cindy's world

Look at the difference in just 5 months.

There must be some kind of mental leap that happens around now, or maybe it’s that the mental leap has already happened but the language skills just suddenly caught up. Either way, we finally have a good grasp on what’s going on in Allie’s little noggin, and it’s astounding.

Allie will bring up something that happened, or mention someone, dating back to BEFORE she could talk about it. But she remembers it. She’ll reference things we’ve not talked about in months. She looked at the sidewalk chalk drawing in the backyard that my brother-in-law’s girlfriend Karen drew for her when they visited in early August, pointed and said, “Look. Horse.”
“Did Allie draw this horse?”
“No…Karen draw horse.” We hadn’t mentioned that name in almost 2 months.
She watches sports on TVs in restaurants, and would identify the sport. “People play basketball.”
I said to Mr. W, “Whoa, how did she know it’s basketball, as opposed to baseball or football?”
Overhearing me, Allie shook her head and said, “No. Not baseball. Basketball.” I can’t remember the last time we’d referenced either basketball or baseball.

I like her sudden use of words that hint at the abstract shades of gray in her understanding. Words like “almost,” as in, “Allie’s almost done. Mama’s almost done eating.” “Too,” as in, “Over there! More lights there, too!” “Later,” as in, “Allie go to dance class. Go to gong-gong, po-po’s house later.” (Funny story; we were driving to my parents’ house last weekend and traffic was so horrific and slow-going that it took twice as long, and Allie said near the end of the seemingly interminable ride, “Gong-gong po-po’s house, where are you?”)

I had thought Allie spoke in the third-person like Elmo does because that’s just what people do, but now I think she does that because she thinks she’s supposed to. She actually used the first person today and then corrected herself. She pointed to her fuzzy bear that she sleeps on, which she’d dragged into her princess tent house in the living room, and told us, “Mister Bear in my — in Allie’s house.” Also today, she referred to Mr. W as “you” and then quickly corrected to “Dada.” I joked that Allie’s already smarter than Mr. W, but he agreed. He said smart kids are difficult to raise later on. Well, he’s been wrong about a lot of stuff, why stop now? *hopeful*

Allie still enjoys her motor skills, too. She loves running, she likes doing the Three-Legged Dog pose in yoga, she loves jumping, climbing, swinging hanging by her hands. She likes kicking her ball (she’s getting very good at directing her kicks), rolling over them, and is starting to catch them. The hands are still a little slow so we have to give her a head start by having her hold out her arms first. And of course, she loves her dance class. Plié, passé, coupé, etc. She still loves her backyard swing and will take my hand, pull me up and say, “Mama, stand up. Mama, come outside. Push Allie. Swing swing.” As strong as she is, it seems the only thing keeping her from getting into a lot of physical trouble is her sense of self-preservation. She plays pretty conservatively. Her movements when she’s out on a playground are deliberate and careful. I think her desire to not “go boom, doctor doctor” is what keeps her from vaulting out of her crib.

Happily, this kid does not like sweet. She doesn’t like things that are too salty. And she can identify a remarkable amount of produce by sight and by taste. That part is always something I’d wanted in my “dream kid” but didn’t really expect to happen. I know she’ll be eating crap with other kids later on; I’m just trying to expose her to as much healthy food as possible so that she’ll eat that as well for the rest of her life.

Her singing is getting much better. She hits most of the vowel sounds in “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” although the lyrics are more like, “Tinkle, tinkle little stah, ha I wondle *mumble mumble* ah. Upuh buh sky so high, *mumble* diamonds in the sky. Tinkle tinkle little stah, ha I wondle *mumble* ah.” She’s on pitch, though. And it’s fun to play the “Guess what song” with her because it takes her maybe 3-4 notes before she gets it. She doesn’t always know the title of the songs, but she’ll make a reference so you know she’s identified it. She may tell you the singer, or a key word in the song, or the next line, or where the song’s from (such as “dance class” or “Dinlan” [Disneyland]).

