Daily Life

How far we’ve come

November 16, 2013 by Jess Leave a Comment

4 years ago today Steve and I went on our very first official date – to Disneyland 🙂 We were in our first year in the Exotic Animal and Training Management program and at that point the only animals we had been allowed to touch or even talk to were the opossum, rabbit, chinchilla, emu and miniature horse. Oh and we did get to man a couple of the owls as well. Getting to work with the other (many of them larger, more exotic and some more dangerous) animals was still several months in the future and something we longed for. Getting to one day work at a facility with animals was something we thought constantly about, and one day having our very own facility – was a dream that seemed so far off in the distance.

3 years ago today Steve asked me to marry him. We spent the following day back at Disneyland when we got to eat at the exclusive Club 33. It was amazing.

2 years ago we found out I was pregnant with Ava, and we had just started our very own Animal Outreach Company.

and 1 year ago, we have our own little family and our own little zoo.

Today, only 4 years later, I realized how far we have come. Yes we’ve had ups and downs and things have been rough along the way, but I wouldn’t change anything.

Steve and I have a beautiful, amazing and hilarious toddler who brightens our world every single day. We have 75 animals that we adore and a career that we love even though it is a ton of work. And as we were all in the backyard this afternoon enjoying the perfect Fall day, I realized this is what I have been waiting my whole life for. This, right now. I watched Steve across the yard pulling Ava in the wagon, with Angus and Zoey sitting in there with her. Moose was joyfully running beside the wagon yet he didn’t want to get in, and Norman was off in the distance munching on grass while the chickens wandered around him. And even though I was doing the lovely task of picking up pig poop from the grass, it still was, the perfect moment. I am so very thankful for what we have, and I’m proud of us too. 4 years ago we never would have thought we would be as fortunate to be where we are today. We are blessed.

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Welcome November

November 3, 2013 by Jess Leave a Comment

All day today I kept writing “October” on everything by mistake, cause really – how can it possibly be NOVEMBER already? Feels like I blinked and it went from August to November.

But November is indeed here and that means it is less than 2 months until Christmas! Yikes. I might as well just throw all my fabulous ideas for Christmas crafts and projects right out the window. How will I possibly have time to get everything done in time? I must try though, I have been feeling the “craft” bug again so I need to give in. I did have a lot of fun with my recent Halloween crafty things, even though that wreath took WAY longer than I intended. (I was able to catch up on episodes of Switched at Birth though as that was one of the only shows I could find to watch on my laptop. Don’t laugh. Ok fine, laugh).

I’m hoping November will be a better month for us health wise. We have all been sick since the end of September. We just can’t kick this thing. Last night Ava woke up around 11 and the only way we could console her was bringing her to lie in our bed with us. She promptly fell asleep in my arms and I left her there for about 45 minutes telling Steve “I just want to make sure she is really asleep before we take her back to her crib. Less chance of her waking up”). In truth though, I just loved snuggling with her! 🙂

Something that is keeping me busy but I’m having a ton of fun with: my new Snapshot 30 class! Today’s post is here and I just have to say that there are some really talented people in the class. You can look at some of the photos that people are posting on Instagram by searching for #snapshot30. Every time I check into Instagram there are new photos posted by the class participants! So much fun! If you want to sign up you still can, and the class is free too – woo!

Oh I did want to share this quick recipe that I made tonight for dinner – it turned out really good – we ate every last morsel.

cheesy

4 medium gold potatoes

4 cloves garlic (or more if you love garlic like I do!)

1 – 2 slices of cheese (I used cheddar with a bit of asiago/parmesan blend)

1 cup fresh spinach leaves

spices

1. peel and cut potatoes into cubes, place in saucepan of boiling water and boil until soft

2. Peel and slice garlic into thin slices

3. Saute garlic in a bit of olive oil in frying pan (I love using our cast iron pan for this)

4. Once potatoes have cooked, mix them into the garlic in the frying pan and stir fry. Add cheese (break into small pieces) and continue stirring. Add any spices that you wish.

5. Chop spinach leaves and mix those into the frying pan. Continue to stir everything together until cheese has melted and spinach has started to wilt.

Next time I am going to add broccoli and chicken to this mixture. But with what I had on hand tonight this was it, and it was really really good!

