Warning: Long post ahead! I didn't want to split this into two posts so it is just longer than a lot of other ones.
So this weekend we undertook a challenge. At least a "challenge" for our little family of four. With a 4-year-old and 2-year-old traveling away from home and staying in a hotel is not necessarily an easy feat. BUT... we had to. See, our friends' little guy turned 1. We had to go down to celebrate with them. They always try to come up for the kids' birthdays if they can and Steven and Mike have been friends for many, many years. We were so excited to celebrate their little man. He's super cute too and we haven't seen them since Kenzie's birthday so our visit was due.
The weekend actually started a couple days early because first things first... we had to drop off Jack with Nana and Papa. We ended up going on Thursday afternoon to drop him off. After I picked Kenzie up at school, we came home to let Will nap and then I loaded up the kids and dog and headed to Palatka. Good thing my parents love Jack. It is so nice to have this as an option and we know he is well taken care of (probably even more spoiled than at home) and I can check on him at any time. We also knew that it would work out in that we could leave him with my parents for the entire week after our trip and I could pick him up the following weekend when I go up to get my hair done. (It's my Christmas present from my parents. My mom takes me to her hairdresser to have my hair highlighted and cut a couple times a year as gifts and it is way overdue.)
Anyway, after we picked up Kenzie from school we came home to let Will "nap" which lately is more of a fight between us. Luckily, he went to bed easily and woke up just in time to head out so I didn't have to wake him up. The ride there was... exhausting. Kenzie talked the entire way. Seriously. At one point we had this exchange:
Kenzie: I'm going to talk all the way there.
Me: I've realized. When do you breathe?
Kenzie: Oh... I don't breathe.
So you see what I was working with. She talked about everything under the sun for 90 plus minutes. Poor Will barely had a chance to say anything between her incessant talking. The kids had fun playing at Nana and Papa's house. We stayed for dinner with them, Aunt Danielle, and Uncle Rick. The kids loved having pizza on the back patio. Nana was super nice and gave them a bath for me and then I loaded them back up and headed home. Kenzie talked again for about half the drive. About 20 minutes in I told her that I wasn't going to talk any longer. She continued to chat away for another 20 minutes or so before finally falling asleep. Will fell asleep just before her. Both kids snored the rest of the way and I enjoyed the quiet. Haha!
Friday was nothing major. Kenzie had school and we had prep work for the trip. Travelling with two little ones is always an adventure. I remember when Steven and I could take 1 bag for both of us combined for a two day trip. Now, we need to bring half of our worldly possessions, it seems. We filled up the car with gas, loaded up everything we could in the car and got to be early in prep to be up early to leave for South Florida.
We woke both kids up around 6:30 on Saturday morning to get them ready to go. In the past, we would just let Kenzie potty and put them in the car in their pjs then change them at our first stop but we decided that since both kids would have to potty and everything that we might as well get them up and dressed before we left. It was easy enough. They are both super morning people and they were excited about going on a road trip so they were okay with getting up slightly early than usual. We ended up leaving the house a few minutes earlier than we planned which worked out because we didn't know how often we would have to stop or how long our stops would be.
We road all the way to Canoe Creek when we stopped at the service plaza there for a potty break. Both kids wanted to stretch their legs too. After the stop, we set up the DVD players in the car that Grandma and Grandaddy gave the kids a few years back. We let the kids start Tangled for the next portion of our trip. We only use our DVD players if we are on a trip that is going to take longer than about 2 hours and we try to limit their use to only part of the trip but it is nice to keep them entertained for a bit longer. This was the first time Will was able to watch because he is finally forward facing on a longer car trip. They have both seen the movie before though and it seemed like they were slightly bored part way through. It's hard to keep 2 super active kids locked up in a car for too long but they do pretty well. It was so much easier when one or both of them would sleep at least part of the way. We ended up stopping at Fort Pierce Service Plaza after that. You would have thought the kids hadn't set foot on the ground in 3 days they way they were acting. We went potty, got some coffee, and then reset the DVD to about where we left off as it goes off entirely when the car is turned off and you have to skip forward to where you were before. While we were doing this, the kids were having jumping contests and running up and down the sidewalk like crazy people. They apparently needed to get some energy out.
