Happy Trails

Happy 4th of July to all my American friends out there.

We traveled safely to and from my niece's graduation. A six hour drive each way. How did Miss A do? Peter put it best I think when he said “I give her an E for Effort.” Translation: She did as well she was able to. Not bad really. She slept just one hour on the trip there. We stopped for lunch and a jaunt in a playground. She was not overly impressed to get back in the car. I was prepared with snacks, toys, puzzles. We sang to her. We survived. These are photos taken on the way there right when we were getting out of the car for lunch. As you can see she was thrilled at the idea of exiting the vehicle.






Her vocabulary has recently started to explode. She started saying so many new things during our trip and time away. An actual sentence which was motivated by the trip was “I want DOWN!”. Impressive but sadly not a request we were able to grant. She had only started saying “I want...” a few days before we left. I found that frustrating because she couldn't finish the sentence, it was just “I want!” accompanied by reaching and grunting. Then the guessing game begins.

My sister and her family were happy to see us and I think A won them over with her exuberant personality and big beautiful smiles. So much so that even when she threw her colossal temper tantrums as she is prone to do, they understood. Peter and I both managed to have a pretty great time visiting, watching Mission Impossible II and playing Karaoke Revolution with my niece and nephew. We had some delicious food and great conversation.

Miss A slept awesome 2 out of the 3 nights. The second night was particularly awful. Getting up at 3 and staying up until basically 10:30 in the am. Don't ask me how that day was not a total write off for me. I think the months of sleepless nights when she was first born have trained me to simply brush off the occasional one.

The drive home was similar to the drive there. Our sense of direction was off though and we went the wrong way and back tracked twice! A slept longer and we had a really good time at the playground we discovered. This one was right beside a public swimming pool and she often would hold on to the fence and gaze lovingly at the water. She is so much like me.

It was so nice to be home and have an extra day to just settle in and hang out. Overall it was a miraculously good time.

Here is me and the graduate.