She’s still taking a nap a day, starting a bit past noon and lasting anywhere between 1 hour 45 mins to 3 hours, depending on her needs. She’s woken up at around 6:45a on weekday mornings, and goes to bed between 7p and 8p, depending when she’d gotten up from her nap. We feel bad about waking her up so early every morning, so we let her sleep in on weekends and if she does (she sometimes wakes up on her own early), it usually wouldn’t be later than 8:30a. I think she’s doing fine; she gets between 12.5 and 14 hours of sleep daily. I read that kids her age still need up to 14 hours, but that most don’t get more than 10. At least we’re doing better than 10. She’s still a happy kid in her crib and will roll around and play in there, singing, sometimes jumping, sometimes practicing new knowledge (the other day she was wrapping her head around the concept that people have different names outside of what she calls them, so we overheard her saying, “Mama’s Cindy, Dada’s [Mr. W], Allie’s Allie…” going through the stepkidlet and the stepkidlet’s boyfriend, too), until she finally rolls over and goes to sleep sucking her thumb.

She’s still not potty-trained. We asked her and she wants to wear diapers, although she will tell us when she is going pee-poo or poo-poo. I have no doubt she CAN use her little potty; she just doesn’t want to, yet, much to the chagrin of my parents, who’d wanted me to potty train before she was 1. I’m not too concerned; she’s not going to be a 6 year old who can’t use the toilet.

Non sequitur:
Allie got a lot of attention at Disneyland on Sunday in her “I’m spoiled by daddy” full-on authentic Snow White ensemble, but NO ONE saw the humor in my letting her walk around eating from this bag of apple chips. Come on! It’s FUNNY! It’s the modern-day Snow White toxin! Not an issue for Allie, though, because these apple chips are organic.

My cousin Jennifer told me about a Groupon for a photography session where an out-of-state studio, Portrait Scene, dispatches a bunch of photographers in different locations all over the country and does photoshoots by appointment in outdoor locations. The reviews weren’t that solid for the company, but I figure, it was just $20. Even if it were mass-quantity, mall shop quality, it’s fine for $20. The package includes an 8×10 print, two 5×7 prints, four 4×5 prints, eight wallet prints (presumably all 1 pose), plus a CD of digital proofs of other images that we can order from in the future. I made my appointment and Jennifer’s appointment back-to-back and that was Saturday morning. (I’d timed it so that we’d have photos ready in plenty of time to make photo holiday cards, plus it was shortly before both girls’ 2nd birthday [1 day before Alexandra’s; 2 months before Allie’s] so they were also great year-marker photos.) We had selected Mason Regional Park for our location (there were 2 locations near us to choose from). There were 2 photographers on-site, doing photoshoot after photoshoot by half-hour increments from morning through evening. Our photographer, Sasha, was GREAT with kids, and after doing our family shoot, and after finishing Jennifer’s family’s shoot, she called us in together and did a dual-family session for no extra cost. I can’t wait to see the photos, since she had us in some really cute poses (and I noticed our poses were different from Jennifer’s poses). They will be ready to view online in 10 days.

While we waited for Jennifer’s shoot to finish, we goofed off and took some of our own on my cameraphone. Here are some favorites:

Allie with Dada. She’s waving to me and saying, “Hi, Mama.”

Allie with Mama. If it looks like I’m in mid-jump, it’s because I am. It makes her laugh.

A series that I made into a collage. Spinning, spinning, until one of us got dizzy or broke an ankle. Guess who was risking breaking her ankle.

Since I was playing with collages on my phone, I discovered “filters.” This is an antique filter. Very cool effect.

Here’s one I took over the photographer’s head. It’s just hilarious because the dadas were trying so hard and the girls look…seriously unimpressed. Typical. Haha!