We pulled in right behind Mike and Sevie and helped them and their parents set up some before everyone started arriving. The party was fun! Steven's parents were there too so the kids were excited to see them. Reilly was so cute in his little birthday shirt. He has gotten so big! He reminds me of my Will. I helped to feed him some hamburger and other stuff for a bit and I think he would eat and eat and eat if they let him. At one point I asked Sevie when they wanted me to stop feeding him because I think he would have just kept going if I did. These boys. He wasn't super into his smash cake at the party but I saw some cute pictures from his actual birthday when he seemed to love it. I think it was all of us staring at him. The party was themed as Little Blue Truck (which is also Will's favorite book series) and the cake was soooo cute! I'm so glad we were able to make it down for this party. Mike, Sevie, and Reilly are super special people to us and we wouldn't have missed it.
We initially thought we might drive down and back in one day but because Steven's parents were going to go, as well, we decided to stay overnight. We had a hotel room not far from the party location. We booked a suite because it was a larger room with a sofa bed. It wasn't a divided suite though with a separate living area. The kids were so excited when we got there that they were running around that room like crazy people. Kenzie loves staying in hotels (which she always refers to as timeshares because her experience is mostly in staying with my parents in their timeshares). Will didn't have the background knowledge really as he has been small most of the time we have been in hotels but he was feeding off of his sister's excitement.
We got checked in and then cleaned up to head out to dinner at Tropical Acres Steakhouse. It is a small mom and pop restaurant in South Florida that Steven's family loved growing up. It was fancier than our kids are used to but they were excited to go to dinner with Grandma and Grandaddy. We got there a bit earlier than our reservation but were seated quickly. The kids did great. They were tired from travelling and in a strange place, but they did well. Kenzie ate so much food. It was crazy. Will didn't eat the meal we ordered him, but he ate half of my soup and salad, most of Steven's rice, and most of my dessert in addition to some bread. As long as he was full, it was fine. The dinner was great! Best steak I have had in a long time. I think we all ate more than necessary but it was so good. My favorite part of the meal was as we were leaving, we had to walk by the pianist. Kenzie stopped and said, "I love your piano playing." It was adorable! He laughed and said thank you. After dinner we headed to a Starbucks to visit for a bit. The kids were overtired at this point so they were running around more than necessary but they were still pretty good. I was impressed that they weren't having any breakdowns yet. They read some books with Grandaddy and we all had a chance to sit and talk.
We made it back to the hotel around 8:30, I think. It was about an hour past their normal bedtime but they were still going. We ended up setting up Will's pack n play and the sofa bed. I'll admit... sleeping was the one area of this trip we had some concern about. The last time we stayed in a hotel, Will was much, much younger (around 7 months old or so). While we have gone away from the house and stayed overnight, other than that hotel, it was always in places with more room... or other rooms that we were able to use. We brought Will's pack n play despite the fact that he is over the height limit and teetering on the weight limit. He doesn't tend to stand up in his bed so we figured he would be okay as far as staying in it without too many issues. At least for one night. He also sleeps in a little ball so he fits in small spaces. Our issue was that for the last 2 weeks we have been experiencing a sleep regression. It bothered us at first but then we remembered that Kenzie did this exact same thing about this age and we know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. He doesn't want to go to sleep at night or naps. He talks, calls for us, cries off an on. We have learned to mostly ignore it. It is better for him for us to ignore it as if we go in to him, he starts the entire process over again. 90% of the time, he sleeps through the night despite not wanting to go to bed initially. The nights he wakes up, he tends to not be up for long. We sort of gave into him sometimes during the regression though knowing that we would be staying in a hotel so any progress we made would likely be set back anyway and we figured we would tackle the regression seriously when we returned from the trip. That was a really long explanation to explain why we had some concerns for sleep but knew it was just one night and we could handle anything for one night. Even if it meant one of us being up all night or something. We've played this sleep game before and even this is not comparable to Will's first year of life when he woke up crying 6 or so times a night, nurse, then as soon as I actually would fall back asleep... we would do it all over again... for a year. When we went on vacation when he was about 7 months old, we even had a night that I sat in the hotel lobby with him for a few hours in the very, very early morning because he refused to sleep and was fussing. I had to let everyone else sleep because we were sharing a room (and in a hotel), so down to the lobby we went. Worst case scenario... I thought we might be doing it again. Anyway, enough of that tangent. I think I just needed to get that out. Haha!