One last thing: here is a pic of my little monkey. We let her have a small piece of homemade chocolate cake (it was one of our friends birthdays and he sent home some cake with Steve today after they finished work). It was really yummy! As you can see, Ava quite enjoyed it.

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I still can’t get over how fast she is growing, and the amount of new things she is learning each day. Today she was saying all kinds of things: puppy, kitty, bear, baby… and at one point she picked up a toy cell phone that she has, she put it to her ear and it totally sounded like she said “Hi Daddy” into the phone. I almost fell over.

She is so much fun and so sweet but then there is the lovely other side to toddler-hood. Like tantrums, at the worst times. Such as later this afternoon when I took her to JC Penney to quickly run in to get something. She did not want to be in the stroller so she hollered until I took her out. She did not want me to carry her so she hollered until I put her down. Bingo. That’s exactly what she wanted, and maybe I should not have been giving in, but when you’re in the middle of a department store, the last thing you want to have with you is a screaming toddler. Am I right? So I let her walk/run all around as I chased behind her with the stroller. I almost lost her in the winter coat section as she’s so short, I couldn’t see her amongst all the racks of coats. I had a brief wave of panic and then she appeared with a huge smile on her face, and as I stooped down to pick her up, she dodged me and ran away laughing. *sigh*

Time to leave. Once I caught up to her and grabbed her, she did the classic toddler “noodling” to make it very hard for me to get a hold of her. I then carried her to the checkout and at this point she was fine. Once we were in line however, she turned into a different child. There were about 6 people in front of me, and a few behind me, and it was this moment that my dear sweet toddler started screaming and screaming….and screaming. Nothing I could do was making it any better. I tried everything I had. Snack? nope. Toy? nope. ok, iphone? nope. What?? No iphone?? I picked her up, still screaming. I put her down, still screaming. By now everyone is looking at me probably thinking I am as horrible a mother as I felt at that moment. Then finally, the little boy standing behind us with his mother came to our rescue. He was holding a stuffed Snoopy dog and he held it up and waved it around in front of Ava (who I was holding again, and she was looking over my shoulder at this little boy). She stopped crying and said “puppy!” and for the next few minutes until we got up to the register, this wonderful little boy continued to entertain Ava with Snoopy. Funny enough, this is not the first time this has happened. A similar situation occurred in Target a couple months ago and another little boy came to our rescue and managed to get Ava to stop crying in the line up. Amazing. So to all you nice kids out there who help a frazzled mother get her crying toddler under control in a line up – thank you. It is very much appreciated. 🙂

Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2013 by Jess Leave a Comment

Nope, we did not go trick or treating tonight. First of all we do not let Ava eat candy, and Steve doesn’t like candy, so I would end up eating all of it. Which I don’t need. Plus (and this was a major determining factor) it was pouring with rain. So we decided to order a pizza and have that instead, and now Steve wants to continue the tradition each year with the Halloween Pizza. Hmm.

We don’t get any trick or treaters at our house either. Long driveway, houses too far apart. Honestly I don’t blame them one bit. This was exactly the kind of house I avoided when I was a kid. My friends and I would look at the long driveway and then back at each other saying “Skip it! Keep going!” as we’d run to the next house (with a short driveway) clutching our pillow cases full of loot. Ah, those were the days.

We did visit the pumpkin patch finally – yesterday. We have been meaning to go for weeks but something has always come up – all 3 of us have been sick most of October so that had a lot to do with it. Or we were working, or the weather was awful. There was always something. So we get there the day before Halloween – and we had the entire place to ourselves. We walked around and visited the animals, browsed through the gift store – finding some unique things that we just had to have, and they even took us on our own private hay ride. Fun times. We chose a few pumpkins and got some hot chocolate (for us) and a pumpkin muffin (for Ava) to go, then we had to rush home as we were both working last night.

Now ask me this: did we carve those pumpkins? Heck no. They are “decorating” the entrance way outside our front door. Where they will probably remain for a couple weeks I imagine. We both got home too late last night to carve them and we were out most of the day today too. Oh well.

Ava did get to dress up in her costume though – she went as her most favorite thing right now – a puppy! I signed her up for the Halloween party at Gymboree today and she had a lot of fun – she just loves going there.

