Here is a timeline of our weekend.

3 pm Friday: E calls to tell me he might not be able to come with us to Sesame Place for the weekend.

6 pm Friday: E calls to tell me he can PROBABLY come with us but not until 11 am on Saturday.

7 am Saturday: E calls to tell me he probably isn’t going to make it.

9 am Saturday: E calls to tell me he definitely isn’t going to make it so I should just take the kids and go. I make vague “Oh I don’t know…maybe we should just cancel…” noises but decide to go because I already paid for the hotel.

10 am Saturday: We hit the road!

10:10 am Saturday: We come home, because I forgot our season passes!

10:15 am Saturday: We re-hit the road!

10:30 am – 1:00 pm Saturday: The kids sleep almost the whole way, there’s no traffic, I only get a tiny bit lost and we make it to the park right as they open for the afternoon.

1:15 pm – 8:00 pm Saturday – Super good fun time at Sesame Place!

8:10 pm Saturday – Drive across the street to super nice hotel.

9:00 pm Saturday – Everyone is in jammies and in bed, but my migraine is horrible.

9:01 pm – 10:30 pm Saturday – Caroline coughs, I cough, Caroline coughs, I cough, Caroline coughs, I cough, Caroline coughs, I cough, Caroline coughs, etc etc etc. Eventually we both coughed ourselves to sleep.

Midnight – Evan starts coughing so hard he throws up. I clean him up and get him a glass of water. He throws up into the glass of water. I get a new towel to clean him up again. He throws up again and I manage to catch it all on the towel. “Wow, nice catch Mommy!” says Evan.

12:30 am Sunday – Evan falls back asleep.

4:00 am Sunday – I wake up with my migraine pounding.

6:00 am Sunday – Caroline wakes up ready to party.

7:30 am Sunday – I decide I need a shower to relax and help my head. Caroline decides she needs to stand right outside the shower and scream.

7:40 am Sunday – I let Caroline join me in the shower so she’ll stop crying. She screams some more, rubs soap in her eyes, then tries to climb out of the tub and falls RIGHT on her chin.

7:41 – 7:42 am Sunday – Caroline bleeds on every surface in the hotel room while I frantically try to get dressed, stop the bleeding, and text my friend Kim to see if she can help me throw stuff in the car to find an emergency room.

7:45 am Sunday – Kim insists on taking Evan, I head to the nearest ER which amazingly shares a parking lot with our hotel.

8:30 am Sunday – Caroline attempts to give herself a stroke screaming her head off while the doctor gives her 3 stitches in her chin.

8:31 am Sunday – All the blood drains from my head, I start to feel hot and I ask the nurse helping me hold Caroline down if I can sit for a minute. She looks at me and says “OH MY GOD, SIT DOWN.”

8:32 am Sunday – I slump into a chair right as I lose consciousness. I wake up to a cup of water for me, apple juice for Caroline and some concerned looked medical staff.

8:40 am – 9:00 am Sunday – Caroline and I snuggle on the hospital bed until we both feel better, then head back to the hotel.

9:30 am Sunday – Caroline and I get some breakfast while Evan swims in the pool with Kim and her boys.

10:00 am Sunday – I decide we won’t be sticking around to do more Sesame Place and we head home.

2:00 pm Sunday – Home. Mickey Mouse on TV. I take 3 Excedrin and lie on the couch.

3:30 pm Sunday – E gets home and orders pizza. I basically give up on parenting and let the kids run wild.

7:00 pm Sunday – BED.

Basically, it was like a nightmare wrapped in a puke-covered towel, covered in screaming.

Except that really…it wasn’t that bad. The drive to Sesame was nice and easy. We were all dressed warmly and no one was whiny. The park wasn’t very busy and the kids got to ride lots of rides and see plenty of characters. We got to hang out with Kim and her mom and her wonderful boys. Even though we were all cough-y, Evan slept through my coughing and Caroline slept through Evan’s puking. Evan went right back to sleep after he got sick. No one complained to the hotel about our noise levels. Caroline handled her injury really well and didn’t seem to be in a lot of pain. The ER was so close, almost empty and everyone was super nice. The doctor took one look at Caroline, said “Yep, stitches” and immediately got the nurse in to get stuff started. She’ll be better by Friday and have her stitches out before her birthday party. She won’t have a big ugly scar.  I didn’t hurt myself fainting. Thanks to my awesome friend Kim, Evan got to swim and have fun with his friends instead of spend the morning in the ER with me. Our drive home was pleasant and easy and traffic-free. I got pizza for dinner.

So in the end, despite the various…disasters, we had a nice weekend. The kids had fun. Caroline has totally forgotten her chin. I didn’t freak out. It didn’t scare me into never leaving the house again. On Monday, I packed up the kids and drove 45 minutes to a super-awesome kids museum. Then we ate lunch in a sit-down restaurant with friends. We had a lovely day and I already think the whole thing is funny.

It sort of feels like a win, which is something pre-kid Suzanne would NEVER call a weekend that involved cleaning up so many other people’s bodily fluids. Motherhood is crazy.

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We’re battening down the hatches for the tropical storm/hurricane/once in a lifetime Frankenstorm disaster that’s headed our way, but right now I’m too hopped up on the Halloween candy I broke into early to feel too worried. That’s probably a mistake, but let’s just enjoy some pictures.

Sunday:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

Saturday:

Tomorrow we have a zillion things to do between 9 am and 4 pm (which is basically all the daylight hours) and then I’ll be collecting candles and flashlights JUST IN CASE we lost power. As you can see from my last photo, we definitely won’t starve to death – although we might all gain 5 lbs from junk food. I’m just REALLY hoping it all blows over before Halloween night, since this will be our first year actually trick-or-treating.

Do you have camera/iPhone photos from your week? Link up below and grab the code for your site too!

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I think all vacations should automatically come with one at-home recovery day, where no one is expected to do anything but the bare minimum of feeding/clothing themselves/dependents and lying on the couch checking email is a perfectly good way to spend 6 hours. Unfortunately, despite making wise choices before we went away for the weekend (all the dishes were clean! all the laundry was put away! the toilet bowls were scrubbed!) I’m already behind on my to-do list for the week so I’m wearing my running shoes and blast through these dirty clothes and floors while the kids fall asleep sitting up watching Disney Jr. Caroline begged for a nap starting at 11 am and has been asleep for 3 hours already. I’m going to throw dinner at them at 6 and then crash for the night by 8. (I feel even worse for my husband, who has duty today into tomorrow and gets ZERO couch-sitting-email-checking time – at least at home I don’t have to wear real pants.)

We had a great weekend at Sesame Place. The ratio of 4 grown ups to 2 kids is MUCH more relaxing that the other way around. Caroline realized Elmo probably wasn’t going to try to eat her and loved every character, every show and every ride. The weather was glorious – 60 on Saturday and close to 70 on Sunday.

But, oh guys, it was so so so so SO crowded. I wasn’t prepared for quite so many people. Large groups of people suck, since statistically speaking you are bound to run into more Jerky McJerkfaces the bigger the group gets. It’s science: Out of 20 people, maybe 1 is the kind of self-entitled a-hole who thinks cutting in line in front of preschoolers is cool. So if you have 40 people, 2 of them are a-holes. In a super crowded amusement park where everyone is tired and wrangling toddlers and there is absolutely no beer, that number soars to approximately 17 bazillionteen. The park wasn’t prepared for that many people – let alone that many jerks – so by the end of Sunday we were glad all the “fun stuff” (tm Evan) was over and we could go home where there were no lines to ride the King Sized Magical Bed To Sleepytimes.

Although on the way out I added Christmas to our season passes so obviously it wasn’t TOO traumatic of an experience. Maybe I’ll knit us all matching wool hats and we’ll plan to go when it’s freezing and miserable so we won’t have to wait in so many lines.

 

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Sometimes, it’s really nice to be able to say “yes” to opportunities. On Saturday the kids and I had our first ever NYC adventure when we attended Tollytot‘s Playdate In The City. I almost backed out a dozen times (we’re about 2 1/2 hours from New York and E wasn’t able to come) but I am SO GLAD I didn’t. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Evan and Caroline so happy.

