L.A.

So a couple of weeks ago, we went to Los Angeles to visit family. We are still paying for it because I have not been able to get N back on our time zone. It's amazing how hard it is to move her sleep times back up two hours.

N does very well on planes. She did really well on the way home from Russia and I was wondering how this would go, since she is much more mobile now and much more vocal and much less inhibited.
I needn't have worried.
C booked our flights there and back during her naptime. "So that she would sleep on the plane." bwahahaha! I love his optimism, but I knew better. There was no sleeping going on. We travelled with her as a lap child and she went back and forth between us on the full plane. The folks around us got a bit of a kick when we hit turbulence after take-off and N giggled and laughed at each bump and added sound effects like "whoa". But once we were stabile, she was pretty quiet. The guy between the window and me was nice enough...he put in his earbuds after take-off and slept pretty much the entire flight. I had borrowed a DVD player from my friend Amy and about halfway through, having exhausted books and the magnetic drawing toy, we broke out The Wonder Pets and some headphones and it was still a long three hours, but it was doable.
We were really tired, though. Neither C nor I had slept much the night before. C because this was also a work trip and he was working late getting ready for it and me because I was up until 3 finishing a scrapbooking swap I had procrastinated on. This is the first time in the history of our relationship (and we've done A LOT of flying together) that I've ever seen C awake during take-off. He always sleeps on planes...it comes easy for him, and he was discombobulated by the fact that he would not be sleeping on this flight. About an hour in, declared it the longest three hours of his life. But he survived. I even knit about three rows on a sock while she was watching The Wonder Pets.

N had a great time with Aunt Mindy,


Uncle Gene,
Cousin Miriam,
Cousin Ben,
and Grandpa SeymourWe stayed at Seymour's for a few days, where C was able to plug in his laptop and work in preparation for his trip to Japan. Once he went to Japan, N and I moved in with Mindy and Gene and the kids and C came back the day before we flew back home. While we were at Mindy's, the 2 year old across the street loaned N her stroller, which N LOVED. Miriam gave her an old dolly and N loved pushing Dolly all around. When we took her on walks, N decided on her own that Dolly needed to smell the flowers. She also wanted to swing her...and she really wanted to put her in a convertible we walked by!


As soon as we got home, I bought N a stroller of her own and for her birthday next month, she might get stuff like a little doll bed. She is starting to role play with Dolly and I'd like to encourage that as much as possible.

N also visited the ocean for the first time and put her toes (and her ankles...and almost her knees) in the Pacific.


The day before we left, we walked over to a nearby park and fed the ducks and played on the equipment.

It was a really nice visit. C didn't get much of a vacation...he worked up until he had to go to Japan for a meeting and then went to Japan and back in four days. Crazy. And it is harder being with N in other folk's homes...they aren't childproofed the way ours is and I had to watch her constantly. But it was wonderful to see everyone enjoying her so much. I even got a chance to go to Twist on our last afternoon and pick up some Malabrigo and Sea Silk. Can't ask for much more than that.