We were up at 5:45 with Nora on both Saturday and Sunday (time zone change FTW! ugh), but this morning we were up even earlier… to an alarm. Blah. But we wanted to hit the road by 6:30 a.m. to get up to Anaheim without hitting much traffic. We got ready, packed things up, woke up Nora, and got on the road. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we were really excited to get up to Disneyland and get the magic started.
We arrived in Anaheim earlier than anticipated (thank you, carpool lanes!), at about 8:15 (Disney doesn’t open until 10 a.m. this time of year). We used the extra time to stop into a store for a little breakfast, and also to check into our hotel! It was really nice that they had a room ready for us, despite being so early in the day. On our way out again, we were able to purchase our Disney tickets right in the hotel lobby, which was fantastic.
We hit a little traffic getting into the parking garage at Disneyland, but before we knew it, we were on the tram and heading to the parks. I fixed Nora’s hair for her on the way. :)
As we were walking up to the gates, I was actually overcome with emotion and got a little teary eyed! I don’t know what it was, but you could sort of hear the music and it was sunny and there were people everywhere… it just seemed really special to be doing this with our little girl.
Once in the park, Nora was still a bit clingy, so we tried to start things off slow. We went on the Finding Nemo “ride,” which was nothing spectacular, but is a movie that she was quite obsessed with during the week or two following Christmas, so she is familiar with the story and the characters. There were actually a few parts that freaked her out a bit, so she turned her face into my neck, but overall she did really well. When it was over, she kept saying, “Bye bye, ‘Mo!” (Bye, Nemo!)
Located really close to Nemo was a car ride called “Autopia.” Nora spotted it and seemed interested, so we decided to check it out. The wait was longer than some of the other rides—25 minutes—but our girl stuck it out.
Nora rode with me and Michael got his own car. It was a slow-moving driving ride, but you did have SOME control of the steering. Still, it was hard for me to steer and hold onto Nora, so we were kind of thrashing around a little bit. To my surprise, Nora LOVED this. Every time we hit the “guide” and it bumped us around a bit, she laughed HYSTERICALLY. So at some point I said to hell with steering, and just held her and laughed along with her for the entirety of the ride. She was having the time of her life.
After that we made our way to the back of the park to hit up Toon Town.
We figured there would be a collection of age-appropriate rides there, but there really wasn’t. Of course, it’s cute though, with little cars and “buildings” to explore.
We went on the Roger Rabbit ride in Toon Town, and I thought Nora would like it since it twists and turns. But it was also quite dark and had some “scary” sounds and imagery, so she spent most of it tucked into my side, not saying or doing much of anything. I think she was ready to be done with that one by the time it was over!
It was such a beautiful Southern California day! FINALLY!
There was a little playground area that Nora quite enjoyed. All I could think was, “Wait: We came to Disneyland for a SLIDE?!” :) But it had been a while since she’d been on a playground so we let her be for a little bit. She was having fun, after all.
(In case anyone is wondering, I still have never cut her hair. She has something weird going on up front (and sort of off to her left side, if you can see) right now. It’s like it all fell out or it’s new growth or something? It’s hard for me to tell, but it seems to be growing out and will hopefully catch up in length soon—or will at least be long enough to pull back again, anyway. For now it just looks like she intentionally has bangs, which I guess there is nothing wrong with! Baby/toddler hair growth is just so strange!)
We eventually got her away from the playground successfully by promising more rides, so we next waited in line for the Dumbo ride. It was another 25 minute wait, but again, she did pretty well.
And again, she loved the ride. By then, we were hungry so we decided to take a breather with some lunch. Yummmm, pizza! (Coupled with some Daniel Tiger watching. Gotta love it.)
After lunch we went on more rides, including the train and the carousel.
Nora wasn’t too happy to get off of the “horsies,” though. She probably would’ve ridden the carousel all day! That explains her pouty face in this pic of us with the castle.
As we were making our way back to the front of the park, we stumbled upon Pixie Hollow. Nora’s latest movie obsession has been with Tinkerbell (poor Jay endured several viewings of the Tinkerbell movies just in the last couple of days!) so we wanted to take her through. We discovered, however, that you can’t really go into Pixie Hollow unless you are doing a character encounter.