As it turned out, we had nothing to worry about. When we set up the sofa bed, he wanted to get in it so we decided to turn the tv on quietly and let him lay down with Sissy to see what happened. We figured we could move him or maybe we would luck out and he would go to sleep... and he did. He laid right down, rolled over and was done. We turned the TV off and then Kenzie actually became our issue. She was hyped. She was talking, rolling around, everything and he slept through it. We eventually got her calmed down and she went to bed. I got up frequently in the night to check on them. They were often in new positions but always asleep. No one ever fell out of the bed (Kenzie tends to because she rolls so much) and no one woke up until about 4am when Kenzie had to potty. She did that but then was too awake and took about 20 minutes to settle back down and go back to sleep. Luckily, although she woke Will up somewhat, he went back to sleep easily. Whew! At about 6:30 we heard Will whining. Steven went over to see what was going on. We knew we were getting up in about 15 minutes so we planned to just bring him to bed with us but when he went over, he was whining because Kenzie was laying on him. Then this exchange happened:
Steven: Kenzie! Get off your brother. You can't lay on him.
Kenzie: But I'm comfy. I'm comfy laying on him. I'm not comfy not laying on him.
So, we pulled Kenzie out instead. She laid with us and Will went back to sleep. At about 6:45, I turned a light on and Will started to wake up. We had to get up to eat breakfast, check out of the hotel, and head down to Zoo Miami.
The kids woke up easily because they were so excited for the zoo. We got everyone dressed and ready to go and packed up most of our stuff so we would be almost ready after breakfast to leave. We went down to the lobby for breakfast. It was pretty good. They had cereal, fruit, and yogurt so the kids were happy.
We had no issues finishing packing and getting checked out and loaded up. Then, we were off! The drive down to the zoo was uneventful (thankfully) and we were there just a couple minutes before Grandma and Grandaddy. We were early and had to wait a bit for the ticket windows to open and then another few minutes before the zoo itself opened.
Once it opened, we went in and tried out the newest exhibit they have. It is geared towards animals found in the Everglades (aka our own backyard) so they were all animals we could see around here if we were lucky enough. The best parts for the kids though was the tunnel through the saltwater croc water. I had to crawl through it the first time with Will (Kenzie wasn't worried and went right through) and then they were both off. They just circled around and around through it. The croc was hanging out a bit farther away though so you couldn't see him from the tunnel. That might have been better because I don't think either kid actually realized they could potentially come face to face that with that big toothy grin at any point in time. I would have thought it was awesome though! There was also a clear slide through the otter enclosure that went through their water. Kenzie thought she won some sort of zoo lottery. She loved it. Will wasn't so sure about it so he didn't go down but Kenzie did over and over again. One time the otters went right over her and I heard her say, "Hi otters!!!" She was so excited. We practically had to drag them out of there but they would have stayed all day if we didn't.
After all that excitement we continued through the Everglades exhibit and found a rope bridge type thing hanging over a body of water. Kenzie said she wanted to try it, but then freaked out and wouldn't go. Will decided he would if I would hold his hand. Well, that was harder than I anticipated. You were essentially walking along a 4 inch wide or so thick rope inside a net that was not super stable. We made it though.
We then went over to look at some of the other animals. There were so many areas and so many animals that I can't remember all the ones we saw. The kids were running around like crazy. We started having some issues with Will's attitude after about an hour of being at the zoo. We refer to this attitude as the "chair incident". See, once we were at the beach and an overtired Will wasn't having it. He asked for his chair. We gave it to him thinking he was going to sit in it... and he threw it. He asked for it back. We asked if he was going to sit in it this time. He nodded yes. We handed it to him and he threw it again. He does this sometimes. Especially when he is tired. While the kids slept well the night before, they were short on sleep just because we were in bed later than they are used to and had to get up early. He had a big day and a 10 minute nap on Saturday. And it caught up with him. He also seemed hungry. He would want to ride in the stroller and once he was in, would want to get out and walk. Then he would scream and cry because in reality, he didn't want either of those things. Steven carried him for a few minutes and then he was willing to walk nicely again but this back and forth ended up going on the remainder of the day. He was okay for a while but would have his moments.
