Our Staycation

So...on Monday we returned to Rochester for a few days at home. My biggest concern with being at home was that we'd spend the whole time chasing Jacob around the house. Not very fun or relaxing, for sure. I mean, sure, if we really tried we probably could have come up with things to do at home to keep him occupied, but Jacob really doesn't stick with anything for very long. So, I wanted to keep us occupied outside the house. I had a few activities in mind, and in the end we managed to fill up our 3-1/2 days pretty handily. I wish we would have had more time. We never did make it to the beach like I wanted to, for example.

When we got home Monday we basically unpacked and got ready for dinner. I believe that night was the first of our evening wagon rides with Jacob. After falling in love with the outdoors while we were at my parents' (between the swing, the slide and the wagon), Jacob just kept pointing to the doors wanting to go out. Our backyard is not yet conducive to much play for a one year old, unfortunately, but the wagon was sufficient to keep Jacob happy. In fact, he spent most of the week pointing at it every time we passed through the garage.

On Tuesday Jacob and I headed out to Corning to visit with my longtime friend Heather. It was a good halfway point for us and I've been wanting to go to the Corning Museum of Glass for a while. Ever since I first saw a Dale Chihuly exhibit in Buffalo when I was in college I've been interested in his stuff, and my trip to Pittsburgh in November 2007 (right before I found out I was pregnant) sealed the deal...I really like glass. So why not visit the Corning Museum of Glass that's right around the corner (so to speak)? I figured Jacob would like the colors and would probably spend half the day pointing at round objects and saying "ball".

He only slept for 40 minutes of the hour and 45 minute drive, but kept himself relatively calm for most of the trip. He did pretty well with lunch when we got there and was quite well-behaved for a good hour or so as we walked around the museum. And as suspected, he liked the round stuff! Here he is checking out a magnifying ball... Once it got past naptime, though, he got pretty difficult. When we got to a room with shag carpeting, I put him down to let him crawl and get a little activity out of his system. Of course, when I tried to pick him back up he freaked out. Ugh. He enjoyed pulling on the shag like it was grass! We tried to hit up one of the glassmaking shows but it was standing room only and Jacob was freaking out. However, as we stood at the top of the seating area behind loads of people, I took advantage of the darkened area to finally rock him to sleep...and believe me, it took a LOT of patience and rocking to get him to sleep. Once he was asleep we settled in to the seats to actually watch the show. He slept through that and stayed asleep when I put him back in his stroller, but inexplicably woke up right as we started moving again. Ugh. We went outside to enjoy the nice day and give Jacob a snack. I also let him play in the patch of grass next to the big outdoor patio...

In the last picture you can see how Jacob now likes to share the grass he's pulled out of the ground! As happy as he looks here, he melted down shortly thereafter when I tried to change his diaper. He stayed pretty cranky for the rest of the trip, which wasn't long, until I plopped him in the car and he slept for the entire trip home. If you want to see all that we saw, check out the pictures in my Facebook album.

Wednesday our big activity was going to Bills' training camp. We hit up the Pizza Hut buffet first, where Jacob ate most of a small piece of pizza (crust included!), some pasta, and some shredded cheese from the salad bar. I also gave him a couple small bites of the cherry dessert pizza. He did great, and I think that was the first time his entire meal consisted of restaurant food. He spent most of the rest of the meal trying to drink out of Craig's glass. Not sure if it was the red plastic, the cold water, or the squeeze of lemon that really piqued his interest. Bills camp was an interesting experience. The bus shuttle from a school parking lot to St. John Fisher was not fun, in either direction. Jacob didn't like it, for whatever reason, and add in the fact it was warm and crowded and it was just miserable. Camp itself was cool, though, mostly because it was pleasant weather. We just picked a shady spot and put down a blanket. Jacob played with a soft football I had during the Bills' Super Bowl years and tried pushing his own stroller.

It was a really beautiful day, and despite the hassles of the shuttle, it was still a good time.

Thursday morning we had some work done at the house so we were sort of stuck there. We had the concrete of our patio and front walkway pumped up. Way cheaper than replacing it. There are still cracks, of course, but at least now neither of them feels like a major safety hazard. That was becoming increasingly important as we get ever closer to Jacob running around. By the way, still not much progress in that department. As well as he can walk when he pushes something or we hold his hands, he almost refuses to stand up on his own. I've tricked him a couple times when he's been standing up and I hand him two things so he doesn't have a free hand to hold on, but it never lasts long. He just seems really uninterested in standing or walking. He sees kids do it all the time at daycare, so it's not like he doesn't know it's possible. So odd. I know I shouldn't be wishing for him to do it because he'll be a terror once he can get around even more, but he gets all over crawling right now anyway. I've been assured that walking is different, though.

Thursday afternoon we decided to go to the zoo. The nice thing about being zoo members is that we can go whenever we want, stay as long as we need to, and not worry about it being an expensive, wasted trip if Jacob melts down or falls asleep. We've visited the zoo three or four times this summer, plus we've used the membership to get into a couple other zoos, so it's been worth it. And every time we go, Jacob seems to get a little more aware of the animals. I didn't take any pictures this time, probably because we go there enough and I've already taken a couple rounds of them...and really, any moment that may have been pictureworthy was either too quick or too entertaining to remember the camera! We had fun watching the crazy baboons, and Jacob liked the penguins, too. The weather was perfect yet again, so it ended up just being a nice couple hours outside with some good scenery.

The day ended with lots of packing. We decided to head out to Buffalo once Jacob's bedtime hit, instead of waiting for the morning, because it's hard to do the last-minute packing and still get out the door early. We knew we had to be in Buffalo by late morning, so driving while Jacob was sleeping seemed like the best use of our time and easiest overall. Friday afternoon it was off to Pittsburgh!