Before our trip, we originally planned to go to Ariel’s Grotto for lunch so we could do the built-in encounter with all of the princesses, but given Nora’s unpredictable behavior in restaurants so far this trip, and her shyness, we ultimately decided against it for this trip. We didn’t want to sink a bunch of money into the princess lunch if she wasn’t going to like the princesses, wasn’t going to eat, was going to throw a fit, etc. It was too much of a risk and too much stress so we nixed it and had the simple take-out meal of pizza that you saw a bit ago.
But, with Pixie Hollow, we decided to give it a whirl. We figured that since Tinkerbell has been her favorite as of late, maybe she would do well with it. And then we found out Tinkerbell wasn’t there today. It was Periwinkle and Terrence. Lucky for us, Periwinkle is Tink’s sister and is in the Secret of the Wings movie that Nora likes. We asked her if she wanted to go see Periwinkle and she said yes. So in the line we went.
When it was finally our turn… she shocked us and did GREAT!
She was still shy, of course, but she immediately got this magical little look on her face like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. And underneath it all, a little smile. GAHHHH, so cute.
Periwinkle asked Nora some questions, and she actually (very quietly) responded to some of them. And then Periwinkle showed Nora her shoes and her wings. Nora = won over.
As we were walking from Periwinkle to Terrence, we showed Nora the “snow machine” that is in the movie.
And then we got to Terrence. Poor Terrence. Nora didn’t want anything to do with him. In all fairness, she had only seen the Tinkerbell movie featuring Terrence once or twice, actually on Netflix at Jay’s house in the last few days. We were getting SO.SICK of Secret of the Wings, and discovered the other Tinkerbell movies on instant streaming. Anyway, I think it was a combination of the fact that she wasn’t as familiar with him AND that he’s a guy. She wasn’t into him. He couldn’t win her over, even with his talk of pixie dust. We took a quick pic for posterity and then we were on our way.
That was it for our character encounters. Of course, now I wonder if she actually would’ve been OK with the princesses at lunch, but oh well. We need something to look forward to when we make our trip down to Florida for Disneyworld in a few years. By then she’ll be old enough to understand it better anyway. I was just so proud of her for doing as well as she did with Periwinkle!
After that, it was mid-afternoon and we still hadn’t made our way over to California Adventureland. So we began walking in that direction, and Nora was starting to lose her cool with no nap. Just like at the zoo, we cajoled her into the stroller and laid her down flat, at which point she cried a bit. But UNLIKE the zoo, she did actually pass out. THANK GOODNESS, because after all of that excitement, she certainly needed a little rest.
While she slept, we walked around Adventureland to get the lay of the land and figure out which rides were appropriate for Nora so we were prepared when she woke up. She only ended up napping for about half an hour (during which time Michael and I also enjoyed a churro and a lemonade, ha!).
We were soon back on track with sightseeing and rides with our girl. Nora LOVED the rides over at Adventureland. It seemed like there were more rides that catered to her age group, the rides were closer together, and the lines were definitely SHORTER. I’m glad we ended up doing the Park Hopper passes because it was worth it to be able to spend some time here!
Her favorite ride was a Tow-Mater ride (from Cars). You sit in a car (well, a tow truck) and it spins around and whips you from side to side and she was LOVING it. We actually went on it twice in a row because she was having the time of her life.
Once the sun went down, it started to get COLD. By then we had hit all of the rides for Nora’s age, so we started heading back to Disneyland so we could maybe grab some dinner and be set up in time for the parade at 7:00.
At Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port, we grabbed a plate of spaghetti and meatballs and a side salad to share, and warmed up inside of the restaurant for a little bit. Then it was back out into the cold for one last ride of the Astro Orbiter, and then to Main Street for the parade.
There’s the elusive Tink! ;)
We were situated at the beginning of the parade route, so once it had all passed us, we began walking quickly down Main Street to get back toward the entrance to get out of there. It wasn’t quite 8 p.m., but it had been a very full day. We stopped at a little shop on the way out to get our girl a souvenir… Minnie ears. :) She wore them (with the tag still on!) the whole way back to the tram, on the tram, in the car, and back at the hotel until we made her take them off for bed.
Doesn’t she look exhausted, but also happy at the same time? I think we showed her a good day.
Happiness all around.