Jayne told us she’s teaching Allie the days of the week, and the concept of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I think Allie’s getting it. On Saturday, we told Allie that “tomorrow,” we were going to Disneyland. Sunday morning, when I went to get Allie from her crib, she was already standing up holding onto her crib rails. “Let’s see, what should Allie wear today?” I asked, opening her dresser drawer.
Allie jumped up and down and chanted, “Mimi dress! Mimi dress! Mimi dress!”
“You want to wear your Minnie dress?”
“Yeah! Mimi’s house!”
“You want to wear your Minnie dress to Minnie’s house? I don’t know…I think it might still be too big.” Jayne had bought her the dress about a month ago, knowing it was too big, but couldn’t resist because Allie is such a Minnie Mouse fan.
“Noooo, not too beeg, leetle! Leetle!” Allie insisted. I laughed and tried it on, and of course, given all Allie’s growth spurts, it now fits. Even when I was pulling it over Allie’s head, Allie was still making her argument. “Leetle! Leetle!” It wasn’t little, it was actually still quite roomy, but it worked. So here’s Allie on Sunday morning:

(The stepkidlet took the above photos and made the collage. She said, “Look! Twins! Can you imagine if there’s TWO Allies? Oh, I wish!”)

We met up with Laurel and her son, Jonathan, at Disneyland. Jonathan recently turned 3, and was finally a kid whom Allie didn’t tower over. Jonathan was shy the entire morning, but they did ride a bunch of rides together. Well, not together the way Allie and Alexis rode rides together, sitting next to each other. Jonathan was mostly too shy to interact so Laurel held him most of the time. He did come out of his shell a little in New Orleans Square, which is long enough for me to shoot this video of them dancing. You can tell that the toddler class really helped along the dancing skills…for Mr. W.

I love how Allie seems to actually be torn when the beads were tossed at her feet. She didn’t know why the man did that, but she knew she’s not supposed to pick up random things from the floor, and she also knew it wasn’t hers (when she approaches another kid’s toy on the ground, we tell her, “That’s not yours, Allie,” and she freezes mid-reach). A cartoon question mark seems to almost appear and float over her head.

She loved wearing that Minnie dress. We came across a catalog picture of a child in a dress-up princess gown, and Allie pointed to the photo and said, “Oooh, putty dress. Like Allie’s. Like Mimi dress. Putty!”

This morning:
Allie: Mama go bye-bye?
Me: Yes, mama’s going to work.
Allie: Dada go bye-bye?
Dada: Dada’s going bye-bye, too.
Me: What’s Allie going to do?
Allie: Play.

Earlier, I was sitting at work listening to a trial about commercial rental property damage & something about wood flooring. Meanwhile, back at home…

Jayne texted me these photos of Allie making good on her plans today to play.

“The days are just packed.” ~ Bill Watterson, via “Calvin & Hobbes”

Allie: Walk walk walk? Walk walk walk. Mama, walk walk walk! *kicking*
Me: You want to walk?
Allie: Yeah!
Me: Where do you want to walk to?
Allie: Walk THERE! *pointing*

(Irrelevant update: Earlier in the week I noticed during her bedtime flossing that her lower left second molar has come in. The front half of it, anyway. I didn’t even know that she was teething again because I wasn’t expecting more teeth so soon. The second molars aren’t due in until 23-31 months of age. So she’s early…again.)

The stepkidlet took this video and sent this to me. It’s from last week. The speaking voice you hear is stepkidlet’s. Allie still doesn’t have the lyrics down, but the tune to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” is getting better…as long as you ignore the fact that she drops a few bars in the middle and the end. 🙂

Earlier this week, they decided to try a collaboration. I was in the kitchen making Allie’s dinner, and I heard coming from the stepkidlet’s room, “Oh, oh, OH oh oh…”
“Play the guitar, Allie, good girl! Play the guitar!”
*strum strum strum strum*
“Oh oh OH oh oh!”
So I grabbed my phone, turned it to video record, and snuck in on them.