We eventually headed around to see the elephants and giraffes. Kenzie was most excited to get to the giraffes. Will made elephant noises at the elephants. It was cute. Eventually we made it around and it was time for lunch. It was a later lunch than the kids are used to and they were pretty hungry. Will was still overtired (of course) so he didn't eat as much as we thought he might but Kenzie pretty much ate everything on the table. I'm actually sort of surprised she didn't eat the table itself. Lunch took a while because she just kept eating.
After lunch we went around to see the petting zoo, lions, more elephants, and the tiger. Will continued his overtired off and on issues but we made it. He was okay seeing animals but didn't want to leave them and didn't like having to sit in his stroller between animals but we made him because he was protesting walking. When we got to the petting zoo, both kids were super into that. Will was a bit more leery about petting the animals but eventually warmed up to it. Kenzie was running in circles trying to make sure she got to pet every animal more than once.
The last thing to see was the tiger. Zoo Miami has a white tiger (or at least they used to) but that one wasn't out. We were able to see the other tiger. Both kids thought he was really cool.
After that, it was time to head out. Everyone was exhausted. Grandma and Grandaddy were staying another night but we had a 4 hour drive ahead of us to get home. Needless to say, Will didn't even make it out of the parking lot before he was asleep. We thought for sure that Kenzie would nap... but she talked. And talked. And talked. We stopped at Fort Pierce at the service station about an hour and a half in. We had to wake Will up so we could all go in and potty. He wasn't happy at first but eventually woke up and was ready to go. After a quick stop to stretch our legs, we set up the remainder of Big Hero 6 for the kids. We initially planned to get off the turnpike for dinner but as it turned out, our timing put us in the area between Fort Pierce and Canoe Creek where there are very few exits and by the time we were ready for dinner, there was nothing. Kenzie also started complaining that she had to potty so we ended up at Canoe Creek service plaza and just grabbed some Wendy's. Easy enough. We were ready to be home too so it wasn't a huge deal because it was faster than some of our other options.
When we got back into the car, we cued up Zootopia. We needed the kids to remain awake at this point so that we could get them in bed easily when we got home. They were fine and we made it home just before 8. We got both kids in bed quickly. Will started up his complaining about bed but was too tired to go on more than about 3 minutes. Both kids were OUT in less than 5. It was a whirlwind trip but we wouldn't have had it any other way. We got to celebrate ONE with Reilly, have an awesome dinner at Tropical Acres, and visit Zoo Miami. We also learned that our kids should be okay should we need to (or choose to) travel again anytime soon. We know what should work for them and what might not so it was definitely a successful trip and we learned some things.
Sidenote: (We were so proud of Will that I want to mention this.) I mentioned that sleep was the main thing we were concerned for on this trip but this was also the first big trip we have taken since potty training Will about 4 months ago. To this point, we are still not poop trained but I've come to terms with that. Our doc said that could take him a very long time and that boys typically are far more difficult than girls but eventually he will get it. Until then, I do a lot of laundry. Will had been really good at this potty thing before Christmas. Then Kenzie was home and Daddy was home for a week as well. I'm not sure if it was the change in routine or the craziness of the holiday, but we had a slight regression about that time. He went from having an accident every few days to having a few every day. In the last week, we have finally come out of that but we figured a trip out of town would be a lot and might set up back again. As it turned out, he did awesome! The best he has in weeks. He had one slight "accident" in the car on the way to South Florida but we didn't count that as bad because we couldn't stop for him to go. He had a pull up on. A trick I learned many years ago from my own mom is to put undies inside a pull up so they feel when they are wet as pull ups don't work that way. We didn't have undies in for the trip down to save me from having to possibly change them in a rest stop, but I could feel that his pull up was wet once. We also left him in the pull up for the party because we weren't sure of the bathroom situations and while we still carry one, it was hard to use because of all the other stuff we had in our car for our travels. He ended up having a poop accident but nothing else. Then, he fell alseep on the way to the hotel and had another poop while sleeping which woke him up but he still peed in the potty every time he had to go. On Saturday we did the undies in pull up trick for the zoo just to save us an issue if we couldn't make it to a potty but he did AWESOME! Not a single accident all day (not even poop because he didn't go). We ended up making it all the way home in the car even with an hour and a half nap during that time and he never had an accident. It definitely seems we have turned the corner from the regression. We were super proud of him. It was his first all day outing that we didn't have any sort of issues. We have done Disney a few times and always do the undies in pull up thing and usually have one accident or even 2. We will see how our next Disney visit goes. It's hard there because we sometimes end up in lines and he is so excited that he doesn't tell us he has to go so when we go after waiting in the line, he has already gone. We are going to continue to pull up him for a while in places like that but I think we might be moving him out of that in the next month or so. Yay!!
