A Disney preview

Pman and I just spent a few days in Disney World with Oompa and Gigi, and it was awesome. I'm pretty sure we stayed at the coolest hotel for kids, ever. And, with the exception of a few brief (but I'm sure very emotionally scarring moments), a good time was had by all. (Turns out Preston is very sensitive to dark and/or mildly scary rides. I had a few less-than-stellar-Mom moments, particularly in the Spiderman ride at Universal and the Haunted Mansion at Magic Kingdom. Whoops. Hopefully we did the Buzz Lightyear ride enough to make up for it. 

A few highlights:

Getting stuck on the Buzz Lightyear ride. TWICE. But still having full laser-shooting capability, so we got to spend about 5 extra minutes shooting lasers at various villains. And yes, we are wearing Dollar Store ponchos. 

Stepping into prison with the Evil Emperor Zurg. (Toy Story!)

Watching manatees with Oomp and Gigi at Epcot. 

Visiting Gaston's Tavern in the Magic Kingdom, but not eating there, because there are only 6 things on the menu, and they all suck. 

Standing outside our hotel...kind of shadowy, but that's actually the sea gulls from Finding Nemo perched on the top of the building. "Mine."

Finding Nemo playground at our resort. Clearly one of the awesomest playgrounds ever built.

Running through the fountains at the pool at our resort. Again, totally awesome. Preston probably would have been completely satisfied doing only this the whole time we were there. 

Some Winter Highlights

On one hand, winter was pretty brutal this year. On the other hand, it allowed us to fill the time with lots of great, and snowy, activities and memories. Here are a few:

4th cousins, once-removed; and also now bff's. Preston and Pearson get along quite wonderfully, and we spent a lot of time this winter with our newly found Eckrich family. Here, they were enjoying a snow-day off from school together, and this Mama got to stay home and supervise. It was a fun-filled, and thoroughly exhausting day. One kid is enough for me!

Thanks to the abundance of snow this year, and my handy snowplow man, we had quite the righteous sledding hill to enjoy for the whole season. 

A random snowy day. Preston was a great helper with shoveling this year though! Let the child labor commence!

Making homemade ice cream, with snow! Special thanks to his pre-k teachers for the recipe- it is awesome! 

1 can of sweetened condensed milk + 10 cups of fresh powdery snow= instant and delicious ice cream!

We even added toppings! Mmm mmm.

More skiing!! I think Preston ended up taking 3 or 4 lessons over the course of 2 months, and definitely impressed me with his perseverance. Skiing is HARD for a 4-year old! It takes a lot of coordination and strength, in muscles he probably never used before. I was amazed to see him keep going even though he was clearly struggling at times. Lessons were about 2 hours long, with a hot chocolate break in the middle. By the end, anytime he wasn't actively skiing down the hill, we would just fall over like a rag doll and wait for the instructor to come pick him up. He would take the tow-rope up the hill and get off at the top....and boom. Collapse. Rag doll. Instructor would eventually make it over and lift him back on his feet, and down the hill he'd go. Get to the bottom, and boom. Rag doll again. 

Real smiles!

Remember when....?

Preston is now in the habit of posing the question, "Remember when...?" to me on a regular basis. And he is recalling historical events with impressive accuracy. The first time he did this was about a month ago. He will pause, and squint one eye, and roll his eyes upward, as if he is really pulling from the depths of his brain. And then he will spit out some random memory, dating back as far as last summer. The first time he did it, I totally thought he was making something up, or recalling a dream or something, but he kept providing more and more detail until finally it clicked, and I was like, Oh yeah, I totally know what you are talking about! He starts with a vague description like, "Do you remember...that time at the cottage?" And then adds some more specifics like, "...And Oomp and Gigi were there?" And then, BAM! "And we were in the paddle boat and we picked up lily pads?" He has totally blown my mind with this.
But today was by far the most intriguing memory conversation to date.
I had taken down some of his baby pictures from my desk at work and put them in my bag to bring home. So on the drive home from school I passed him one of the pictures and asked him who it was. "It's me!!"
And then:
P: Mommy, do you remember that time when I was a baby and you gave me a mat?
Me: Ummm....sure, bud. (pause). What mat? (He cannot actually be recalling his play mat thingy, right?)
P: Uh, the mat. You know, the mat.
Me: (ok he's definitely pulling at straws here.) What color was the mat?
P: Green.
Me: (what the...? He can't possibly remember that mat. I will ask detailed questions to clarify that he is making this up.) Do you remember what kind of animal was on the mat? (He will never remember that.)
P: A frog.
Me: (WHAT THE #$%$#???)
P: And it had a pond on it.
Me: (looking at him in the rearview mirror like, are you totally messing with me right now?!?)

I do not, in fact, think he recalls this mat from infancy. That would be preposterous. However, I think it is incredibly impressive that he recalls it in such detail from only seeing it in his baby picture album. Which, he has looked at a handful of times in the past 6 months (but not for at least the past month). There are 3 pictures of him on the green mat, and none of them give a clear picture of the mat (and definitely not the frog OR the pond), and the mat is definitely not the focal point of any of the pictures. AND, in all the times we have looked at the album, he has never commented on those particular pictures, or on the mat. Actually, I don't think he usually even gets to that page, he usually just wants to look at and discuss the pictures from the day he was born. So, needless to say, I am slightly baffled, but at least there is a partially reasonable explanation, right??