Playdate in the City was literally that – a room full of toys and kids to play with them. But it wasn’t just a room, it was a gorgeous all-white loft with an outdoor garden and fountain on top of one of the buildings in Rockefeller Center. And there weren’t just toys, there were hundreds of cool new toys from My First Disney Princess, Rubik’s, Baby Genius, Fisher-Price, Safety 1st and Graco. And there weren’t just tons of kids for Evan and Caroline to play with, there were super nice PR reps who sat on the floor with them for HOURS playing blocks and showing them how stuff worked and seriously guys, it was so much fun.

Amazing added feel-good bonus – Tollytots donated a life-changing surgery to a child through Operation Smile just because we showed up. In fact, they donated one for every family that came!

Evan made a beeline for these two toys when we walked in and barely stepped away from them the entire time – the Safety 1st Cubikals Push Along Fire Truck and the Jump ‘N Jive Helicopter. Words cannot express how much he loved these. Words also cannot express how glad I am we got to take them home, although I DO have a word for how I feel about the music the helicopter plays now that I’ve lived with it for 2 straight days. It’s not a very nice word. Thank goodness for off-switches.

Caroline was in HEAVEN, since dollies and strollers are her two favorite things. Both kids loved the Cinderella Sparkling Lights and Magic Wand Doll, who lights up when you touch the wand to the medallion on her dress. To be honest, I loved her too and I’m definitely putting it on the Christmas list. They even had Prince dolls to go with the Princesses – Charming and Flynn (from Tangled!) were my favorites. My friend Kim was so excited to bring them home to her boys.

Caroline tried every single stroller they had, but decided the Graco Jogging Stroller was her favorite. She has literally slept with it IN HER BED since Saturday. We both though the Ride ‘n Drive was adorable – she kept yelling “CAR CART! CAR CART!” – and it’s another thing going on the Christmas list.

I’m pretty sure the first time bow-tied waiters served me food on trays was at my WEDDING, so I hope Caroline and Evan don’t get used to this level of luxury. The menu was all tiny and child-friendly – shots of milk with a cookie on top, tiny crustless sandwiches, chicken nuggets, cake pops, cut up fruit and sippy cups of apple juice! It’s true I am easily impressed, but they really did think of everything to make the day fun and easy.

Did I mention the location and view was fantastic?

A couple more favorites: the Baby Genius Jukebox and the Rubik’s blocks.

We stayed literally the entire time the event was going on and left with a stroller full of toys. Since we were already in the city we made plans to meet up with Sara and do some New Yorky stuff. Kim walked me and the kids to Central Park and stayed until Sara found us, so I never had to wrangle both gingers on my own (my friends rock). We hung out and posed for pictures (true story, foreign tourists REALLY like my kids) and then wandered over to the carousel and the playground for some touristy fun.

We stopped at the Whole Foods in the Time Warner Center to grab snacks (fruit and cookies for the kids, sushi for the grown ups). Evan was so tired he wrapped himself around his helicopter and took a  nap. Caroline made it until we were back on the train home:

It was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done with the kids (even if you discount it for the broken car window and stollen GPS I came back to at the train station – thank goodness for awesome full glass coverage insurance!) and I cannot thank the ladies from 624 Public Relations and Tollytots enough for inviting us. There were half a dozen professional photographers at the event too, so I hope I can share some more pictures and video of my kids having the time of their life later.

Disclosure: I was invited to Playdate in the City by Tollytots and (to my surprise) the kids were allowed to take home a few toys and a gift bag as a thanks for attending. No other compensation was provided. They didn’t even ask me to blog about it or share the links – my kids just REALLY loved these toys and after playing with them I totally agree.

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This might have been one of the most fun weeks ever. Or maybe my memory is skewed by the super fun day we had on Saturday. Also, HOLY COW, I’ve been doing this for one hundred weeks. 700 days. That’s a lot of iPhoning.

Sunday:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

Saturday:

It turns out taking 2 kids into NYC is a little bit exhausting, so I spent all of Sunday recovering. Also, someone smashed in my car window to steal my crappy $120 GPS from the train parking lot in New Haven, so I had a teeny tiny little breakdown trying to figure out how to handle it (answer: fill out paperwork for lot attendant, brush glass off seat, drive home with the heat blasting). I’m hoping it doesn’t rain until I can get it fixed. But BESIDES that, the week was all super awesome, so it’s easy to feel very glass-half-full. They didn’t steal the car! Or the car seats! Or any of the other stuff! My kids are adorable and everyone agrees! I really love my life.

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