s 2 1/2 year post.)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
• Brushes teeth with help – Brushed teeth on her own. I go over them again just to be thorough.
• Washes and dries own hands – Yep.
• Draws a vertical line – Mostly, but would rather continue to draw the sort of creepy counter clockwise circles. I keep expecting Nicolas Cage to show up and tell me it’s part of some secret code.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
• Draws a circle – Yep.
• Balances on one foot – Yep.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
• Puts on a T-shirt – Yep.
• Names one color – Names all the colors and will ask you what your favorite color is and discusses in length which one is best.
• Names one friend – Names all her friends, plus her aunts and uncles (both real and basically-like-family) and all her grandparents.

1. If you are a parent and you take your kids with you on vacation, it’s not really vacation. It’s being a parent in a new and different (and hopefully more scenic) location. You still have extra bodies to dress and feed and clean and beg to go to sleep so you can drink your wine in peace. The only way to TRULY get a vacation is to leave the children somewhere else. Or bring a nanny.

2. Letting your children play in elevators is a poor choice. Even the small private elevator in your beach mansion. Hashtag RICH PEOPLE PROBLEMS. (Luckily Caroline bears no ill effects or claustrophobia from those terrifying 10 minutes.)

3. If you take 1000 vacation photos in a weekend, just switch to JPG instead of RAW so you don’t waste your entire vacation editing photos of drinks and food along with the beautiful shots of your children.

4. Even if your children previously loved sand/water/swimming/the beach/the dark/cheeseburgers/naps/sleeping/eating/dogs/walking/singing/breathing/etc etc etc, they will insist they DO NOT love those things as soon as you get 200 miles from home. Especially if they are 2 and a half.

5. I need a vacation after my vacation. Luckily I can be totally lazy and sloth-like for the next couple of days while I finish editing photos and forcing you to look at them.

 

p.s. Still an amazing vacation, even if I sound a little ungrateful slash spoiled. Driving home is the worst.

Vacation, then more vacation. My life is really not hard right now.

Sunday:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

Saturday:

We have a liiiiitle bit more vacation followed by the horrible drive back to Connecticut, so if you hate me and my vacation photos don’t worry, I’m almost done. Then it’s back to real life for…well, forever. Basically. Or at least until next year’s summer vacation. Although I can’t say I’ll be sorry to be home in front of my own TV where I can lie on the couch eating an entire pint of ice cream while my children scream at each other without bothering any other people.

My husband has three siblings and two parents, all of whom really enjoy card and board games. They all play bridge and cribbage and this thing called Hand and Foot which is not a disease but a complicated card game you play with, like, eight different decks and points and a teammate. I’m less of a game lover. I play cribbage, badly, because my husband forced me to learn. I like Monopoly for the first hour or so and then get so bored I stop bothering to do math and just throw all my money at whoever has the most hotels.

I like playing video games as a family; Wii is fun, it gets us on our feet, and I’m pretty good at it. And I’ve learned to play Hand and Foot, even if I have to keep the cheat sheet in my lap. I feel like my game-playing skills have improved admirably and I should get points for effort. But when it comes to WINNING, E has no mercy. We also regularly play League of Legends on our smurf accounts from unrankedsmurfs.com.

To pass the time while I was in labor with our first child, E talked me into a few rounds of cribbage. He beat me every time. He couldn’t even let his wife who was literally in the middle of birthing his heir and namesake win a round of cards. Now we don’t play together as much as side by side (Candy Crush, anyone?) and he STILL gloats ridiculously when he beats my scores.

A few years ago, game shows came back as the big thing on network television. It was a good compromise for E’s healthy competitive spirit and my dislike of being soundly trounced at every game. We could watch OTHER people fail compete and neither of us went to bed grumpy.

The first time E and I watched Minute to Win It on TV, the show wasn’t even over before we’d gotten a beer bottle and a deck of cards to try playing at home. The game was simple: set the stack of 52 cards on top of the empty bottle and blowing the cards off, a few at a time, leaving just ONE card on top. It looked so easy! How come these idiots on TV couldn’t do it?! Jeeze, if that’s all it takes to win a game show these days, sign me right up, Imma be rich!

We never won. Not even once. Go try it, it’s way, way harder than it looks. And that right there pretty much sums up Minute to Win It. It should be their motto: This is way harder than it looks. If you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth checking out – and now you can, because Minute To Win It is back this summer on Game Show Network (GSN).

They got Apolo Anton Ohno to host, which makes sense since he’s one of the most decorated American athletes of all time. And not so hard on the eyes either, am I right? We got a special sneak peek of the show this week along with a list of challenges. The idea is they can almost all be practiced at home with stuff you have laying around…so of course we had to give it a try too.

There are various difficulty levels, and I figured we’d be pretty safe at Level 1. The challenge: stack 6 soda cans on a plate floating in a bowl of water. You’ve got one Minute to Win It. GO!

Here’s proof he eventually did do it, even if it miiiiight not have been for the 3 seconds required: And it wouldn’t be fair to post that without sharing my attempt, as unsuccessful as it was. GO!

The gingers wanted to give it a try too. GO! (Please note, I know my child is actually 4, not 3, even though I said he is 3.)

Since that game was a big failure, I picked a level 2 game I thought might be a little more E’s speed. I mean, it involves wine glasses, and he’s definitely experienced with wine. The goal: spin a marble in an upside-down wine glass to carry it across the room and drop it into a bowl. E’s got one Minute to Win It. GO!

If we ever get called to be on the show, I’m just going to cross all my crossables that E gets that game. $250,000, here we come! Every. Second. Counts. A new season of Minute to Win It premieres Tuesday, June 25^th at 8/7c on GSN. For more information, connect with Minute to Win It on Facebook and Twitter and visit the GSN website.

 

And to celebrate the return, Minute to Win It wants to give one lucky reader a $100 Gift Card. To enter, leave a comment on this post telling me about your competitive spirit. Are you cut-throat, like my husband? Or more its-all-in-good-fun?
Sweepstakes Rules: No duplicate comments. You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods: Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry. This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winner will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected. The Official Rules are available here. This sweepstakes runs from 6/18/13 – 7/17/13.