Random Notes From My Vacation

1.  After sleeping on, let’s see, 1,2,3,4, mmmm 5 different beds as we traversed the country, it is now official.  I need a new mattress badly.  Even though I don’t want to spend large amounts of money on a mattress—I think it might be worth it.

2.  I am in love with EZ-Pass.  Zooming through the millions of tolls on the New York Thruway and the Massachusetts Turnpike without having to stop never got old. 

3.  Why do grocery stores in Maine have a special smell?  Walking into the Hannaford’s near Saco for the first time, it smelled exactly like the Shaw’s near my grandparent’s house in Portland when I was a kid.  Explain that one. Sea air?

4. I was feeling positively smug on all comments I had received about how well-behaved the boys were…..and then we had the Great Meltdown of 2007 at Old Orchard Beach. The next day we considered making them go back there and walk around wearing sandwich boards saying I’M SORRY but we relented.  A day or two later I was kidding Leo and told him that if he ever acted like that again I wasn’t going to be his mother.  What makes me say things like that without thinking?  The poor guys looked up at me, a frozen little half smile on his face and slowly said, "you’re kidding, right?"  Poor sweet pea.  I told him I’d be his mother forever no matter what and he felt better.

5.  Six different people asked us if the boys were twins.

6. Owen insists on calling lobsters crabs.  O.K. by me.

7.  I wish I were still there.

The bumper cars at Old Orchard Beach…..about an hour before the Great Meltdown of 2007—Leo was a monster on the bumper cars—who would have thunk it?  Owen wasn’t quite tall enough to hit the gas pedal so he went with Ernie…..: