Valentine's Day in the Berkshires

For Valentine's Day this year, we were so lucky to be able to take some time away as Mike's mom came and spent the weekend with Vince! It was so nice to be able to take some time to ourselves, and we are also so happy and grateful that Vince got to spend some good time with his Nonna! As we left on Saturday we knew Vince would be fine, I still have the clear picture of him sitting contently in his Nonna's lap with a book, yelling bye bye! to us as we were trying to give him hugs and console him in prep for being upset that we were leaving. Well he barely batted an eyeball at us and just kept yelling bye bye.... that was our cue to get on out of there while we could.

We headed out to the Berkshire mountains in Western MA where we found an interesting Bed and Breakfast to try out, called the Topia Eco Inn. This place was especially intriguing as it boasts being an earth friendly environmental utopia that is 'chemical free' and uses all sustainable and non toxic products. We couldn't even bring our own toiletries as they asked us not to, they had all organic/fair trade products there for us to use. Oh yes, and the breakfasts were sooo delicious!


When we arrived in our bathroom I felt like a child in a candy store, couldn't wait to try all the fun facial products/hair care products! My favorite product by far was the Pangea Organics facial cream which is my new favorite. Mike enjoyed using the after shave from Aubrey Organics. We both felt the tooth powder was just ok, kind of weird but fun to try. It was a fluoride free tooth powder made of baking soda. It claims to harden your teeth "naturally".

The weekend was very relaxing, our biggest plans included going to the movies and having dinner (we saw Avatar in 3d.... very cool but the story line was your garden variety Dances With Wolves plot replacing Native Americans with aliens). Here we are at Mezze on Valentine's Day Eve


Although it was a nice get away, we did find ourselves talking about Vince pretty much all the time! We'd laugh at his cute little tricks, talk about how fast he's growing up, and sit and think about how many books he was making his Nonna read. Yes, I'd say much of our discussions revolved around Vince. We couldn't wait to get home to him on Monday to give him big hugs and see how he was doing, and we really did miss him so much.

We both know there won't be anymore relaxing weekends like that, especially after our second baby arrives! A special thanks to Mike's Mother for coming to spend some time with Vince!

Back Track

We had a great time on Super Bowl Sunday with a fun party over at our friends Marcus and Amy's. Vince always has a great time playing with his buddy Aaron who is only one month older, and of course he loves their 2 Portuguese Water dogs, and even found that he loved playing in their kennel crate! Here he is getting himself locked up in the crate:

While all the Daddies watched the Super Bowl, here's the rest of the boys having a pizza party at the snack table. Vince actually tried to bite a chunk out of the plastic pizza, can't blame him!


Vince takes a break from the plastic pizza and goes to hang out with the boys and watch the game with Dad.... (or was it to play with a toy car)

Earlier in the day I took Vince to Together in Motion to have some fun time in the tot gym... there we met up with Sylvie and Beau who were out and about while Sylvie's new brother Henri was home with mom.

Vince's static cling hair after he came out from under the parachute

Toddler Tricks

One of the best things about being a parent is teaching your kids to do "tricks." You know, the way they repeat what you say without understanding why you're laughing. Of course, that only encourages them to do it more. Sometimes they pick up things on their own, and all you need to give them is a little encouragement.

Vince has started picking up words that he hears. We have NPR on a lot at home, so he picked up a word from the radio that's easy for him to say: "Obama." One day we were driving in the car with NPR on the radio, and Vince starts repeating "Obama." So I asked him the question, "Vince, who's the president?" and I answered "Obama." That was all it took. Within a couple of days, all of the teachers at his daycare had to stop by the toddler room to ask him who the president is.

Vince is also developing a sense of humor. Here's a view of him fooling around with Lisa's slippers:

Apparently, they have been counting at Vince's daycare. A couple of nights ago we asked him how many cars he was holding, and he counted all 3 of them! Here's a video of him counting bunnies:

We also read him a counting book, and he counted 8 tigers. I asked about it at daycare today, and they do some counting every day. Vince is very excited about it, and he keeps saying "numbers!" Maybe we have a budding engineer.