So this weekend we undertook a challenge. At least a "challenge" for our little family of four. With a 4-year-old and 2-year-old traveling away from home and staying in a hotel is not necessarily an easy feat. BUT... we had to. See, our friends' little guy turned 1. We had to go down to celebrate with them. They always try to come up for the kids' birthdays if they can and Steven and Mike have been friends for many, many years. We were so excited to celebrate their little man. He's super cute too and we haven't seen them since Kenzie's birthday so our visit was due.
The weekend actually started a couple days early because first things first... we had to drop off Jack with Nana and Papa. We ended up going on Thursday afternoon to drop him off. After I picked Kenzie up at school, we came home to let Will nap and then I loaded up the kids and dog and headed to Palatka. Good thing my parents love Jack. It is so nice to have this as an option and we know he is well taken care of (probably even more spoiled than at home) and I can check on him at any time. We also knew that it would work out in that we could leave him with my parents for the entire week after our trip and I could pick him up the following weekend when I go up to get my hair done. (It's my Christmas present from my parents. My mom takes me to her hairdresser to have my hair highlighted and cut a couple times a year as gifts and it is way overdue.)
Anyway, after we picked up Kenzie from school we came home to let Will "nap" which lately is more of a fight between us. Luckily, he went to bed easily and woke up just in time to head out so I didn't have to wake him up. The ride there was... exhausting. Kenzie talked the entire way. Seriously. At one point we had this exchange:
Kenzie: I'm going to talk all the way there.
Me: I've realized. When do you breathe?
Kenzie: Oh... I don't breathe.
So you see what I was working with. She talked about everything under the sun for 90 plus minutes. Poor Will barely had a chance to say anything between her incessant talking. The kids had fun playing at Nana and Papa's house. We stayed for dinner with them, Aunt Danielle, and Uncle Rick. The kids loved having pizza on the back patio. Nana was super nice and gave them a bath for me and then I loaded them back up and headed home. Kenzie talked again for about half the drive. About 20 minutes in I told her that I wasn't going to talk any longer. She continued to chat away for another 20 minutes or so before finally falling asleep. Will fell asleep just before her. Both kids snored the rest of the way and I enjoyed the quiet. Haha!
Friday was nothing major. Kenzie had school and we had prep work for the trip. Travelling with two little ones is always an adventure. I remember when Steven and I could take 1 bag for both of us combined for a two day trip. Now, we need to bring half of our worldly possessions, it seems. We filled up the car with gas, loaded up everything we could in the car and got to be early in prep to be up early to leave for South Florida.
We woke both kids up around 6:30 on Saturday morning to get them ready to go. In the past, we would just let Kenzie potty and put them in the car in their pjs then change them at our first stop but we decided that since both kids would have to potty and everything that we might as well get them up and dressed before we left. It was easy enough. They are both super morning people and they were excited about going on a road trip so they were okay with getting up slightly early than usual. We ended up leaving the house a few minutes earlier than we planned which worked out because we didn't know how often we would have to stop or how long our stops would be.
We road all the way to Canoe Creek when we stopped at the service plaza there for a potty break. Both kids wanted to stretch their legs too. After the stop, we set up the DVD players in the car that Grandma and Grandaddy gave the kids a few years back. We let the kids start Tangled for the next portion of our trip. We only use our DVD players if we are on a trip that is going to take longer than about 2 hours and we try to limit their use to only part of the trip but it is nice to keep them entertained for a bit longer. This was the first time Will was able to watch because he is finally forward facing on a longer car trip. They have both seen the movie before though and it seemed like they were slightly bored part way through. It's hard to keep 2 super active kids locked up in a car for too long but they do pretty well. It was so much easier when one or both of them would sleep at least part of the way. We ended up stopping at Fort Pierce Service Plaza after that. You would have thought the kids hadn't set foot on the ground in 3 days they way they were acting. We went potty, got some coffee, and then reset the DVD to about where we left off as it goes off entirely when the car is turned off and you have to skip forward to where you were before. While we were doing this, the kids were having jumping contests and running up and down the sidewalk like crazy people. They apparently needed to get some energy out.
