Last week when Steve and I went out for our date night, we stopped at the mall to do a little bit of early (well I guess it’s not that early) Christmas shopping. I noticed a sign up near the Santa visiting palace that they were doing a Pet Photo with Santa night! Woo!! Back in the day when Angus and Zoey were young pups I took them to see Santa for a few years in a row. We I was so excited about the possibility of getting a Santa photo with Ava AND all the dogs! So a couple nights ago, back we went to the mall for Pet Photo night (with all 3 dogs and Ava in tow). Despite it already being way past her bedtime, Ava was remarkably pretty happy. She was over the moon excited about being there with all these other dogs and we had to continuously go visit them as we were waiting in line as she happily announced “puppy!” to each of them.
Kids/ Babies
A little zombie like
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.
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 🙁
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!
How to Travel Alone with a Toddler Without Losing Your Mind
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



Summer Recap Part 2, our life in Illinois
I thought our recap of the rest of our summer can best be summed up with photos. So here is a little (well pretty big, lol) gallery of how our summer looked.
And now Fall is here, and I’m thinking of Christmas already. What is wrong with me?
Right now…. Baby edition
I thought it would be fun to document what Ava is loving right now. (since I’m really not good at keeping a scrapbook for her…yet)
- She loves grapes, this is the one food she will not throw on the floor. No sharing grapes with the puppies! She also loves broccoli.
- Peanut butter. She tried this for the first time a couple days ago and it was a huge hit. I’m glad we got that trial over with and no allergic reaction.
- The chickens. Especially one chicken in particular – our Barred Rock chicken, “Nuna”. I don’t know what it is but she and Ava have some sort of connection. They literally run to each other and Nuna lets her pet her and everything. Kind of weird yes, but very cute.
- Slides. She got to slide down a little slide at a playdate last week and she loved it. We have a small Little Tykes slide at home so I moved it into the backyard for her and she wants to go on it constantly.
- Straw cups. Finally she learned how to suck stuff up from a straw, maybe 2 weeks ago now. She’s a little pro now.
- Still her 2 Wubbanubs. We have the frog and the elephant. Basically its a pacifier stuck to a small stuffed animal. She adores these things, but only “needs” them at naptime, bedtime and when we are in the car. They really calm her down so I don’t mind one bit.
- Maracas. Still LOVES these. I found some cute disney ones at the dollar store the other day. So now she has 2 sets.
- Walking. Yes, my baby is now a walker. Officially took off on her own about a week ago on Sept 10. Now there is no stopping her!
- Still loves our iphones and the remote control. Some things never change.
- Gymboree class – she has so much fun there!
- Board books – lately she always wants to have one in her hand and she carries it all over the place.
This is “Boba” (named after one of our real frogs)
Here she is with her maracas and her favorite chicken friend “Nuna”. She also took her very first unassisted steps this day – guess where? To get to the chicken!
At Gymboree class with daddy. I love the smiles on both their faces 🙂
here she is with the elephant wubbanub “Eli”. It was almost nap time so I let her have him.
Here she is on her slide, with a board book in her hand, and her chicken friends are running towards her. Just another day at “Ava’s Zoo”
Hanging out with her pal Norman.
Right now….baby edition!
The post from a couple nights ago of what I am loving right now got me thinking of all the baby related things I’m loving right now. So here is a post just for all that stuff.
– large bibs. I had no idea how many bibs we’d go through once Ava started eating solids. FYI: I would hardly call what she’s eating SOLIDS right now. Purees and oatmeal cereal are far from being solid, which is why we go through so many bibs. Anyway, thanks to my Mum who made us a whole bunch of lovely large bibs!!
– Annoying musical toys with – believe it or not – even more annoying voices. How can I love an annoying toy? Easy, my baby loves it. Which means while she is in her highchair throwing a fit cause I can’t be holding her every second, if I give her said toy, then she is delighted. For about 3-4 minutes tops. But it is really freaking amazing how much I can now get done in the 3-4 minutes!! Love those toys!!! The most annoying of all is her fisher price remote control. Steve and I know all the words to all the annoying little sayings and songs it plays. And even more annoying, we catch ourselves humming or even singing out loud the songs at various times throughout the day. What??
– These nifty little bottle things made by Sassy that are actually meant for purees. I thought these were just going to sit in the cupboard forever and never get used but they have turned out to be a staple in the diaper bag. Whenever we go out for dinner I make sure I bring a pouch of baby food puree and one of these bottle things. Squirt the puree in, hand the bottle to Ava and she happily sucks away at it for a good 10 minutes or so until she finishes it. She has her dinner and there is no mess!! No worrying about bringing bowls and spoons and multiple cloths to clean her face, hands and hair (cause she is so quick she manages to stick her whole hand in her mouth then swipe it across her face and through her hair leaving a trail of sticky fruit). Yes these Sassy bottles are fab.
– Robeez shoes. Ava hates having socks on and manages to get them off within seconds. Well, being how it’s been SO cold here, she needs to wear socks. Period. She is great at taking shoes off too, and then her socks. But the Robeez shoes are ones that she has a lot of trouble getting off. Ha!! My sister gave us a couple pairs of these and Ava wears them all the time!
– Another food related item: Kidsme Feeders. They have a silicone end on them where you can put a piece of food inside and then the baby just sucks on it. Little bits of food disperse through the holes. I love this so much more than those weird net ones – way easier to clean. I also love how I can put a pacifier clip onto it and attach it to her shirt so she can’t throw it. We put banana (Ava’s favorite!), sweet potato, and I’ve put chunks of frozen purees in there too – seems to help when she is teething.
I know there are so many more things but I’ll save them for another post 🙂