Great is the Wolf of the Lodge

The kids' five week "summer" break from school has been lots of fun.

Horseback riding, Music & Art, and ice skating camps for Eliza Grace.  

Kids R Kids field trip heaven, Dream Sports, and ice skating camps for Will.

This past week was vacation for all of us, so we spent a couple of days at the Great Wolf Lodge in Concord, NC.

It was a quick two and a half hour drive to get there and two great days of indoor water park and Magiquest fun.

We went down all the big slides and Eliza Grace, Will and I finally braved the Howling Tornado.  

This is the water slide with the six story drop into a funnel that throws you up the sides of the funnel a couple of times before you swirl out the end.  Eliza Grace affectionately and appropriately calls it "the toilet."  Somehow, Scott never made it over to that one (bock, bock, bock).

Eliza Grace rode the Tornado nearly 30 times and, Will about 18. A lot of the time Eliza Grace rode it as a "single rider." She has no shyness about her whatsoever and would just get to the front of the line and ask anyone who did not have four riders in their party if she could ride with them.  

By the end of day one I heard at least two different groups of kids call to her by name.  One sweet little girl turned to me and said, "Your daughter is awesome."  My reply?  "Thank you, and yes, yes she is."

When not on a slide, Will favored the wave pool and I never had to look hard to find him.  He was the one on his knees on top of the tube riding every wave shouting "Woohoo!"

In past visits to GWL, it's always been so crowded that it was hard to find a table and chairs, so this time we rented a cabana just for the first day. 

The rental allowed us extra early access to the water park (11am day of check-in instead of 1pm) and it came stocked with lots of drinks, a locker rental, table and chairs for four, a TV and food ordering and delivery service.  It was nice to have but we didn't miss it on the second day and we probably wouldn't do it again.

Here's some live action of the kids on the racer slides and coming out of the Alberta Falls slides.

Thankfully there is no video of us coming out of the Howling Tornado. I'm here to tell you that there's no graceful way to climb out of those round tubes in an 18 inch pool of swirling water. None.

Scott and I were practically giddy that our kids are finally old enough for us to say, "Go play!" and then be perfectly content when we didn't see them for an hour!  

Of course, it also helps that 1. Our kids are good swimmers and 2. There are super attentive life guards EVERYWHERE so parents can be at ease.

Overall it was a fun, loud, wet, fun, exhausting, fun, crazy, busy, and fun time!

Sayonara Sucker!

Well, I didn't want to jinx it by saying anything sooner but its been a week so I think I'm safe.

Y'all, Will totally and completely stopped sucking his thumb!

People this is huge. 

Here's a little background: I have an ultrasound of Will in my womb at around 30 weeks gestation SUCKING HIS THUMB.

At six weeks old he found his thumb again and the deal was sealed.

If he was awake, and he wasn't eating, his thumb was in his mouth.  And yes, I tried every pacifier shape known to mankind, but none would do.

Starting around six months old, I had to sneak into his room and cover his thumb with ointment while he was sleeping because he basically had his thumb in his mouth all day long and the skin was red and cracked.

I was never so happy when he learned to crawl because if he was crawling, he wasn't sucking his thumb.

It was about this time that we noticed an interesting phenomenon: when he sucked his thumb he liked to rub a cloth tag. It didn't matter the kind of tag, any tag would do.  The tag on a stuffed animal, blanket, baseball hat, shirt, shorts, even, much to my dismay, the tag on his underwear.

He would contort his left arm to reach the tag where ever it might be.  He looked absolutely silly walking around with his hand down the back of his pants so he could rub the tag on his underwear!

Now, there were times when this whole thumb sucking/tag rubbing thing came in handy.  I recall one car trip when he was cranky and crying and I couldn't do anything to sooth him.  

I spied a t-shirt of Scott's in my car with a tag on it.  I tossed the shirt to Will and said, "Hey, look a tag!"  He was in tag/thumb heaven. Hey, don't judge.  We all do what we have to do.

Anyhoo, this habit would rule his world for his first seven years. In fact, we would gently rib him from time to time with the nickname "tag-lova, thumb-sucka." He'd laugh and say, "Yep, that's me."

As he got closer to Kindergarten, we'd mention that he might want to think about breaking the habit because some not-so-nice kids might tease him in a mean way. We didn't push him or make him feel bad, we just wanted him to think about it.  

He came home after the first day of Kindergarten and told me what a great day he had.  When his excitement was spent, he said, in all seriousness, "Mommy, can I just sit here and suck my thumb?" Apparently, he went the whole school day without sucking his thumb and it had taken its toll!

It was at this point that I also started cutting the tags out of all of his clothes and I only bought him underwear that had no tags. I figured if we could start to remove the tag trigger, perhaps the thumb sucking would eventually wane.

All through Kindergarten and First Grade, Will never sucked his thumb at school.  But any time he would watch TV at home, and at bed time, you could find a tag in one hand and his thumb in his mouth.

As he started to loose his baby teeth, we'd casually talk about that, now that his permanent teeth were coming in, he really ought to stop or he might cause problems with his permanent teeth.  To this he'd simply shrug and carry on. 
  
And then, a minor miracle happened.

One morning, a little over a week ago, Will told me that when he sucked his thumb his bottom permanent tooth hurt.  To which I said, "Well, it would be a shame to damage that tooth. I think you know what you need to do."   

And lo and behold, that night at bed time he told me, "Mommy, I haven't sucked my thumb ALL DAY!"  

Now I had noticed that he hadn't sucked it at all since he'd come home from school but I didn't want to say anything, lest I remind him about it!

He was so cute as he explained, "Mommy, there were a couple of times when I was watching TV and I'd start to put my thumb in my mouth without even realizing I was doing it!  I would go, 'whoa' and I would stop before it got to my mouth!"

Well folks, it's been more than a week and that little man conquered a seriously huge habit ALL ON HIS OWN.  

We are so proud of him. Scott and I both wish we could harness some of his fabulous will power.

So it's sayonara to the tag lova', thumb sucka' for good.

Way to go Will!

Goodbye Goldie

Will's 2 yr old Beta fish, Goldie, passed away last night. 

I found this sign on his tank this morning. 

(It says, "Goldie Died from oldness and sickness")

We were told through tears last night that we were absolutely not allowed to "flush him down the toilet."

The burial is scheduled for 7:00 PM this evening. 

Goodbye, dear Goldie.  You were a very nice Beta fish and Will loved you very much.

Summer Vacation Means...

Afternoons at the pool.

Early evening post-swim naps on the porch.

Late night snacks and video games.