They calmed down though and watched the rest of Tangled. We started up Big Hero 6 until we got to Sunrise. We ended up stopping at a Publix to take another potty break because we were pretty early still. Somehow we made awesome time despite 3 stops. We topped off with gas and then headed to the park that Reilly's party was at.
We initially thought we might drive down and back in one day but because Steven's parents were going to go, as well, we decided to stay overnight. We had a hotel room not far from the party location. We booked a suite because it was a larger room with a sofa bed. It wasn't a divided suite though with a separate living area. The kids were so excited when we got there that they were running around that room like crazy people. Kenzie loves staying in hotels (which she always refers to as timeshares because her experience is mostly in staying with my parents in their timeshares). Will didn't have the background knowledge really as he has been small most of the time we have been in hotels but he was feeding off of his sister's excitement.
We got checked in and then cleaned up to head out to dinner at Tropical Acres Steakhouse. It is a small mom and pop restaurant in South Florida that Steven's family loved growing up. It was fancier than our kids are used to but they were excited to go to dinner with Grandma and Grandaddy. We got there a bit earlier than our reservation but were seated quickly. The kids did great. They were tired from travelling and in a strange place, but they did well. Kenzie ate so much food. It was crazy. Will didn't eat the meal we ordered him, but he ate half of my soup and salad, most of Steven's rice, and most of my dessert in addition to some bread. As long as he was full, it was fine. The dinner was great! Best steak I have had in a long time. I think we all ate more than necessary but it was so good. My favorite part of the meal was as we were leaving, we had to walk by the pianist. Kenzie stopped and said, "I love your piano playing." It was adorable! He laughed and said thank you. After dinner we headed to a Starbucks to visit for a bit. The kids were overtired at this point so they were running around more than necessary but they were still pretty good. I was impressed that they weren't having any breakdowns yet. They read some books with Grandaddy and we all had a chance to sit and talk.
We made it back to the hotel around 8:30, I think. It was about an hour past their normal bedtime but they were still going. We ended up setting up Will's pack n play and the sofa bed. I'll admit... sleeping was the one area of this trip we had some concern about. The last time we stayed in a hotel, Will was much, much younger (around 7 months old or so). While we have gone away from the house and stayed overnight, other than that hotel, it was always in places with more room... or other rooms that we were able to use. We brought Will's pack n play despite the fact that he is over the height limit and teetering on the weight limit. He doesn't tend to stand up in his bed so we figured he would be okay as far as staying in it without too many issues. At least for one night. He also sleeps in a little ball so he fits in small spaces. Our issue was that for the last 2 weeks we have been experiencing a sleep regression. It bothered us at first but then we remembered that Kenzie did this exact same thing about this age and we know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. He doesn't want to go to sleep at night or naps. He talks, calls for us, cries off an on. We have learned to mostly ignore it. It is better for him for us to ignore it as if we go in to him, he starts the entire process over again. 90% of the time, he sleeps through the night despite not wanting to go to bed initially. The nights he wakes up, he tends to not be up for long. We sort of gave into him sometimes during the regression though knowing that we would be staying in a hotel so any progress we made would likely be set back anyway and we figured we would tackle the regression seriously when we returned from the trip. That was a really long explanation to explain why we had some concerns for sleep but knew it was just one night and we could handle anything for one night. Even if it meant one of us being up all night or something. We've played this sleep game before and even this is not comparable to Will's first year of life when he woke up crying 6 or so times a night, nurse, then as soon as I actually would fall back asleep... we would do it all over again... for a year. When we went on vacation when he was about 7 months old, we even had a night that I sat in the hotel lobby with him for a few hours in the very, very early morning because he refused to sleep and was fussing. I had to let everyone else sleep because we were sharing a room (and in a hotel), so down to the lobby we went. Worst case scenario... I thought we might be doing it again. Anyway, enough of that tangent. I think I just needed to get that out. Haha!