The stepkidlet calls Allie her “little harmonizer,” and says they’re going to be the “next Lennon and Maisy.” If you don’t know who they are (I didn’t, either), look them up on YouTube, where this single big and little sister duo got their early start on American pop radar.

I’m excited Allie’s at the stage now where I can share kid stories. Both from today…

Earlier, in the car. I’m driving, Allie’s in the backseat with Mr. W.
Me: *looking in the rear-view mirror* Whoa, there’s an amazing sunset going on behind us!
Mr. W: Yup, and it’s going to get prettier, too. There’s some great clouds in the sky. Your mom and dad would love to be sitting in our backyard watching this tonight. [My parents stayed a week with us last week to take care of Allie, and their nightly ritual as I finished Allie’s bedtime routine was to sit outside and admire the sunset.]
Allie: Gong-gong, Po-po?
Me: How did she know that’s who we’re talking about?!

And then about an hour later, in Allie’s bathroom, Mr. W was holding her and I was flossing her teeth.
Allie: *reaching out with her little index finger and actually poking me in the EYE. Yes, she made contact with my EYEBALL.*
Me: Hey! You poked me in the EYE!
Allie: Mimi? Mimi?
Me: What? Mimi?
Allie: Mimi? Mimi? Eye.
Me: You poked Minnie in the eye?
Allie: Yeah!
Me: *confused*
Mr. W: Remember? At Disneyland yesterday? She poked Mickey in the eye?
Me: What?
Mr. W: We were taking a picture with Mickey and she poked him in the eye. And the photographer said, “Oh, no, Mickey, you’re gonna have to be a pirate now!”
Allie: *singing* Yo-ho, yo-ho!
Me: Whoa, she just sang the Pirates of the Caribbean song!
Allie: Boom! Boom!
(Because the Pirates of the Caribbean boat ride does two drops in the beginning, which are her “boom”s. And then the “Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate’s life for me…” starts playing.)

Okay, you had to be there. =P

BTW, the whole time we were at Disneyland Sunday morning, Allie kept saying, “Ewic. ‘Lexis. Di-ana.” Because the last time she was at Disneyland, she was there with them.

Happy 21st bday to Toddler-boo. Now that she’s got more command over her physical and spoken skills, a lot more personality is coming through.

For example, yesterday. We’re always barefoot at home. I was sitting in chair and Allie came running by to see what I was doing, and she accidentally stepped on my bare foot with her bare foot. “Yikes! Allie’s foot is COLD!” I yelped.
Allie responded, “Mama…foot…hot.”
It’s all a matter of perspective.

She also likes singing. Her current favorite song to sing is “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and “Rockabye Baby.” She doesn’t have all the lyrics down, though. Mr. W told me that earlier this week, he checked the babycam remotely from work and Allie was awake in her crib after her nap, rolling around, mouth moving up and down. So he turned on the sound, and he and his coworkers watched Allie sing, “Twinkle twinkle twinkle twinkle. *clapping for herself* Yaaay! *roll* Twinkle twinkle twinkle twinkle! *clapping* Yaaaay!” Her version of Rockabye Baby goes like this: “Rock baby. Rock baby. Rock baby.”

My parents have stayed with us this past week because the stepkidlet was still in Europe, and Jayne took off for the week to take her daughter to college on the East Coast. My parents did surprisingly well. They kept to Allie’s routine, and even made her fresh food for all Allie’s meals. AND, they had dinner ready for us when we got home. We don’t know how they did it, but we sure appreciated it. Allie’s been excited every day to spend it with “Gong-gong, po-po!” They’ve been teaching her Chinese, too. My mom sent me a bunch of videos yesterday.

To translate, my mom told Allie to say to her great-grandma, “Did not, did not, did not.” And then, “Did, did, did.” And then my dad had her count from 1 to 10 in Mandarin.

