We went to the Lake over the weekend.  I didn’t really remember the lake from last year because I was only a year and a half old the last time we were there, so most of it was new to me.  I caught on pretty quickly, though.  We arrived late on Thursday night, and I was already asleep in the car.  Daddy carefully transported me to the crib in his (and Mommy’s) bedroom without waking me up.   The bed creaked every time I rolled over in my sleep, and I woke up once in the middle of the night.  The room was PITCH BLACK, and I didn’t know where I was.  I felt around a little bit… bars on ALL sides of me.  So I yelled out “I’m TRAPPED, I’m TRAPPED.”  Mommy quickly came to my rescue and turned a light on so that I wasn’t scared anymore.  Then she let me sleep in bed with her (which lasted for all of 5 seconds because she said I was too wiggly, and went to sleep in the loft).  So I snuggled with Daddy for the rest of the night.  
Mornings at the lake are always fun, because I get to help Grandpa make breakfast.  That first morning we had pancakes on the porch, and he made me THREE “P” shaped pancakes (P is MY letter).  Then I wanted ANOTHER P pancake, but he was all out of batter, so he gave me regular pancake.  It was the letter “O” so I was ok with that.  
It was the WORST WEATHER EVER.  It was pouring rain with whitecaps on the lake, and a fine mist of water being blown across the top by big winds.  The cold rain made the temperature drop into the 40’s, and we were cooped up in the cottage for THREE days.  On the second day we decided to get out of the house for a little bit and go see the State Museum of New York in Albany.  Mommy stayed home because her back hurt.  We saw a lot of animals, a subway car, a place to dig in some dirt, and stopped for pizza at one of Grandpa’s favorite parlors from his college days.  
At some point Grandpa brought the old Buddy L railroad inside to play with.  Combined with some of the Bill Ding blocks, I had a fun time coupling the trains, build a “tunnel” with a step stool, and making Bill Ding the engineer.   There are a lot of fun old toys at the lake, so we dug through the toy boxes to find things to pass the time.  
The rain finally stopped on Monday, the day we had to go home.  I took a canoe ride with Daddy and Grandpa around the lake, played with my dump truck, got soaking wet in the mud puddles…twice, rode on the hammock, helped Grandpa cut the grass with my scissors, and wore pajamas home because I was out of dry clothes.

Preston-ism’s from the weekend:

Preston: My eye hurts
Mommy:  Oh yeah, what’s wrong is there something in it?
Preston: Yeah, there’s a ladybug in my eye

Preston:  I’m sticky!
Mommy: Do you need me to wash your hands?
Preston: Nooooooo…. Not Mommy!
Mommy: Oh really?  Let’s go wash your hands…
Preston:  Grandpa washes my hands!

Preston:  Grandpa!  You’re cutting the grass?
Grandpa:   Yeah, I’m mowing the grass.
Preston:  Ok, I help you!  I get my scissors!!

Debbie:  Preston, do you want to go say hi to Black Jack (the dog)
Preston:  Yeah, I show Black Jack my dump truck!
Debbie:  Oh really?  You think Black Jack wants to see you dump truck?
Preston: Yeah, Black Jack wants to see my dump truck.  I’ll show it to him.

Preston: (In the crib) “I’m TRAPPED”

Preston:  Tillie! (the cat)  Come down here and get your special treats!


From Mommy:
Preston also learned how to put his pants on all by himself, and he learned how to open a straw and put it in his juicy box all by himself.  He is getting to be VERY independent, and has started giving directions like “I’ll get my OWN milk… You stay here.”  You can imagine how well that goes, and he usual come back to ask for help. 
He picks the celery out of whatever we are eating (soup, salad, tunafish).  And he won’t eat it.  Like father, like son.

I haven’t blogged in a long time, and it is totally Mommy’s fault.  It’s not that I’m not cute or that I haven’t done awesome things, she just hasn’t been writing about them!  For example, I wore Mom’s pink sunglasses today, because the sun is too bright, and I need to wear glasses like Mom.  The glasses are too big, though, and they fall down a lot.  I also like to pick out my own clothes now, and ask for my “My OWN ice cream cone” and “my OWN water bottle” and “my OWN tools.”  You get the idea, right?  Besides needing to have things all to myself, I also like to do things all by myself like watering Mommy’s plants in the garden (and my pants, shoes, shirt, hair, etc).  I went through half of Mommy’s new rain barrel today, and only ONE full watering can of water made it to a green growing thing.  Did you know that toddler’s love to play in water? We do.

 I’ve been hanging out with Grandpa a lot.  We have done some train adventure almost every weekend, including a trip this past weekend to the Reading Live Steamers.  Grandpa got some pictures of me in the cattle car.  I was such a BIG boy to sit in the car all by myself, and Grandpa was VERY trusting of me.  I know how to stay safe. 

 Last night Grandpa came over at dinner time, because Mom and Dad had a Bach Choir celebration to attend.  Grandpa and I had some dinner before we headed out on a big bike ride adventure that took us through the woods, over a bridge, past a community garden, and all the way up to the HUGE playground that is little ways away from our house.  We played on the playground for a while (Grandpa did the yellow slide while I did the blue slide, because the yellow slide is too scary for me and I might fall off – in my own words).  And then we came home in time for a bath and bedtime.  Grandpa sings the best bedtime songs, and tonight I even asked Mommy if we could call him to sing the songs to me, because she just doesn’t do it right. 