As it turned out, we had nothing to worry about. When we set up the sofa bed, he wanted to get in it so we decided to turn the tv on quietly and let him lay down with Sissy to see what happened. We figured we could move him or maybe we would luck out and he would go to sleep... and he did. He laid right down, rolled over and was done. We turned the TV off and then Kenzie actually became our issue. She was hyped. She was talking, rolling around, everything and he slept through it. We eventually got her calmed down and she went to bed. I got up frequently in the night to check on them. They were often in new positions but always asleep. No one ever fell out of the bed (Kenzie tends to because she rolls so much) and no one woke up until about 4am when Kenzie had to potty. She did that but then was too awake and took about 20 minutes to settle back down and go back to sleep. Luckily, although she woke Will up somewhat, he went back to sleep easily. Whew! At about 6:30 we heard Will whining. Steven went over to see what was going on. We knew we were getting up in about 15 minutes so we planned to just bring him to bed with us but when he went over, he was whining because Kenzie was laying on him. Then this exchange happened:
Steven: Kenzie! Get off your brother. You can't lay on him.
Kenzie: But I'm comfy. I'm comfy laying on him. I'm not comfy not laying on him.
So, we pulled Kenzie out instead. She laid with us and Will went back to sleep. At about 6:45, I turned a light on and Will started to wake up. We had to get up to eat breakfast, check out of the hotel, and head down to Zoo Miami.
The kids woke up easily because they were so excited for the zoo. We got everyone dressed and ready to go and packed up most of our stuff so we would be almost ready after breakfast to leave. We went down to the lobby for breakfast. It was pretty good. They had cereal, fruit, and yogurt so the kids were happy.
We had no issues finishing packing and getting checked out and loaded up. Then, we were off! The drive down to the zoo was uneventful (thankfully) and we were there just a couple minutes before Grandma and Grandaddy. We were early and had to wait a bit for the ticket windows to open and then another few minutes before the zoo itself opened.
Once it opened, we went in and tried out the newest exhibit they have. It is geared towards animals found in the Everglades (aka our own backyard) so they were all animals we could see around here if we were lucky enough. The best parts for the kids though was the tunnel through the saltwater croc water. I had to crawl through it the first time with Will (Kenzie wasn't worried and went right through) and then they were both off. They just circled around and around through it. The croc was hanging out a bit farther away though so you couldn't see him from the tunnel. That might have been better because I don't think either kid actually realized they could potentially come face to face that with that big toothy grin at any point in time. I would have thought it was awesome though! There was also a clear slide through the otter enclosure that went through their water. Kenzie thought she won some sort of zoo lottery. She loved it. Will wasn't so sure about it so he didn't go down but Kenzie did over and over again. One time the otters went right over her and I heard her say, "Hi otters!!!" She was so excited. We practically had to drag them out of there but they would have stayed all day if we didn't.
After all that excitement we continued through the Everglades exhibit and found a rope bridge type thing hanging over a body of water. Kenzie said she wanted to try it, but then freaked out and wouldn't go. Will decided he would if I would hold his hand. Well, that was harder than I anticipated. You were essentially walking along a 4 inch wide or so thick rope inside a net that was not super stable. We made it though.
We then went over to look at some of the other animals. There were so many areas and so many animals that I can't remember all the ones we saw. The kids were running around like crazy. We started having some issues with Will's attitude after about an hour of being at the zoo. We refer to this attitude as the "chair incident". See, once we were at the beach and an overtired Will wasn't having it. He asked for his chair. We gave it to him thinking he was going to sit in it... and he threw it. He asked for it back. We asked if he was going to sit in it this time. He nodded yes. We handed it to him and he threw it again. He does this sometimes. Especially when he is tired. While the kids slept well the night before, they were short on sleep just because we were in bed later than they are used to and had to get up early. He had a big day and a 10 minute nap on Saturday. And it caught up with him. He also seemed hungry. He would want to ride in the stroller and once he was in, would want to get out and walk. Then he would scream and cry because in reality, he didn't want either of those things. Steven carried him for a few minutes and then he was willing to walk nicely again but this back and forth ended up going on the remainder of the day. He was okay for a while but would have his moments.
We eventually headed around to see the elephants and giraffes. Kenzie was most excited to get to the giraffes. Will made elephant noises at the elephants. It was cute. Eventually we made it around and it was time for lunch. It was a later lunch than the kids are used to and they were pretty hungry. Will was still overtired (of course) so he didn't eat as much as we thought he might but Kenzie pretty much ate everything on the table. I'm actually sort of surprised she didn't eat the table itself. Lunch took a while because she just kept eating.