Allie had her first dance class (toddler ballet and jazz) last Saturday, and seemed to enjoy it, so we signed her up for a 10-week session. It’ll be every Saturday morning, and only lasts about 45 minutes. But she gets to play dress-up and run around with toddler girls her age and refine her physical skills.

The stepkidlet got back from Europe mid-week and is staying with her mom for the next few days, but came by to visit Allie and to give her some clothes she’d bought for Allie in Spain. Allie tried on the harem pants right away, and modeled them doing one of the moves she learned in dance class.

The toddler dance class itself was interesting. Trying to get 6 toddlers (all assisted by their moms) to do the same thing at the same time is like trying to corral and coordinate cats. They went through Disney songs and familiar songs pretty quickly, doing something different with each one, using lots of props like tiaras, star magic wands, hand streamers, flower, pom-poms, bubbles, colorful parachutes. It was a lot like Gymboree but dance-/movement-focused instead of toy-focused.

Allie’s broken teeth are doing well. She still doesn’t seem particularly sensitive to temperature or contact at the point of injury. She now bites carrots and other large pieces of food by moving the food to the side of her mouth, which is a little heart-breaking to watch, but she doesn’t have a problem with it. She’s adapted. I’m glad we didn’t put her under for root canals or extractions for nothing.

Babies are crazy-flexible. Allie will bend and do the downward dog position while announcing with a smile, “Yoga!” and her legs would be straight-kneed, and she’d have her head and elbows and forearms touching the ground in front of her. Crazy, given how long her legs are.

Oh, and she’s better with her colors now. She can tell you whether something is “red, yellow, blue, orange, green,” and hand over or point to objects of your expressed color.

Suddenly, however, she hates baths. I don’t know whether it’s because she hates bathing, or because it’s what tears her from her toys to bedtime. She still enjoys bedtime and naptime, tho, but she will pick up her legs crying, “No! No! No!” when Mr. W tries to put her into the bath. And her legs and toes will flare out and she’ll hang onto the edges of the tub to keep from going in.

We all went out for dinner mid-week when the stepkidlet visited. Allie ran into her old dancing partner*.

She’s going to outgrow him soon. She’s the baby in her dance class (everyone else is at least 2, or just a week from turning 2), and she’s taller than all of them.
Here’s another photo from after dinner, depicting one of those moments in great parenting.

(As with all my photos, rest mouse pointers over the photos for captions.)

* Allie’s old dancing partner. Here is a flashback.

8-3-13: Allie’s first time in a pool. College roommie Diana and family invited us to hang out with them at their next-to-Disneyland hotel.

8-4-13: Allie’s first time in a kayak. It was supposed to be her first time in a launched kayak, kayaking, but after Allie sat there for 6 seconds, the Lake people stopped us and said since it’s a 2-man kayak, they can’t have Allie sit on either of our laps while another person sat in the second kayak seat, because then that’d be 3 people in a 2-person kayak. I wasn’t going to leave my baby in a kayak seat ALONE where I can’t get to her if she decided to get up or fall overboard, so we played in the swimming area at the Lake instead. Maybe next year.

8-4-13: Everybody’s first time meeting Rocker Brother’s new girlfriend, Karen. She’s fascinating. At my age, she’s an associate professor (teaching scientist stuff) in Xi’an, China (better known as the city where all those terra cotta warriors came from). She’s also a personal trainer for body builders, among lots of other stuff. We enjoyed hanging with them when they visited us this weekend from Vegas. (She was also responsible for Allie’s first sugar high, after feeding Allie 2-3 tablespoons of whipped cream at the Cheesecake Factory after dinner.) Allie took to her almost immediately and so did we.

8-10-13: Allie’s first hairdo (not including goofing off with soap for a few mins in the bathtub). Grandma Po-po did this. Allie still doesn’t have a lot of hair so regular hair accessories don’t stay on. Mr. W, however, found a box of tiny ouchless plastic rubber bands that came 200 to the box, and those work like magic.

