Road Trip to LeJeune

Last weekend J-Man and I went on a road trip to see Lil Bro. He's now a Marine, having conquered boot camp, and is temporarily stationed at Camp LeJeune for MOS and other acronyms I don't know/can't remember.

Camp LeJeune is approximately 6 hours away by car. Can I just say, thank heavens I will never travel that distance with a two month old again. Phew!

The boys did great, all things considered. Despite PDG's new favorite word being "don't" and the fact that he is now forward facing and therefore kicks my passenger seat nonstop, we survived. And I guess MDG's two hour eating schedule did give us plenty of chances to stretch our legs.

The trip as a whole reminded me of our Vegas trip in 2012. The nights of horrible sleep in a hotel room. Pumped milk not surviving the hours without a fridge. Getting lost and frustrated beyond verbal expression. Some great smiles of a chubby baby on puffy hotel linens. A random food service worker holding my baby.

Some parts were very unlike Vegas though.  Namely, the energetic toddler in addition to a chubby, hungry baby.

PDG is almost two and talking constantly.  He knows all his capital letters, though forgets a few on any given day, and can identify some numbers.  I don't want to be the mom that pushes things like that too far, so we go on his cues and keep it a game.  His color recognition extends only to the four colors of the stickers we use on MDG's daycare bottles - yellow (lello), green, orange and pink.  Outside of that he's got nothing.  Or he's colorblind.  But most likely, it's just because colors are only interesting when stickers are involved, because apparently these days there is absolutely nothing better than stickers.  Well, maybe sausage.  

Oh, and last fun fact about PDG - he has started calling J-Man, "J-Man."  I mean, he calls him by his first name, but also, actually, "J-Man." That one started as an indecipherable "J-Mo" but within minutes had been adjusted and clear as day.  I guess J-Man doesn't call me by my first name as much, because he's the only one getting the new attention.  We think it's a phase.  At least, we hope it is.  Right now it's kinda adorable/annoying all in one, the way most toddler phases are.

So it was a good trip.  A good, long, exhausting trip.  I'm glad we went.  I'm glad we're home.  I'm glad J-Man had the week off while in-between jobs to help us both recover from it.  And I'm glad this next weekend we have no plans at all.