After lunch we went around to see the petting zoo, lions, more elephants, and the tiger. Will continued his overtired off and on issues but we made it. He was okay seeing animals but didn't want to leave them and didn't like having to sit in his stroller between animals but we made him because he was protesting walking. When we got to the petting zoo, both kids were super into that. Will was a bit more leery about petting the animals but eventually warmed up to it. Kenzie was running in circles trying to make sure she got to pet every animal more than once.
The last thing to see was the tiger. Zoo Miami has a white tiger (or at least they used to) but that one wasn't out. We were able to see the other tiger. Both kids thought he was really cool.
After that, it was time to head out. Everyone was exhausted. Grandma and Grandaddy were staying another night but we had a 4 hour drive ahead of us to get home. Needless to say, Will didn't even make it out of the parking lot before he was asleep. We thought for sure that Kenzie would nap... but she talked. And talked. And talked. We stopped at Fort Pierce at the service station about an hour and a half in. We had to wake Will up so we could all go in and potty. He wasn't happy at first but eventually woke up and was ready to go. After a quick stop to stretch our legs, we set up the remainder of Big Hero 6 for the kids. We initially planned to get off the turnpike for dinner but as it turned out, our timing put us in the area between Fort Pierce and Canoe Creek where there are very few exits and by the time we were ready for dinner, there was nothing. Kenzie also started complaining that she had to potty so we ended up at Canoe Creek service plaza and just grabbed some Wendy's. Easy enough. We were ready to be home too so it wasn't a huge deal because it was faster than some of our other options.
When we got back into the car, we cued up Zootopia. We needed the kids to remain awake at this point so that we could get them in bed easily when we got home. They were fine and we made it home just before 8. We got both kids in bed quickly. Will started up his complaining about bed but was too tired to go on more than about 3 minutes. Both kids were OUT in less than 5. It was a whirlwind trip but we wouldn't have had it any other way. We got to celebrate ONE with Reilly, have an awesome dinner at Tropical Acres, and visit Zoo Miami. We also learned that our kids should be okay should we need to (or choose to) travel again anytime soon. We know what should work for them and what might not so it was definitely a successful trip and we learned some things.
Sidenote: (We were so proud of Will that I want to mention this.) I mentioned that sleep was the main thing we were concerned for on this trip but this was also the first big trip we have taken since potty training Will about 4 months ago. To this point, we are still not poop trained but I've come to terms with that. Our doc said that could take him a very long time and that boys typically are far more difficult than girls but eventually he will get it. Until then, I do a lot of laundry. Will had been really good at this potty thing before Christmas. Then Kenzie was home and Daddy was home for a week as well. I'm not sure if it was the change in routine or the craziness of the holiday, but we had a slight regression about that time. He went from having an accident every few days to having a few every day. In the last week, we have finally come out of that but we figured a trip out of town would be a lot and might set up back again. As it turned out, he did awesome! The best he has in weeks. He had one slight "accident" in the car on the way to South Florida but we didn't count that as bad because we couldn't stop for him to go. He had a pull up on. A trick I learned many years ago from my own mom is to put undies inside a pull up so they feel when they are wet as pull ups don't work that way. We didn't have undies in for the trip down to save me from having to possibly change them in a rest stop, but I could feel that his pull up was wet once. We also left him in the pull up for the party because we weren't sure of the bathroom situations and while we still carry one, it was hard to use because of all the other stuff we had in our car for our travels. He ended up having a poop accident but nothing else. Then, he fell alseep on the way to the hotel and had another poop while sleeping which woke him up but he still peed in the potty every time he had to go. On Saturday we did the undies in pull up trick for the zoo just to save us an issue if we couldn't make it to a potty but he did AWESOME! Not a single accident all day (not even poop because he didn't go). We ended up making it all the way home in the car even with an hour and a half nap during that time and he never had an accident. It definitely seems we have turned the corner from the regression. We were super proud of him. It was his first all day outing that we didn't have any sort of issues. We have done Disney a few times and always do the undies in pull up thing and usually have one accident or even 2. We will see how our next Disney visit goes. It's hard there because we sometimes end up in lines and he is so excited that he doesn't tell us he has to go so when we go after waiting in the line, he has already gone. We are going to continue to pull up him for a while in places like that but I think we might be moving him out of that in the next month or so. Yay!!
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