I just realized that I forgot to program the DVR to record It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown that was on earlier – for Ava. Boo. Ok fine, it was for me. It’s just one of those traditions, and even the fact that the cartoon is really not that good at all, I still watch it whenever it is on. And I think this is the first year that I did not purchase any Halloween candy at all! Even when we don’t get trick or treaters at our house, I always buy some anyway – just in case. (but really it’s just cause I want to eat the candy). No trick or treating, no pumpkin carving, no Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, and no candy…… sure sounds like we had a lame Halloween doesn’t it? 😉

A little zombie like

October 29, 2013 by Jess Leave a Comment

That’s how I was feeling tonight.

Yesterday morning I was up super early (after getting barely 4 hours of sleep) as Ava and I were going to Indianapolis to visit my sister and my nieces for the night. I rushed around loading the car with our stuff, and then I spent close to an hour tearing apart the entire house looking for Ava’s lovie blanket. Frustrated I finally gave up, got Ava up and we left, later than I intended too. Steve later found the little blanket on a table in the backyard. New house rule: that blanket and her trusty wubbanub pacifiers do not leave her crib. Ever. This is the 2nd time we have lost that blanket in the past week and the first time I had to search her entire room at 3am while she was screaming in her crib for it. Now I just have to remember to tell our babysitters about this.

Anyway, it took us just over 4 hours and we did stop briefly a couple times along the way. We arrived and had a nice lunch with my sister, then we left to pick up my nieces from school. They were SO happy to see Ava and I think she also really enjoyed spending time with them. She got so much love and attention from them, it made me so happy. I always wanted cousins and was so sad that we didn’t have any, so I’m thrilled that my little girl has 2 amazing cousins! I really hope they grow up to be great friends.

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Everyone was having a great time but then bedtime rolled around and I had one extremely tired toddler who hadn’t napped all day. She was exhausted but she did not want to sleep in her pack n play. This kid is a GREAT sleeper – when at home in her own crib. Away from home, not so good. She screamed and screamed when I put her in the pack n play, so I ended up having to lie on the bed with her for half an hour until she fell asleep. I think I might have fallen asleep for a brief moment too as I was also exhausted. Then I carefully moved her into the playpen and breathed a sign of relief when she remained asleep.

She actually stayed asleep for a few hours while my sister and I stayed up late talking downstairs. When we realized it was midnight already, we went upstairs and I tiptoed into my dark room (the playpen was beside the bed), using the light on my phone so I could see my way to the bed. I heard something so I flashed the light over to the playpen and there was Ava standing up looking at me. Darn. She let out a huge wail followed by sobs. I brought her to bed with me, hoping I could get her to fall asleep again. Not a chance. For the next 3 hours, I tried and tried to get her to lay down and go back to sleep. She tossed and turned, sat up, threw her teddy bear around, and then grabbed her stuffed dog “Violet” a leapfrog talking/musical toy. After listening to Violet sing Wheels on the Bus, multiple lullabies and say “let’s play a game!!” over and over, I had had enough. Into her playpen she went and she sure hollered at me. I lay there and pretended to be asleep as I knew she was standing there looking at me from inside the playpen. The screaming stopped and then something amazing happened: she lay down and went to sleep. And so did I – for about 4 hours – then Ava was standing up screaming at me again.

This is really the first time she has kept me up most of the night. We are blessed to have a wonderful sleeper. So all you fellow parents of infants and toddlers who are up during the night with your little ones, go ahead and throw your virtual tomatoes at me. I know I am being whiney. But that explains the story of why I was feeling zombie like tonight. After 2 nights of very little sleep, it took it’s toll.

We did have a great day today though – my sister took me and Ava to the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis – wow is that ever a spectacular place! They had a brand new exhibit for infants to 5 years called Playscape and it was awesome! Ava had a blast! But we had to head back to Chicago soon after we picked my nieces up from school. They got to play with Ava briefly at home before we had to leave. I wish we lived closer so we could visit more 🙁

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The drive home was uneventful and thankfully we did not run into any traffic, even on our way through the city. I was starting to fade quickly though after a couple hours but thanks to my trusty GPS, it took me to the nearest Starbucks drive thru – in Hobart IN (and funny enough, we just did an Animal Show here 2 nights ago! Not at Starbucks of course but at a local Fall Festival). The Starbucks little parking lot was quite full so I drove next door and parked so I could climb in the backseat to feed Ava. And there we sat having our dinner of yogurt and a mini pumpkin loaf – in the parking lot of The Tilted Kilt Pub. Mother of the year right here folks.

