Thanksgiving Weekend

Our Thanksgiving did not start off so well...we left for New Jersey at 10:30 on Thursday morning and spent the next SIX HOURS (it should really only be about 3 1/2 to Teaneck) in the car. This would have just been minorly annoying but the fact that Eli screamed for probably close to 5 of the 6 hours made it much worse. Poor kid really hates being in the carseat if he's not sleeping and he doesn't sleep well in it at all. I spent the first hour in the front seat of the car hoping that he'd fall asleep and then I moved to the back and squished between the 2 carseats for the next 3 hours. We stopped at that point because I had to pee really badly and we figured we'd let Eli out of the carseat for a few minutes. When we got back in the car, Simon really wanted David to sit next to him in the back so David was squished there for the next 2 hours until we finally arrived. Simon, I should say, was SO well behaved considering the circumstances. We called Ducky about 100 times because he wanted to talk to her and we sang every song that we could think of including Willoby Wolloby which we sang using the names of everyone that we know. We were singing it about all the people who were going to be at Joshua's house for Thanksgiving and when we sang about Kenny, Simon got very serious and said "Kenny the shark will be there??" Kenny the shark is a tv show that Simon has seen probably only once.
When we finally arrived, just in time for Thanksgiving Dinner, Simon and Joshua were thrilled to see each other and they had so much fun together the whole weekend. It was great because they played so nicely that they could be totally unsupervised for much of the time and they entertained each other. There was a little bit of fighting and a lot of totally destroying Sarah's house, but they were so cute together. They told me that they are best friends and they gave each other lots of hugs. They even included Eli a little bit and played with him too. Here is video of Simon and Joshua playing the piano and singing the ABC's. Unfortunately I didn't catch it from the beginning and then my camera ran out of video, but you get the idea:

We tried to put Simon to bed before Joshua, thinking that it would be easier for both of them to go to sleep that way since they were sharing a room. Simon was of course wide awake still when Joshua went to bed but they did eventually go to sleep, so on Friday night they went to bed at the same time and we eavesdropped on their conversation before they went to sleep. I can't remember all of what they said, but one conversation went something like this:
It was quiet for a few minutes and then...
Simon: WAKE UP!
Joshua: No, why?
Simon: Because you are Superman so you have to be awake
Joshua: Thanks, Batman
Another time, they were playing with something and Simon got really frustrated and was crying. Joshua helped him and then said "see Simon, there is no reason to cry."
On Friday, we went out for lunch with Uncle Neal and Auntie Shanie and Chani and Chaim and his 2 kids, Azriel and Eitan who are very cute. It was fun to see them. Azriel (he's 3 I think) was wearing a baseball hat and construction goggles. He was sitting next to me and all of a sudden he asked me if I wanted to see what was in his pocket. I said sure and he pulled out a huge handful of those gooey spiders and worms that you can throw at the wall. Simon was too busy saying that he wanted to go back to Joshua's house to notice or else I'm sure he would have wanted to play with them.
Shabbos was very nice, although David and I were exhausted because Eli was up for a million hours in the middle of the night. I think it's time to start letting him cry it out because I know he is capable of sleeping at least 8 hours, but I thought the others in the house might object if I chose that night to start. We left around 6:30 and got caught in really bad traffic so it took an hour to get over the George Washington Bridge, but once we were over it only took 3 hours to get home, so we still made decent time. Eli slept the entire time luckily and Simon watched Thomas for the first hour and a half until we noticed that he was asleep and then he slept the whole way home too.
When we got home, they both woke up. Simon declared that he was hungry and needed to eat. He ate one bite of a cookie and then I think he went right to bed. David dealt with him while I dealt with Eli who ate and went back to sleep with little argument, but then he woke up at 2 and was up until 3:15. He thought it was time to play, so Savti (who had flown in that night because she and David went to the Bears-Patriots game today) obliged and played with him for a little bit.