We’re back from Allie’s first roadtrip. I think overall, it was a success. Sure, there were extra things to pack that we didn’t have to when Mr. W and I traveled on our own — there was Allie’s overnight bag, Allie’s pack-n-play, Allie’s diaper backpack, Allie’s changing area box o’ stuff, Allie’s Bumbo seat, and my breast pump and storage stuff. I still got up every morning before Allie did to pump and store, but I got to sleep in till almost 6am sometimes before I did that. Some things that surprised me — Allie is so obedient to her accustomed naptimes biorhythmically that she would fall asleep or demand to be put to bed. I don’t even know why I’d bothered wearing a watch. In the car, she’d just go to sleep at her naptimes. Her initial car naps were very light and short, because road bumps and the car moving around would wake her up, but she would keep falling back to sleep until about half an hour in. On the way home, as she got more used to the car, she had a nice 2 hour nap for her noon nap. Even when we couldn’t get her back in time for her nap, she’d be fussy, but if she were in the car, she’d fall asleep. I was unsuccessful several times trying to keep her up for even a few minutes as we rushed back to the hotel to put her in her crib.

It was a little tough trying to squeeze in all our friend visits in between Allie’s naptimes. When we arrived on Saturday afternoon, we checked in and went out to meet college roommie Diana, her husband Eric, and her new baby Alexis (2 weeks younger than Allie) at a Thai food restaurant for dinner. We didn’t take any photos as both babies were acting up in turn, it being close to their respective bedtimes. I think we all thought we’d all meet up again, but it didn’t happen because Allie and Alexis had conflicting naptimes all weekend. It was different and yet so similar to each other, seeing each other as parents of babies for the first time. Alexis felt like a compact little girl, since Allie is so tall and outweights Alexis by probably a couple of pounds. Diana offered to come by the hotel after the babies were asleep and hang out, but the suite turned out so small that we had to set up Allie’s pack-n-play in the living room area, so I didn’t want to walk in and out with her sleeping. She did go down without an issue in her pack-n-play every night and for every nap she took in it.

Sunday, for Allie’s second awake-period (the first was always spent eating the free breakfasts at the hotel), we drove out and visited Jimmy and Sabrina and their little girl Abby, now almost 2 years old. Abby was about 2 months old the last time I saw and held her. This time, she was a happy rambunctious little girl on the go-go-go! She ran circles around us with her toy shopping cart, stopping only long enough on occasion to give Allie a high-five.

Sunday’s third awake-period, we took a stroller walk to a nearby sandwich cafe and met up with Dardy. He hobbled in on crutches, and we were both very touched that he’d go through all the inconvenience to come out and see us. He took a couple of photos of Mr. W with Allie, and me with Allie. I’ll have to retrieve those from email and post them some other time when Allie’s not screaming and stressing me out (yes, she was napping when I started this post, but the next door neighbor’s gardeners came right when she went down so she woke up early and is now screaming. I wonder if gardeners even register that they wake up babies; I’m SURE she’s audible from outside.).
** Okay, evening edit: here are those photos from Dardy.

For Sunday’s fourth awake-period before bedtime, we went to visit Christi (flip flop girl) and Mike, and their kidlets Kyden (about 2 years old) and Sienna (9 months). Kyden wrote his own account of the day on his blog. 🙂 He has better photos, too, because his mom used a real camera, so her photos were notches above my blurry cameraphone ones. I’ve never seen Allie interact so much as with Sienna. Allie was immediately fascinated, and Sienna’s flapping around made Allie laugh, even when some of those flaps landed on Allie herself. (I have a video of that.) Kyden shyly emerged after his nap, and joined everyone downstairs. It was interesting to see Sienna eat “solids,” which was mushed up babyfood that Christi had prepared (she’s fancy; Sienna had blended chicken and zucchini for one dish and blended strawberries and another fruit that I can’t recall for another dish). It was also very cool to see Kyden feed himself delicious salmon and veggies that Christi made for those of us with full teeth. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. BUT, I do agree with Christi (and I’m glad she pushed me to make this trip), that traveling with Allie at this stage is easier because she’s more portable being only a breastmilk drinker. Christi gave his her kids’ food mill that takes all the fibrous strings and skin out of cooked veggies and fruits. I don’t know if I can be as good a cook as Christi, tho.

On Monday’s second awake-segment, we drove out to see Diana at her office. I was thinking that since we were going to a law firm, we ought to be able to write off the trip, right? Anyway, Morrison Foerster had very cool grounds. There was a park-like setting in the center quad, it was not the boring ol’ buildings we’re used to seeing. Different food trucks drive up and provide the employees lunch on different days, and we conveniently ate lunch with Diana from one such food truck, sitting in the pretty quad overlooking the water and fountains.

We actually had Allie’s third awake-segment free and Mr. W had been bored from being pent-up during Allie’s naps, so we took a walk to explore a nearby Residence Inn that we saw driving by. It was beautiful, with ducks and geese swimming in a long river and large pond going through the center of the property.


(It’s nauseating at this point of blogging because Allie’s now screaming with a vengeance, but I’m re-nap-training so I have to leave her alone until she remembers to self-soothe; the nap was too short.)
The following photo demonstrates one of those sacrifices mommies have to make on behalf of their children. I’m posting this because Allie looks adorable, despite how I look.

And then we walked back to the hotel for Allie’s third nap, where Mr. W had some fun with a cap for dress-up.

The fourth awake-segment was spent meeting up with Rebecca and her 6-year-old, Ben. Ben was so excited he couldn’t stop himself from hopping up and down while he sang to Allie. Unfortunately, dinner went long as we were at a sit-down restaurant, and Allie had two melt-downs, Mr. W taking her out of Maggiano’s Little Italy both times until she calmed down. It was past Ben’s bedtime as well, and he had a rare quiet moment with his head on the dinner table while he waited for his dessert to show up. Allie fell asleep on the drive back to the hotel and stayed asleep in the carseat after we brought the carseat carrier into the hotel. Mr. W suggested I take a shower and let her sleep, and feed her the bedtime feeding when she wakes up. She awoke in the carrier as soon as I finished my own bedtime routine, and we treated her bedtime routine like a middle-of-the-night feeding (which I am a little rusty at); dark, feed, no talking or playing, and putting her right to bed as soon as she was done eating. It was a success, even tho she went to sleep more than 2 hours past her usual bedtime.

I’ll continue with Allie’s Great Adventure, Central Cal later…Allie needs some attention right now.