We are now home safe and sound, Ava is happily sleeping in her own crib with her wubbanub and she has been reunited with her lovie blanket. Steve just got home from work so we have an episode of Revenge waiting on the DVR for us. Let’s see if I will be able to make it through even 10 minutes though.

Good night!

There’s a pig in my closet

October 23, 2013 by Jess Leave a Comment

…and a cavy in my kitchen and a spider in my purse. Yep all those things in one day, once again – it’s never a dull moment around here.

Norman the pig loves to rummage around in our room, and my purse if he can find it. He knows there is usually some sort of snack in my purse for Ava so I have to keep remembering to leave it somewhere up high when I get home. But he has a fascination with our room. Perhaps he remembers when he was *much* smaller and we let him sleep on our bed at times. Ha!! Not anymore. He would take up most of the bed all by himself. If Norman is wandering around and I suddenly can’t find him, I always check our room first, and he’s usually in there – sometimes just standing around. He’s quite the funny little swine. The other night though I was looking for him and I called for him and Steve hollered from the bedroom “He’s in here – in the closet!”. Funny, Zoey loves to be in our closet too, so much that we moved her bed in there and that’s where she sleeps every night. Oh what would we do without these silly animals of ours?

The cavy in the kitchen: We have a Patagonian Cavy (also called a Patagonian Mara), the 4th largest rodent in the world. “Waldo” is quite the skittish little creature. I say “little” but he’s actually taller than all our dogs. We have been working with him quite a bit though and we managed to get a harness on him (that was quite the ordeal) and then we were able to get a leash on him and take him for daily walks around the backyard. Still very skittish, very. He would not let us pet him or touch him at all without having a huge conniption. There was no treat we could give him for positive reinforcement either, as he won’t take any food from our hands. So we figured that his positive reinforcement was coming out for a walk. He loves to go into the backyard and now comes right up to the door of his enclosure when he sees us, like he is begging to go for a walk. Still though he would not let us touch him. So a couple days ago while I was walking him, I remembered I had some water boiling on the stove. The dogs were running around and playing near us but they surprisingly didn’t bother Waldo at all. I took a chance and walked him to the back door of the house. He was not too willing to go but he did then he wouldn’t go inside the house. So I took a bigger chance and leaned down and picked him up. (if you ever see one of these animals up close – they have crazy long sharp claws and long spindly legs – we’ve gotten quite scratched up before when trying to pick this guy up). Amazingly, he didn’t try to fight me at all and relaxed in my arms for the 20 seconds while I carried him up the stairs and into the kitchen. I put him down and tied his leash to one of the cupboard handles, then gave him some spinach but he wouldn’t touch it. I talked to him as I made dinner, did the dishes and cleaned up, periodically going over to him and petting him on the back, then behind the ears. He didn’t seem to mind at all. Wow! Then Ava woke up from her nap so she joined me in the kitchen and immediately got excited when she saw him – exclaiming “Puppy!”

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She rushed to him and he just sat there, so I showed her how to pet him gently and she copied me. Waldo stayed put. Amazing. He ended up hanging out with us for 2 hours. When Steve got home from work, he was shocked when he walked in and saw Ava sitting on the floor next to Waldo patting him. Oh and I also clipped all his nails for the first time ever while he just sat there. It was easier than clipping the dogs nails! Breakthrough with this guy! Hopefully we can start taking him to shows soon.

Spider in my purse. Ugh. This happened while I was driving home. All of a sudden there was this spider (about 1.5 inches in diameter, maybe a bit bigger) on the windshield right in front of my face. “please be on the outside of the car, please be on the outside” I was thinking. But nope, it was on the inside. Of course it was. I grabbed a CD and tried to get it to climb on there and my plan was to flick it out the window. But it jumped on the CD and bolted across it towards my hand so I threw the CD! This spider was Super fast and icky looking too! Then I see it run across the passenger seat and into my purse!!!!! AAAUGGGGG!!!! I am starting to freak out at this point so I actually pulled into a parking lot so I could stop the car. I see the spider run out of my purse and across the seat towards the passenger door, then it disappeared. I looked but I couldn’t find it again. Then I realized how I had been freaking out over this little spider and how I regularly hold a TARANTULA and I felt really really silly. However a few minutes later when I went into the grocery store, I totally just took my wallet out of my purse, checked it all over to make sure the spider wasn’t on it, and left my purse in the car. You know, just in case…..

