We were both excited and starving by the time lunch rolled around. But, in a pretty good representation of what my week was like, we drove up to find the place closed for the season. I drove into a nearby spot and just rested my head on the steering wheel.

“Yook! They’re open!” Maddox said, pointing to a window replacement store next door (his l’s currently sound like y’s — yook, yock, yight).

“They don’t have hamburgers there, buddy.” I replied.

“Oh. That’s sad. Hamburgers are closed. That’s sad,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Wait! I know! Pizza is happy! Pizza makes you not sad! Get to it!” (“Get to it” is a random phrase Maddox has latched on to recently).

And thus, we drove around the corner to Flatbread Pizza in Amesbury, and lunch was saved.

We took an early morning but easy flight out of Manchester, New Hampshire. Maddox was great nearly the whole three hour flight – he seems to becoming a pro at the whole air traveler thing. We got in on Wednesday noon, stopped for pizza, and then checked into our hotel, the Hilton Beach Resort. We lucked out with an upgrade and had a corner room with a wrap-around balcony and great view of the ocean.

Maddox was a huge fan of the elevators. He got quite good and guessing which one was coming next.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

We spent that afternoon hanging out on the beach with a few sand toys. The weather the whole week 80 degrees and sunny, such a nice change from the mild but still chilly winter in New England.

We went to a delicious Cuban restaurant that night where Maddox (and I) both tried yuca root for the first time (tastes like potatoes!). The next morning we went to the amazing Flamingo Gardens, a non-profit wildlife preserve which is home to local injured animals.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Afterwards, we stopped for a picnic at one of the city parks. There was something pretty cool about having a picnic outdoors in late January.

We spent that afternoon at the beach again. This time mom and Nonny went swimming for awhile while dad built up sand walls which Maddox promptly destroyed with the help of Mingo, his new toy.

Friday morning we woke up and made a beeline directly for the beach. This time we ventured a bit further south to the town of Hollywood, which featured a 7 mile long beach. It was, quite simply, gorgeous. Even Dad went swimming for awhile!

That afternoon, we went shopping on Las Olas Boulevard and found a wedding dress for my sister Cassie.

Ok, not really. But there was some crazy fashion on that street. We went to dinner at a somewhat disappointing Mexican restaurant, but made up for it with some delicious gelato.

The next morning, we dropped Nonny off at the airport. Our flight was a couple hours later, so we went to the Anne Kolb Nature Center and took a nice trail through the mangrove swamps.

All in all, it was a wonderful vacation, and very, very hard to come back from!

I had measured expectations though. I mean, these kids are 2 1/2 years old. Can you even get them to stand in one place?

Turns out the answer is, kind of. But not Maddox. Much like I did at that age, he would much rather sit in his mom’s lap than partake in any school activities.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

But he sure is an enthusiastic clapper!

Mads has always been somewhat interested in the video games that we’ve played on the computer and iPad, but for some reason he’s completely gravitated towards this game called Kingdom Rush.

I can’t say why it appeals to him so much. It’s a game where you try to stop orcs and bats from attacking your castle by placing defenses along a road. But he loves it!

The two favorite things he likes doing are calling down meteors and placing reinforcements. For the first he’ll look at my quizzicly and ask, “Fire?” I tell him to go for it and he says “Okay!”, touches the iPad to drop the meteors, and yells “FIRE!”.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

He still has good manners though. When the orcs and knights fight on the road, he always says “That’s not nice.” He also refers to the game as “Time out” because of all the people hitting each other, and the fact that the only timeouts he has gotten in his life are from when he hits people.

Today though, we had a great time. It’s amazing to find such a vast amount of open space in the area.

Maddox loves trails, and always has — he is still endlessly entertained by the simple act of moving forward. A trail just seems to drive him on.

Plus, there were stairs on this trail. Can you imagine being of the age where stairs fill you with happiness and wonder?

I’m also still amazed at his energy. The trail wasn’t strenous at all, but he was halfway running the whole time. He did stop at one point, plop himself down, and request water and raisins.

He made it nearly two miles before he requested a piggyback!

me: Have you seen the headphones around?

Jon: I think I saw them hanging in the Christmas tree.

me: Oh, great, thanks – I can see them now.

If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Apple headphones look just like the our white Christmas light strings.

Possibly, he is just so used to everything in our house plugging in (and being compatible with Apple products), and he figured by attaching the headphones to the tree, it could listen to his iPad movies.

There have certainly been some changes in his life recently too. Most notably, Maddox is now in pre-school (or, more accurately, pre-pre-school) at the local Kindercare. And when I say local I mean literally 1.1 miles up the road.

It was very, very tough leaving the wonderful, loving person that Maddox had watching him since three months old. We were so lucky to have her be such an important part of Maddox’s development, but we knew eventually we would want to move him into a pre-school environment — the time just snuck up!

The first day went absolutely fine. In retrospect, that was because he had no idea we’d be leaving for the day, since on our previous two visits we just visited and then all left together. The next few drop-offs though he cried and wailed for his mom, so much so that Leanne ended up picking him up before his nap both times.

I took over drop-offs after, and it was just heart wrenching to drop him off while he was yelling for me saying “No preschool please” and “Please home!” and “Peanut butter!” (the latter being because he figured out if he said he wasn’t done eating, he’d never have to leave home!).

Today marked the first day without a single sad face or sound. In fact, he actually squirmed in my arms to be let down. Also for the past several days as soon as I walked in the room he would say “Had so much fun at preschool today!”

My parents were visiting, which meant we all wore multiple layers of clothing and, being without power, let Maddox dictate the activities for the day.

On Halloween itself, we had some friends over who had just moved to the area, also hoping that their kids would serve to inspire Maddox to get into the lion costume we had for him. He wouldn’t have any of that at first. Oddly enough though, he was very excited by the idea of painting his face!

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

He still wouldn’t get into his costume though. So we thought we’d head out with just the face paint. At that point, my smart wife asked Maddox if he wanted to put his “coat” on. Tada!

We then took Maddox around the neighborhood for about 45 minutes, and it was an absolute blast. There are some points when being a parent that are just the best feelings in the world, and walking around with him, gleefully holding his pumpkin up while he said trick-or-treat to every house and other person out there, was one of those moments.

So it is really any surprise that we’ve passed on those genes to Maddox?

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.