Hell hath no fury like a 2 yr old in the big city...

Settling back into life after New York City... What a fantastically overwhelming city. Never enough time in the day to accomplish everything that you set out to tackle, and never enough soap to wash off the nastification that is NYC... Uncle Nick and Aunt "Anana" have settled into their lovely apartment on the west side just a few steps away from Central Park, what a wonderful location. We had lots of fun picnicing, visiting the Central Park Zoo and eating chcolate and ice cream for breakfast at Max Brenners...mmmmmmmmm. Isabelle spent every single night forcing Alana into sequester in their bedroom, she refused to allow Nick or myself into the room, immediately telling us to "LEABE" (all V's sound like B's)and to "Close da doow" (apparently suffering from the same inability to pronounce her "R's" just like Aunt Ashley back in the day...how adorable is that??) As it would happen the window to their bedroom is too small for an a/c unit, so its hotter than hell in there with the lights on and the door shut... so they spent forever in there filing their nails, lounging around and as Isabelle puts it, "hanging out."

Poor Uncle Nick... Isabelle is now in a stage where she refuses to potty train, and can hold her bladder for HOURS and then LET LOOSE all at once, there is no diaper in the world built to withstand this type of flooding...so by the last day of our visit Isabelle managed to pee on NICK & ALANA's BED, their BRAND SPANKING NEW (beautiful) microfiber sectional, a living room throw blanket (TWICE) and the sheets that we were sleeping on... I remember what it was like before kids and dogs, everything needed to be perfect, I practically lost my mind at a spec of dirt OR EVEN WORSE URINE!!! AAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhh!!!! I could tell that he really wanted to fall apart at the seams, but he managed to somehow totally keep his cool, not even grimmace in our presence a single time, and kept saying, "its NO BIG DEAL!" I felt so terrible for them, lovey, dovey, perky newly weds, putting together a home with new furniture and things just the way they want them, and then know-it-all sister-in-law comes for 4 days with a loud, leaky, needy two year old, leaving them with little to no privacy, peeing all over everything, toys and shoes all over the place and Barney's greatest hits playing 24 hours a day in the t.v.... I don't think they had a clue what they were in for, it won't surprise me one bit if they claim to be very very busy next summer when I attempt to make plans for another visit with TWO KIDS!!!! (just kidding, we will find a nice hotel) Did I mention that by day 3 their downstairs neighbor sent Nick a text message asking if they'd been "working, dancing or hammering something for the past few days???" "No" Nick responds, "Its my 2 yr old neice stomping (really she stomped all over the place the whole time - its like she forgot how to walk like a normal little girl while we were there) so I spent the next half of the trip asking her to tip toe like Baby-Bop the ballerina on Barney - no such luck.

All in all it was a great trip. We walked for miles and miles, Isabelle stayed up super duper late every night, she really enjoyed her quality time with her aunt and uncle and we made memories to last a lifetime and left a few stains in the process...