In other news, my new class Snapshot 30 is about to start so I’m busy getting that ready. I’m also working on several Halloween crafts with tutorials that will be up in the next few days. I seriously need more hours in the day. Basically the only time I get to work on projects is in the evening after Ava goes to bed. I manage to pack a lot into the hours of 7pm – midnight though. If you’ve emailed me and I haven’t responded I apologize! Sometimes emails get lost in my inbox as I generally only respond in the evening, so feel free to email me again and bug me 🙂

I have realized that during the day when I am home with Ava that I really don’t want to miss anything. I don’t want to be one of those people who is glued to their computer screen all day. She is only this young once and the times I am with her is so valuable. I miss her SO much when I am away doing animal shows. So I made the decision that when she is awake and I am home with her, that I am 100% dedicated to her. When she naps I use that time to work on our business: paperwork, phone calls, bookings, etc. Also I need to get laundry done, dishes, cleaning, etc. It’s non stop!

I need to sign off now to work on a couple more projects with the little time I have left before I start to fall asleep. Here are a couple of pictures I took of Ava this week in our backyard. I love this kid so incredibly much!

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How to Travel Alone with a Toddler Without Losing Your Mind

October 16, 2013 by Jess 1 Comment

Well I did it again. Traveling solo with my baby for the third trip. She has now been on 13 airplanes already. 13!

The first time was when she was 4 months old. I wrote an article here on that with lots of tips on traveling with an infant around that age, and also how to do it alone and internationally as well.

The second trip was when she was 11 months old, once again I wrote an article on that time too – with completely different tips as in a matter of 7 months, things were so different. That article can be found here.

Now this time, Ava is 14 months old. Once again, COMPLETELY different from just a few months ago. Wow. So of course I wrote another article with tips for this age which can be found here.

For anyone interested, here is a little recap of our trip. We started our day at 5am (well Steve and I did anyway). I let Ava sleep until the last possible second so once we had everything loaded into the car, I went in and woke her up. I quickly got her dressed and we gave her some milk, then we rushed out to the car. Our flight didn’t actually leave until 9:47am but Steve had a feeling we would get stuck in traffic with all the road work they are doing near us. He was right. The normal one hour drive to the airport took us almost 2 hours. We got there at 8am. The amount of stuff I had was crazy and I packed light too. Yes I really did! The only shoes I brought were the ones I was wearing. I don’t think I’ve ever only brought one pair of shoes anywhere before. I had planned ahead though and purposely left a pair of running shoes at my parents the last time we were there. Anyway, I had my big suitcase, the stroller, Ava’s carseat in it’s box (this was a new one that I got with the intention of leaving at my parents so we can use it on our future visits), my backpack, my big purse, and the Ergo carrier which I had Ava in and she was strapped to my front. A lot of stuff. We said goodbye to Steve and headed in to check in. Of course there was an issue with my ticket. The agent spent about 30 minutes on the phone trying to sort it out, but basically when I called the airline a couple weeks ago to add Ava onto my ticket, something happened. She was showing up on the computer but they didn’t print her a ticket like they were supposed to. And it took 30 minutes to sort this out. As I’m standing there with a hungry baby who was getting more and more impatient.

Finally we had boarding passes and were on our way to security. There was a huge line for that but Ava managed to hold it together and she amused herself by smiling and waving at everyone around us. After like a mile of walking to our gate (don’t you just love O’Hare?) we finally arrived and I asked at the gate if they had any empty seats on the flight (I’ve been lucky before and gotten an entire row to myself and one time we had an empty seat beside us). No such luck this time. The flight is full. Darn. We went to one of the nearby food kiosks “Cafe Brioche” and I doubt I’ll ever go back. The service was awful. I asked for one of the chicken sandwiches that had slices of cheese and real grilled chicken. I specifically asked for it not to be grilled. I went up to pay and I looked back and saw the lady putting it in the grill thing. I told the cashier I asked her not to grill it so she shouts down to the lady. So then I see the other lady grumbling and grabbing another but it took her FOREVER to get it wrapped up, then she just tossed it in a bag and left it behind the counter. I was standing there waiting but other people were now being helped. Finally she brought it up to the counter. So we rush back to the gate as I needed to transfer some of the snacks and toys I brought for Ava from the backpack into my big purse. I planned to have the purse under the seat in front of us and the backpack up in the overhead bin. But as we neared the gate I could see everyone lined up to board the plane already. Crap!!! I get in line and quickly throw some stuff from the backpack into the purse but I didn’t get everything I wanted to put in there. Ava was still strapped to me in her Ergo carrier and I was hoping to let her run around to burn off some energy before the flight. Nope not going to happen. I could feel my anxiety level rising by the second.