8-11-13: Allie’s first time on a horse. We were bike riding through Irvine Park and passed by a very nice family loading their horses into their trailer as we were on the way to our car. We pointed out the “horsey” to Allie, and the man called out, “Hey, you guys got a camera? Would you like to put her on a horse and take a picture? This one’s very mellow.” This horse was indeed very sweet, although she may have also been tired out from the riding the family had just completed.

Today: Allie’s first time noticing/pointing out a negative. I don’t have a photo of this, so I’ll have to write a thousand words to make up for the missing photo. When we got back from work today, Allie pulled us to the computer and pointed to the monitor, saying, “Allie pick-ter, Allie pick-ter.”
I clarified, “You want to see pictures of Allie?”
“Yah.”
I went through a folder of old baby pictures (“Baby Allie, Baby Allie!”), and played a video in it in which the footage swept the living room. Allie pointed at the monitor and said with a furrowed brow, “Allie house? No Allie house.” She did this twice in 2 different videos, pointing out that the princess playhouse tent she got for her first birthday from her big bro and big sis were missing from the video of the living room. I’m sure this is what she means, because the second time she did this, she pointed to her tent in the living room while she said, “No Allie house.”
Also funny: On a photo of my dad holding her, with just a corner of Mr. W’s hair and forehead showing in the background behind my dad, I asked Allie, “Who’s this?”
She said, “Gong-gong.”
“Who else?”
“Allie.”
I pointed to the little triangle with a piece of forehead and a small tuft of hair. “Who’s that?”
“Dada.” Hilarious.

(As with all my photos, rest mouse pointer over the photo for a caption.)

College roommie Diana and her family had a wedding to attend in SoCal last weekend, so they decided to come down from NorCal a few days early and make a 2-year dream come true. We’d been talking about taking our daughters together to Disneyland since they were infants, but the distance, and the girls’ younger napping needs, made any prior planning very impractical. Now both girls are 20 months old (Alexis is exactly 2 weeks younger than Allie) and are both down to one midday nap, and are lively, enjoy running around and watching new things and people, and Diana’s threesome were attending a wedding in Temecula anyway. They booked a hotel across the street from Disneyland property for a couple of days.

Allie and Alexis were meeting each other for the second time (altho they had FaceTimed once last year). The first was very briefly for a dinner at a Thai food restaurant when the two were about 5 months old when Mr. W, Allie and I made a road trip to NorCal in April last year. That dinner was late and both girls were young and crabby from needing to be put to bed, so it was more a stressful whirlwind and nobody was able to take photos. 🙁 It’s okay; they don’t remember any of it, anyway. THIS, they will remember.

We met up with each other right outside the main entrance between Disneyland and California Adventure.

The girls were a bit shy at first and observed each other, but didn’t play together. We let the dadas carry them into Disneyland.

Very appropriate that this is the first character we ran into.

And then it was off to Sleeping Beauty’s Castle in Fantasyland.

Funny thing about the photo above — I didn’t know this until after I’d posted this photo on Diana’s and Eric’s social networking page and saw the subsequent commentary between Diana and their friends, but apparently, Eric and Diana have an ongoing thing about Eric walking quickly ahead of Diana when they’re out…EXACTLY LIKE MY SITUATION WITH MR. W! At least this day, I had some company. And it gave Alexis someone to wave to.
Dada and daughters in front of the iconic Sleeping Beauty’s Castle!

Mamas and our very excited, very thrilled-looking princesses! =P

Hey, at least they’re both looking forward and not running away.
Our first ride is the first time that both girls rode on Peter Pan’s Flight. Actually, this was Alexis and Diana’s first trip to Disneyland, ever, so that makes 3 newbies on this ride. We let the girls get to know each other at their own pace as they stood in line.

They both enjoyed climbing on the corrals and watching the pirate ships “fly” past. I could feel the hate as parents of older kids behind us had to order their kids to get down and stop climbing, as we just took pictures of how cute we thought our little girls were climbing around and peering in awe at the rides.

