Tuesday morning after breakfast and Allie’s first nap, we got ready to check out of the Plaza Suites in Santa Clara. I didn’t mention that a roller coaster theme park called Great America was across the freeway from our hotel. It would’ve been a fun place to explore, if Allie were only tall enough to ride the rides. Oh well, maybe next year. 🙂 Another great thing about the hotel location is that it turned out we were 10-15 minutes from just about all our friends, no matter what direction we were going. That was convenient. Anyway, Allie was a good girl and sat patiently in the Boppy with her hands clasped as we got ready to leave.

Here she is watching her daddy disassemble her pack-n-play.

And then we were off! Allie took a nice long nap in the car as we drove to Pismo Beach, listening to Baby Rock. What’s Baby Rock? Turn on your speakers. Mr. W even rocks out to some of these lullabies.



We checked into Pismo Lighthouse Suites, which is one of the cutest hotels we’d ever been in. Everything is lighthouse themed, and our 2-bedroom “family suite” was practically a condo. Allie had her own bedroom and attached bathroom. The property was also right on the beach. Mr. W read some reviews of local eateries, and decided to try some supposedly famous clam chowder that people drive from all over to eat, at a casual local joint called Splash Cafe near Pismo Pier. To continue with adventuring for Allie, Mr. W decided we ought to walk it.

Allie was very cooperative on the way there, but it turned out to be farther than expected. We were pushing her awake-time again.

Finally we got to the restaurant, and thankfully, despite what the reviews warned, did not have to wait in a long line around the block. We like Tuesday afternoon outings. We even snatched a nice street-facing window counter seat.

The chowder was good and extraordinarily creamy and rich. But it wasn’t very clammy. It did fill us up, though. Poor Allie didn’t get any, altho she took a swipe with her hand and dipped her fingers into Mr. W’s breadbowl. Mr. W got her hand just in time to wipe it off before she started solids without our permission. After that she was put in a corner to watch passerbys and munch on Sophie.

On the walk back, we stopped by a swingset on the sand and Allie got her first swing ride!


(Click play for 65 seconds of Allie giggling on the swing.)
And then Mr. W decided this would be a good time to let Allie sit on her first sand beach. She’d been to Seal Beach before when we visited Rebecca, but she was always in the carrier and we stayed at the town side and on the pier. Same thing with San Clemente Beach. She had also hung out on a blanket on the sand part of our Lake when she was 10 weeks old. Now for the first time, she got to interact with the beach.


As you can see, she dug around like a happy little crab. She had so much fun that we couldn’t get her back to the hotel fast enough after that; she hollered to nap, then finally gave up and started her nap on Mr. W before we made it back. She continued it in her pack-n-play back in the hotel room, and then after she woke up, we went to a nice fancy seafood restaurant a few doors down for dinner. There, Allie got to sit in her first high chair, since we decided to just hand-carry her there as it was so close to the hotel and therefore didn’t have her carrier. Turned out that altho she can sit upright on her own, the high chair was way too big and roomy. So we won’t try it again for awhile. Here is Mr. W instructing Allie on proper fine dining behavior. She did pretty well, no fits.

The next morning, we had kind of a disappointing continental breakfast at the hotel, since we had been spoiled by Plaza Suites’ hot breakfast buffets. Allie didn’t mind, tho, since she got her usual meal of fresh breastmilk anyway.

After her morning nap, we were off and got home a little before 2pm. Allie took a niiiice 2 hour 10 minute nap in the car on the drive back, so we didn’t even have to stop until we got home.

Although Allie’s naps were short on vacation (30-50 mins each on average), she did hit them all on time on her own and didn’t have a problem going down for the night, and slept through each night, so that was good. Poor Mr. W felt oppressed by the baby’s naps, tho, so this wasn’t quite a vacation the way he liked it. I felt bad, and asked him to think of it as scoping out places we can go for future vacations when Allie’s older. I’m really looking forward to the time when she’s old enough to really enjoy new sights and places. I think that comes at close to a year, right? Maybe a bit later? But by then food will be its own issue, when she’s eating solids but not adult-solids, yet. So I guess there’s always a challenge.
I couldn’t do any nap training while we were out because I didn’t want her crying to disturb other hotel guests, so when we got home, she fought me in her nighttime sleep and also in a few naps. That’s why we left half a week to readjust her, so that Jayne doesn’t have to do it. It seems like with so many babies, the issue isn’t that they don’t nap; it’s that they don’t STAY asleep. They wake up in 30-40 minutes after their first REM cycle and decide they’re done. As they get older, they fight more to stay up instead of go back to sleep when they find themselves awake. It’s interesting that the sleep book doesn’t really address this, only saying that after 4 months of age, any nap under 1 hour is not considered restorative, and gives advice on how to deal with the kid fighting going down for the night or for the nap. Here’s another challenge now: she rolls to her back, and doesn’t nap well on her back because nocturnal jerks wake her up. So if she’s up and fighting and starts rolling, if it’s at the beginning of the nap, she’ll jerk awake every minute or less until she gives up, and if it’s at the tail end of a REM cycle, the nap’s pretty much over. I’m looking forward to her outgrowing this.