We get down to the door of the plane and I folded the stroller and handed it off to one of the crew waiting there and as I’m about to board the plane they make an announcement that everyone now has to gate check all their carry ons as the overhead bins are all full. I pretended I didn’t hear that as I had my laptop in my backpack and there was no way I was gate checking that. We proceeded to our seat, which was the very last seat on the plane, last row, aisle seat. As horrible as I thought it would be (these seats don’t recline, so if the person in front of you reclines, you are literally pinned into your seat. It’s happened to me before) it actually turned out for the best I think. I took Ava out of the ergo and sat her in my seat and I struggled to get my laptop out of the backpack, then I gave my backpack to the flight attendant (to have it gate checked) who was at the back of the plane. He managed to fit it under my seat which was great! I also stuck the ergo under there but it kept falling out throughout the flight so the man in the seat across the aisle from me put it under his seat. I had to put my laptop in my purse with the snacks and a couple of the toys I brought for Ava and that all got stuffed under the seat in front of us.

I was quite happy to see that we each had our own little TV, however it was $7.99 for the Direct TV but you got lots of movies and all kinds of channels. Ava doesn’t watch tv but I thought maybe she would since it was right there if I put some cartoons on for her. I swiped my card and found a Care Bears episode. She watched it for about a minute. Great. Onto something else now. I brought out the sandwich for her and she loved the cheese, and ate a bit of the chicken. She nibbled on the bun for a couple minutes then started throwing pieces of bread so that was done. Next I brought out some flashcards which she really loved. That took a few minutes then she wanted more food. I gave her one of those yogurt smoothie pouches and a cereal bar. I felt like we had gone through so many things already and it seemed like forever had passed, and….. we hadn’t even gotten to the runway yet. ugh

So the rest of our 4+ hour flight from Chicago to Vancouver consisted of us getting up many times to walk to the back galley of the plane, which thankfully was right there by our seat. We spent a lot of time standing back there or in the hall between the bathrooms, also right there. And sometimes Ava would just stand in the aisle beside my seat. The people all around us were really nice and they would wave back at her and talk to her, and the couple sitting in my row tried to play with her throughout the flight. At the end of the flight while we were all getting ready to leave the plane they all told me how good she was, what a great baby I had, all that nice stuff. She was really good, she never screamed or anything. But I was exhausted. She was constantly on the go the entire time, and she did not want to sit still much, if at all. There were many times she was having little tantrums, with the back arches, legs and arms flailing and planking. I felt like I was apologizing the entire flight. She kept kicking the seat in front of us, even though I tried to hold her feet back. She would throw things into the aisle constantly and even though I tried to pick it up super fast, the man sitting across the aisle beat me to it almost every time! Then when I gave her stickers to play with (this was a big hit – kept her busy for like 20 minutes which was awesome!) I stuck them to her legs and arms and she had a blast unsticking them. This was great until she starting sticking them all over the lady sitting next to us. Luckily she didn’t mind at all, however I put the stickers away after that. The baby goldfish crackers were also a hit with Ava, until she started throwing them and hitting other passengers. *sigh* But we made it safely to Vancouver, yay! One flight down, one to go, and just a short one left.

We then had to pick up our luggage and haul it through customs and to the connecting flight area. That was fun. I had my huge suitcase, the stroller and our carseat which was in its original box. I managed to balance the box on the stroller and push it that way while pulling the suitcase. Then through another security and a long walk to our gate. This time I stopped at Starbucks as I was so tired and needed a perk. I put it in the cup holder on the stroller but we hit a bump coming out of the elevator and I spilled it all over. Good thing I had all those baby wipes with me. Got it all cleaned up, and away we went, but when I looked down again, it had spilled all over again. AAAAUUUHHHH

We got to our gate, so I let Ava walk around while we waited to board (which was less than 10 min) and then she screamed bloody murder when I put her back in the Ergo. As we’re standing in line and I’m trying to quiet her down, I tried my best trick – an animal cracker. She took it and stopped crying but ate it quickly and started gagging and coughing. So I now have mushed animal cracker all over my shirt and she’s screaming again. As I’m trying to hand the agent our passports. Ugh. Everyone standing around me is looking REALLY worried right now that we are getting on the same flight as them.