Next we rode a flying elephant. There are more photos of the girls gawking through the railings and sticking their feet through the openings, but I’ll spare you those. Both girls enjoyed Dumbo the Flying Elephant ride and posed for a shot on stationary Dumbo on our way out.

The girls did pretty well on the Mad Tea Party’s spinning teacup ride. It’s one of Allie’s favorite rides and she immediately readied herself to spin the wheel.

The girls looking, yet again, wild with excitement and joy.

“It’s a Small World” is Allie’s favorite ride, so we had to take Alexis on it to see how she would react. Allie and Alexis sat in the front row of the gondola with Eric to their right, just the 3 of them, and were perfectly well-behaved. Mr. W, me and Diana sat in the second row behind them. Allie looked around at all the familiar “babies” dancing and sing, and she imitated some of the movements of the Small World characters. Alexis wriggled and danced her way through the ride. She is quite the little dancer. Diana noted that the ride is practically overstimulation with something to see in every direction, music going non-stop, and lasting 15 minutes. After exiting the ride, Eric cautiously picked up both kids. To his surprise, Allie didn’t fight him, and Alexis didn’t fight for exclusivity rights over her daddy. “Hurry up, take a picture, take a picture!” hissed the madly grinning Eric.

It helped that we disembarked while the Small World clock was doing one of its quarter-hour doll parades, which was what a distracted Allie was pointing at.
We were right next to Mickey’s Toontown, so we thought we’d visit an old friend and introduce him to some new ones.

I was hoping for some good photos to choose from, but the Disneyland photographer stationed there only took 1 photo with my camera (this one), and took the rest on their camera, likely so that we have to pay money to get it from them. Well, I guess it was nice of them to give us a freebie on my camera anyway; they didn’t have to.
On the way out of Mickey’s house and barnyard studio, we stopped by Minnie’s backyard (apparently the two are next door neighbors, so he and she really ARE the boy/girl next door) and the girls had a mini tea party.

Then while Diana, Eric and Alexis stood in line to meet Goofy, Allie crashed Goofy’s car into his mailbox. Oops.

“Mama, that mailbox just popped out of nowhere in front of the car.”
I thought their punishment for property damage at Goofy’s house was a little extreme. :/ Good thing Alexis is strong and broke them out of there.

We split up a little after 11am. I drove us home while Mr. W fed Allie lunch in the backseat. Allie took a nice nap in her crib, like our usual Disneyland day routine. Alexis, Diana and Eric went back to their hotel to put Alexis down for her nap as well. After Alexis woke up, they went out for lunch, then walked back to Disneyland and into California Adventure. After Allie woke up, we joined them at California Adventure, where Eric informed us that he’d gotten 2 FastPass tickets for the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, which is my favorite ride at California Adventure. It was a very anti-Diana ride, and she wanted nothing to do with it, so she and Mr. W took the kids to the Rockin’ Rollin’ Dance Party (like a dance club for kids, where they can dance with lots of Disney characters) and Eric and I went on and skipped most of the line with the FastPass. I was happy. 😀 I think Eric enjoyed the ride, as well.
Then our two families split up again, Diana and Eric taking Alexis back to their hotel since she had a very short nap and was getting tired, while we stayed at California Adventure to watch their parade for the first time. Diana promised us it was good, and Allie enjoyed it. I did not expect to get sprayed with water by the parade characters — repeatedly. But it was a hot day afternoon, we’d even changed to into cooler clothes before going back after Allie’s nap, so we dried off quickly.

After the parade we went to their hotel and joined them for their happy hour, where the girls played interactively with each other, following each other around, climbing on the lounge’s furniture, sharing the complimentary food. They also enjoyed the lobby, and their running around and climbing on various (thankfully unoccupied) pieces of furniture pooped them out.

Allie learned three new words that day: Di-Ana, ‘Lexis, and Ewic. <3