Tonight, after dinner, Mommy, Daddy, and I piled in the car to go get CRAZY CONES ice cream.  Of course I wanted my OWN ice cream, as mentioned above, so I got one, and Daddy helped me finish it.  I asked for another “pine cone of ice cream,” but Mommy said that one was enough.  Then we went to Best Buy where I got to run between the giant yellow dot and the giant blue dot that were on the floor.  I did this once before when I was much younger, but it was way more fun now, because I could run faster than before.

 Then when we got back in the car Mommy climbed in the back seat to help buckle me in.  I asked her to stay in the back seat with me so that I could keep her safe (“You sit here, Mommy, I keep you safe”).  She couldn’t say no to that! 

 In other news, I love to play with my new friends and neighbors, Patrick and Quentin!  The weather has been beautiful, so I get to see them for at least a few minutes each night.  I’ll have pictures and stories to share of them soon!

Two weekends ago we celebrated Grandpa's 60th birthday with a big family party!  ALL of my Aunt's and Uncle Ted were there along with Liora!  It was the first time in about a year that Mommy had all of her siblings in one place, so we hung out with them as much as we could.  Aunt Emily came over one night to bake cupcakes with Mom and me, and then on Monday I stayed home from daycare to have a special day with my aunties and Grandma.  The Aunts were awesome at playing, and then Grandma took over for diaper changes and naps.  Mom and I are going to put together a special blog recap of that day with a few pictures, too.  

Then on Mother's Day we visited with Gigi, Grandpa, and Uncle Joe at Uncle Joe's new apartment near the beach!  We had a delicious lunch and then took a walk on the newly constructed boardwalk.  It got washed away during the hurricane last fall, but is scheduled to be complete in time for the busy beach season coming up.

From Mommy:

John and I both notice a big difference in Preston's language every few weeks, and we usually notice it on the same day, too!  All of a sudden he’ll be using a ton of new words or speaking in bigger sentence structures – stringing more sentences together.  I LOVE being able to communicate with him and hold full conversations.  I can now ask him what he wants to order off of a kids menu and get a straight answer, I can ask him to do chores and tasks for me and he knows exactly what to do.

 Preston LOVES to sing.  He is either chattering or singing almost constantly, at least when he is around us.  I think I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s worth mentioning again, because it’s a special little thing about him, and I hope that he keeps it up for a LONG time to come.  I guess John and I assumed our children would be at least a little bit musical, but he’s REALLY into music.  Is it too early to start him on the paino!?  Just kidding!  We’ll wait until he can actually read a little bit. 

The other thing that is starting to develop with him is a sense of fear or of things being “scary.”  It’s totally normal toddler stuff, but it seems to get more intense each week.  Tonight he didn’t want me to turn his little light off in his room at bedtime – he wanted the light AND the moon from his turtle projector on in his bedroom. He also gets scared of things in books, and the dark or loud parts of movies.
He’s also scared of the blue crazy bird puppet at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and of the doggies at Patrick and Quentin’s house.  I think he gets it from me.  

Mother's Day at the Beach:

This week is the Bethlehem Bach choir 2013 festival, and Mommy and Daddy have been pretty busy with extra rehearsals and performances.  So on Friday night I went over to Grandma & Grandpa Krug’s house and slept over there.  

When we woke up on Saturday we had blueberry pancakes for breakfast (I helped by throwing in the blueberries), and then all three of us drove in Grandma’s car to what surely must be Choo-Choo Heaven; The Strasburg Railroad in Lancaster County.  I got to ride on THREE different-sized choo-choos!

The smallest choo-choo was called the Cranky Car, and it’s just like Grandpa’s Yardbird choo-choo in their back yard, but this one had much more track, and I was the Engineer!  Yep; I made the Cranky Choo-Choo go all around the big circuit (sometimes with a little help from Grandpa or Grandma.)

The middle-sized Choo-Choo was called the Cagney train, and it had a real steam locomotive that used to run at Coney Island Amusement park.  Grandpa rode along with me on the Cagney train.  It went through a “tunnel” which was my favorite part of the trip.

And the biggest Choo-Choo was the Strasburg Railroad’s regular passenger train that’s pulled by a big black steam engine.  We watched the big steam engine couple onto our train, then I rode it out and back with Grandma and Grandpa. We saw lots of Horseys pulling buggies along the way.  And there were also lots of Moo Cows out munching on the sweet green grass that grows next to the tracks. 

 Grandpa and I really got a kick out of seeing that big black steam engine couple onto the train at the station, so we made it a point to intently watch this operation several more times as the day progressed, (which poor Grandma frankly couldn’t understand – what was the attraction after you’ve seen it done once?)   Later in the day we chased the big choo-choo in Grandma’s car, (which Grandma also wasn’t too keen on, but Grandpa and I enjoyed watching the big black steam engine chug past at a grade crossing, then we hopped back into the car and zoomed ahead to the next grade crossing!