That one was a really small plane too as the flight itself is only 13 minutes. Thank God for that. We had a window seat this time so I had to cram my backpack under the seat as it was too big for the tiny overhead bin. Another passenger helped me put my purse in the bin. We were sitting next to this really nice older english lady who reminded me of my late grandma. We talked the whole time and Ava was very happy (despite being tired since she had now been awake for almost 10 hours). She looked out the window and stood up on my lap and waved at everyone on the plane. A lot of them waved back at her, probably they were just relieved she was happy now and not screaming like she was at the gate!

So we made it to beautiful Victoria BC safe and sound! My parents were waiting to pick us up and we were very very happy to be there. Ava was up straight for about 17 hours that day, the poor kid was so overtired that night. She slept great though and woke up at her regular time (7am Chicago time, so 5am in Victoria) and was bright and cheery.

I will do a recap of our trip in Victoria in a separate post. I’ll keep this one strictly about the air travel drama.

Now onto the trip back:

Our first flight left at 5:25am so I was up at 3 and had to get Ava up at 3:45. She remained asleep until I had changed her out of her pjs, into a clean diaper and into her clothes for the day. That’s never happened, but then I don’t normally wake her at 3:45am….. Our first flight was short and went great, she sat on my lap the whole time willingly (it was only 20 minutes). Then we had a 2 hour layover until our next flight and of course she fell asleep the moment I put her in the stroller. She slept through customs and then onto security. They gave me a choice and said I could either take her out and carry her through or I could push the stroller through and they would pat her down. I think they were all surprised because I chose the pat down. But I know my kid and she was much more likely to sleep through that. The lady was very gentle with her and she slept right through! Then when I clipped her soother back onto her collar, I must have accidentally pulled her hair and she woke up! Ugh

A museum? Nope we are indeed at the airport. They had many of these cases around filled with all the main Disney characters.

I let her run around before our flight as much as possible and they had a play area for kids so she went down the slide a lot. (Her new favorite thing). My plan was to wear her out as much as possible so that maybe, hopefully, she might fall asleep on the flight. Ah, I could just imagine that delightful scenario. This plane was not as new or nice as the one we had coming here. It was fine, but there was quite a bit more room on the other one. This one was also packed and we had an aisle seat in row 10 so near the front this time. I actually preferred having the seat right in the back of the plane as we were so close to the bathrooms and the back galley. We were able to get up and move around much easier in that plane and that seating arrangement. Being near the front, it seemed the drink cart was always nearby, blocking us from getting to the back of the plane.

Ava actually slept for about 30 minutes and was quiet and sat on my lap for another 30 minutes. (Totally amazing!). The rest if the time (3 hours) she was up and down constantly but she never tried to run off. She was happy to stand in the aisle and even sat right at my feet playing with her flash cards. She almost got run over by the drink cart as they came so quick I didn’t notice and they didn’t see her. I grabbed her just in time but the flight attendant literally backed right into her. She felt so bad!!! And so did I.

Surprisingly I managed to watch about 45 minutes of the feature movie. Now, not all those minutes were consecutive so I really couldn’t tell you what the movie was about. All I know is that Steve Carrell was in it, oh and that lady from the new show “Mom”, and there was a waterpark in it. That’s it. I don’t even remember the name of the movie.

Ava had several small tantrums which is a daily occurrence now when I don’t let her do something or have something that she wants. But what really sucked was when I had a major coughing spell and couldn’t stop. I hurried back to the bathrooms but there were like 7 people in line. Ava was crying and I was coughing up a lung standing in line. It was awful. I had been really sick the last few days and even coughed until I threw up. By the time we got to the bathroom, I had stopped coughing, of course. I think everyone in the entire plane hated me by then 🙁 But overall the flight was ok. We were exhausted though for the rest of the day. Ava was so happy to see Steve when he picked us up. I think she had had enough of me as from that moment on she only wanted him the rest of the day/ night.