cindy's world

I only blogged once this past week?! Geez. Busy. And oh yeah, I must not have been on the computer at home. I wonder why.

Speaking of busy, we had a very full long weekend! On Saturday, Kyden and his family drove all the way down from San Jose so that he could have his 3rd birthday at Disneyland! As an invited guest, Allie also got to visit Disneyland for the very first time (not counting the time she was at Downtown Disney outside of Disneyland with her cousin Alexandra when she was 2 months old).

I started the day by getting her out of bed at her usual time after she woke up, a little after 6am, and then winding her down early and letting her hit her first name on time at 9am (she actually took it 10 mins early). I was jumping for joy that she woke on her own in 75 minutes, so that I didn’t have to wake her so that she’d hit her 2nd nap on time, which she did at exactly 1pm. We did have to wake her from that one so that we could leave for Disneyland and get there by 3p. I pumped while she napped and fed her via bottle on the drive to save time. That didn’t go too well; she was too distracted to eat more than 3-4 ounces and we had to dump 2 ounces. Ouch. We really tried, but still ended up being 15 minutes late because it took longer than expected to get to the Plaza Inn via the old “People Mover” (anyone remember those days?) and everyone else was already there, but Kyden forgave us, I think. (Sorry, Flip Flop Girl, aka Kyden’s Mommy!)

A coworker with a 2nd job as Disneyland security signed Mr. W and I in as his free guests. That saved us a LOT of moolah! The stepkidlet came along with her premium annual pass, expecting to meet a friend there later, altho she ended up just hanging out with us the whole time we were there. That worked out for us, since that means we had a photographer. 😀 (As always, hover mouse pointer over photos for captions.)

The Disney party at the Plaza Inn was super-cute. Each person (including kid) got to decorate their own cake!

This was the first time Allie ever touched cake, white flour, frosting, food dye, sugar… and I’m happy to say, she did NOT like the taste of any of it.

She took one tiny pinch of cake, put it in her mouth, made a face. She tried again just to make sure she didn’t like it. And that was the last time she tried the cake AND the frosting. And this is a kid who eats dried leaves from the lawn.

Allie: How could you let me put that in my MOUTH, mommy? I want my sippy cup!

She had a lot of fun at the party, and got to see lots of things she’d never seen before. She saw a person dressed up as a birthday cake. She saw lots of kids in party hats. She saw sprinkles and M&Ms and frosting. She saw a giant mouse run by.

She saw the birthday boy and the birthday daddy chasing down the runaway mouse.

She even helped point out which way the giant mouse went, just to make sure he’s caught.

We caught up to the giant mouse and his girlfriend!

Okay, it wasn’t us. It was a team effort. It took lots of people. All Kyden’s guests, in fact.

“Good job finding the mice so we can catch them, Allie! Mice running loose in a restaurant would NOT do!”

Allie even found an old friend at the party, the birthday boy’s sister, Sienna! Kyden was helping make sure Sienna had her vitamin C and phytonutrients for the day.

I’m totally bummed because Allie and Sienna walked up to each other and HUGGED, and I had my camera ready to go, but missed it cuz Kyden was patting my stomach and I was talking to him instead. Oh, well. Birthday boy gets priority, those ARE the rules.

I caught the birthday daddy, Uncle Mike, having a serious discussion with Allie about signing on to his pest control company, since she helped catch the big mice.

Allie must’ve disagreed with him, cuz Mike tried to Jedi-Mind-Trick her next. I’m not sure that it worked, tho.

We had a lot of fun, but we left after an hour or so, so that we could explore Disneyland with Allie in the hour or so we had left. She was so happy people-watching, seeing all the colors and balloons go by, and she hummed along with the music blaring over the loudspeakers.

Did you notice…no stroller! Yup, we were able to run around and dart in between people cuz we didn’t have to make room in the crowd for a stroller. At some point, Allie decided we were still too slow, so she took the initiative in trying something faster…

…and when that was too dangerous in a crowd, she opted for something even faster.

