Blessington, County Wicklow, Ireland

We're back from Ireland, and suffering from terrible jetlag.  George is waking up at 3 am (up to 3:45 this morning) for the day, and trying to go to bed for the night at 2 pm...  Hopefully this will pass in a few days.  If he can add another 45 minutes per night, we'll be back to a reasonable schedule by Sunday...

This post will mainly be photos from our trip.  We have over a thousand, though many are near duplicates as Chris likes to shoot multi-shots.

When we first arrived in Dublin, we picked up Chris's sister-in-laws car

at the airport and drove to the house in Blessington we were sharing with Chris's family.  Upon arrival, Uncle Johnny Rockstar gave George two little lacrosse sticks.  George was thrilled.  He took off his pants and headed outside with Grandpa Ray to play.

All the Harry's brought George birthday presents and he had a lot of fun opening them.  Aunt Katy is on the left standing, Grandma Karen seated in front of her, then Steph (Johnny's girlfriend), Grandpa Ray, me and George, Great Grandma Joyce (George calls her Gigi), and Uncle Dan (Katy's partner).

The house was situated on a lovely lake (actually a reservoir, so sadly, no swimming).  But we still enjoyed walking down there and exploring a bit.  George especially had fun walking down with his Grandpa.

And getting shoulder rides from Daddy is always fun!  George says, "I wanna ride on Daddy's head."

We spent a lot of time throwing balls for Katy and Dan's dog, Jess.  But often Jess would not bring it back.  Here is Steph wading out to get the ball.

Matching bellies!

3 generations of Harrys!

I love how they all stand the same way.

We cooked and ate dinner together most nights, and went for a pub lunch a few afternoons.  There were 10 of us staying in the house most of the week and up to 14 one night.

Pie Eating Contest!

Last week I made a fresh blackberry pie.  You see, we've let our garden go a bit this year.  I can officially and honestly say that the weeds are winning.  Perhaps they have won, though I intend to fight back, and hard, this fall.  But we have several places in our yard where the blackberries really took off, as Pacific Northwest blackberries tend to do.  But we let them get far enough along that it really didn't make sense to get rid of them until after we benefit from the harvest.  So, now we have blackberries oozing out our ears.  And since it's fruit fly season, and we've never been known to have an empty refrigerator, we have to use them, quickly.  So, our first harvest became fresh blackberry pie.

George had had a late afternoon snack at school less than an hour before bedtime, and I didn't expect him to be very hungry for dinner.  But I did want to share my fresh, pesticide free, made with organic flour, sugar, lemon, butter pie with my son.  So, I served George fresh blackberry pie with whipped cream for dinner.  George was a very happy boy.  He started off with a big grin, happily using his fork to eat his yummy treat.  But things deteriorated rapidly, and George appeared to enter his very first, and uncontested, pie eating contest.

Swimming and a Lobster Outfit

George and I went swimming last Tuesday.  After swimming, I put George in one of his new John Johns-red with lobsters.  I do think he is the cutest child on the planet (I am his mother, after all).  But I'll bet my readers  think he is pretty cute too (though strangers do tend to call him a "she" when he wears these old fashioned outfits).

You may have noticed that he is carrying my car keys.  And in the second photo, the very cheeky, "I can do it!" expression that is so common these days.  Also notice the strut.  This is my George, on his way to the car, to open it (and drive it) all by himself.  It's no wonder he gets so frustrated with me every day when I tell him, again, that he cannot drive until he is 15!

Big Boy Bed

George turns 2 tomorrow.  And in preparation for our trip to Ireland, we put him in a big boy bed tonight.  In his room we put a twin sized bed in the corner, so two sides are against the wall.  Then his crib is still there, pressed against another side.  The rest of that side has an old mesh bedrail (for now) handed down from my sister.  Only the bottom of the bed is "open."  I folded a big quilt at the bottom on top of my nursing pillow, to make a bit of a wedge there to deter falling.  And I put pillows on the floor, just in case.

So far, so good.  We got him ready for bed tonight, telling him he'd sleep in the big boy bed.  When he seemed unsure, we asked him which bed he wanted to sleep in.  He said, "Big boy."  After our normal bedtime routine, I went to put him in the twin bed.  He started fussing, a panicked look in his eyes, "udder bed Mommy, udder bed."  So I lay down with him for a bit.  Eventually, he seemed nearly ready.  So I said goodnight and headed out.  Of course, I watched the video monitor non-stop for the next 20 minutes until he quit rubbing and stroking the sheet and fell asleep.

Now I just have to hope I sleep tonight, and don't spend every moment watching the video monitor to be sure he's safe...

Big step tonight, for Mommy and for George.

Doggie playtime!

George loves our dog Jazzie, and sometimes he wants to be just like her!

Such fun times for a boy and his dog.

Splashing and Bubbles on Mommy!

After playing in the dirt in the garden, George's fingernails were filthy.  I thought a good way to clean them up with out a bath was a big sink full of soapy water.  George thought this was the most fun, especially when he "got" Mommy.  And it was nothing a couple towels couldn't clean up after.

He started out wearing his big boy underwear, but he thought he wee'd in his pants when the water started spilling down his front.  So off they went.

Oh, he thought that was the most fun!

Water play is a pretty regular activity in our house.  These next photos were taken several weeks ago, George's first day wearing big boy underwear.  He wore them for 5 hours with no accidents and several trips to the potty.  Good boy!

Playing in the Fountain

We went to the Arts and Crafts Fair and it was a nice, hot day.  George had a wonderful time playing in the city fountain.

As you can see, he found it quite thrilling to put his entire head under the water!  He was certainly the wettest child there.  My water boy, George.