We're up in Vermont, vising our great friends B, S and E, and with the big marathon tomorrow for Susan. A bit of a hectic day and, as usual, we got a late start. It did, however, leave me with one of my favorite mental pictures as a father to date. Earlier this morning, before leaving for Burlington, we went to get haircuts for Noah and I. In a nearby shopping plaza, there is both a "Snip-its" and a "Supercuts". The plan was for Susan to take Noah to Snip-its while I hit Supercuts. Snip-its is good for two things: the ability to keep a baby/toddler entertained just long enough for a 3-minute haircut; and a terrible 3-minute haircut. A few minutes after I arrived at Supercuts, after leaving Susan and Noah and Snip-its, the two of them walked into the Supercuts after being informed that the wait at Snip-its was nearly an hour. On a whim, we asked if Supercuts could take a child of his age....much to our surprise, they said "no problem". So, back to my favorite mental picture of all time, within 10 minutes, Noah and I were sitting in adjoining barber chairs, getting our hair-cuts together! It was pretty cool - though he didn't really enjoy the experience to the same degree that I did. Oh well, I'll always remember it. And, they did a great job of cutting his hair - by far the best haircut he's had...funny what taking more than 3 minutes can do! On the flip-side, I received one of the worst haircuts of my lifetime...as Susan said on the way out, "They did a nice job of accentuating your receding hair-line." Ouch!
The other part of our master plan to get to Vermont today was that we'd run errands in the morning and then time our drive (about 3 1/2 hours) with Noah's nap, and leave about noon. Well, the errand part worked well, but Noah decided that he was not going to nap - the entire drive! All-in-all, he wasn't a disaster in the car - he babbled happily for most of the drive, but he did whine a bit intermittently, and then really kicked it into high gear for the final 45 minutes or so. Susan was forced to climb into the back seat and try to entertain him around Montpelier. We were relieved to get to the Sheraton hotel in Burlington where the marathon race packets were available for pick-up by the runners. Once inside the conference center, Noah took off like a shot through the expo - refusing to hold my hand and weaving in and out of all of the other people at the expose like an Indy car driver. It was a bit surreal to have our toddler off and running through a crowd of people - he refused to hold my hand. It was only 3 weeks ago that he learned to pull himself up.
Finally, we got to B, S and E's around 5 pm and Noah was able to fully unleash his pent-up aggression. He had a wonderful time with E - about 6 months older than he is. They had had a brief romance back in October, were initially shy upon being reunited this afternoon/evening, but within an hour were back to their old ways - in love again!
Off to bed now, I'm sure we'll have plenty to report on Susan's run tomorrow - we're all very excited!
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