We landed in front Sleeping Beauty’s castle, holding our own sleeping beauty. I’m happy when Allie sleeps at least 11 hours at night and over an hour in her naps, she doesn’t need to do 100 years straight like Aurora.

We did ride one ride: Pinocchio. It was the scariest ride ever when you look at it from a baby’s point of view. Mr. W and I sat in front of the buggy with Allie in between us, and she looked around wide-eyed at everything. Most of the ride was in the dark with glaring ominous characters. She started whimpering toward the end, but that was when the blue sparkly fairy came out and brought us back to sunlight again, so it went fine. (We would’ve gone on Small World, but the line was 45 minutes by the time we got there.)

We got home in time to put Allie down for bed on time, even with some minutes to spare, but wouldn’t you know it, she was too full of residual happiness from the Happiest Place on Earth. She fell asleep nursing, but popped wide awake in her crib when I transferred her, and stayed up and played for almost an hour on her own. Ack. She was sound asleep before 8pm, tho.

I have a ton more photos, but I don’t want to overwhelm this post (altho it may be too late for that). Happy 3rd Birthday, Kyden! Thanks for the adventure!

Yesterday was the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the moon is at its fullest and Chinese people traditionally spend the evening sitting outside, admiring the moon (and writing poetic homages to it back in the day), drinking tea and eating mooncakes.

My parents came over in the afternoon brought a box of assorted mooncakes. When Allie awoke from her afternoon nap, we took the little beaver (she decided on Sunday to start gnawing on her very expensive crib’s front and side rails, and has taken the paint off and a few layers of wood, as well) out for an early dinner at a local Chinese restaurant near the lake. We didn’t get lake views like we do at our favorite sushi restaurant, but Japanese has to stand aside for Chinese yesterday.

Food was good, altho all the dishes were a bit on the sweet side. My dad recognized his motherland dialect in the conversations between the staff, so he figured the restaurant is Shanghai-style. That explains the sweetness. If you guys like Shanghai-style Chinese food, visit Lakeside Chinese Cuisine (they don’t seem to have a website I can link).

Despite another epic nap of over 2 hours in length in the afternoon, Allie was able to nurse to sleep and be laid gently in her crib, which I was grateful for, because if she has to be put in her crib awake again, I know she’ll end up eating more of her crib. While I was nursing, Mr. W ran out to Babies R Us and picked up a crib rail protector called the Easy Teether by Leach Co., which is basically just a fabric wrap that velcros around the front rail of the crib. It probably won’t stop Allie from chewing on the crib, but it’ll keep her from ingesting more of the paint and wood splinters. The deep gouges and damage she was able to do in just one day, 2 naps’ worth of time spent in her crib, were pretty horrific. I wish I’d been prepared for this ahead of time. There’s no “touch-up” possible for what was done; when she gets older and that piece converts into her full-size bed’s footboard, that entire piece will have to be sanded down and refinished. Glad we paid more for the hardwood option instead of soft pine. =P The very light color of exposed wood, however, makes me just a little suspicious.

Anyway, after leaving Allie and medicating the cat, who promptly made himself throw up his meds so that I had to readminister more meds, Mr. W and I went outside to take a peek at the full moon. We probably only sat there for 30 seconds before I went back in and ate a miniature mooncake with some red wine. I cut another small mooncake in half, keeping in mind what college roommie Diana had warned me about how bad mooncakes are health-wise, chatted with the stepkidlet and her boyfriend who had come back from the grocery store and were eating at the kitchen table, then read myself to sleep.

Next year, maybe Allie would be able to stay up until the moon comes out and could join us for a taste of mooncake. It’s fun to think about how dramatically different things will be a year or two from now, just as it was fun, when I was pregnant, to think about how different things this year would be from last year. (Boy, did I underestimate “different” in my naivete, tho.)