We woke up again to overcast skies, but the forecast was much better than it was on Friday and Saturday. Since the plan is to head up to Anaheim tomorrow, we wanted to take advantage of the day and hit up the San Diego Zoo. We figured we didn’t need a beautiful day to check out some cool animals!
We opened the zoo at 10 a.m., arriving to a mostly empty parking lot and quiet pathways. Jay said that he has never seen the zoo that empty, but then again, he’d never been that early before. :)
It was a bit chilly so we grabbed some coffee/hot chocolate at one of the vendors and we set out to explore the zoo. One thing is for sure: It is a big, nice zoo. The following is really only a sampling of what we saw.
This guy was definitely “grooming” his mate there (it looked like he was eating bugs off of him), but it resembled the act of kissing him/her on the head so it was really quite cute! And fascinating.
Maybe it was the time of day, or perhaps the cool weather, but a lot of the animals were sleeping during our trip. Lazy bums! Especially all of the pandas. The red pandas, the “regular” pandas—the cute little baby, too!
Giraffes are really freaking cool. Apparently there are times when you can actually feed them, but they weren’t offering it when we were there. Next time!
When Nora seemed extra cranky, we tried to force a nap in the stroller, but she was NOT having it. So if you happened to be at the San Diego Zoo today and heard a child screaming bloody murder while her mother nonchalantly pushed a stroller around… I’m sorry. It was one of those situations when she didn’t know what she needed… but I DID. *sigh* Toddlers. Instead, we pushed our way through the rest of the zoo knowing that we’d have to get her back home for a snooze.
Oh, and a funny part about the stroller-nap catastrophe. Nora was periodically yelling “OUT!” but it sounded suspiciously like “OUCH!” (I really looked like Mother of the Year, here.) A lady looks at me with concern and goes, “Ouch??” and I was like, “No, OUT.” *cue gleaming smile while my child screams* Ah, so fun.
Jay is a member of the zoo and told us before we went that his favorite animal is the meerkat. Well, go figure, but Nora loved the meerkats, too! She was thrilled by them, we stood and watched them for quite some time.
We spent a good 3.5 hours there before we called it quits. The sun came out, too! We thought about grabbing lunch before we left, but given Nora’s sleepiness and her lunchtime performance at Karl Strauss yesterday, we decided instead to get some takeout on the way back to Jay’s. We got to enjoy lunch in peace and then put Nora down for a nap. We went to a place called Grant’s, which is basically a little deli/store. My sandwich was delicious, so it was a good decision all around!
During Nora’s nap, Jay took me to the airport to pick up our rental car for our trip tomorrow up to Anaheim (and then on to L.A.). I freaking hate rental car companies, by the way. I had to wait in line for 30-40 minutes just to get to an attendant, and then he was a pushy salesman who wouldn’t take no for an answer on anything without a hard fight on my part. Just shut up and give me the car keys, man. But I digress.
When Nora was awake again and we headed back out, we went to Seaport Village to walk around. It was a bit chilly down by the water but it was a nice evening.
There’s a guy down there that apparently stacks rocks into different formations every single day. Pretty impressive.
We told Nora that riding up on Daddy’s shoulders made her tall like a giraffe. She was pleased. :)
We ended up grabbing dinner at a place that was located OVER the water. I didn’t even bother to know what the place was called, actually. None of us were particularly hungry—still full from lunch—so we ordered a few appetizers to split and even that was too much. What we had was good but nothing to write home about.
On the way back to Jay’s, we stopped by to see his new office space that he’s leasing for his company. Nora ran around there for a bit and then we came back to put her to bed! Another California day in the books. Tomorrow… Disney!
More rain. Boo. But trying not to complain too much because again, I know what we left back home. Added to the rain this morning was a dense fog, so San Diego has certainly not been looking as pretty as it should!
We kind of sat around for a bit this morning wondering what to do. Jay was almost at a little bit of a loss because basically everything in San Diego involves being outdoors in one way or another. Jay joked that even their shopping malls are outside.
We decided to head up to Birch Aquarium, hoping that during our time indoors, the rain would pass and the fog would burn off.
It was a cool little aquarium, but for the record, Shedd Aquarium in Chicago remains my favorite of all time. :) That guy above is a sea dragon. Weird.
In addition to the indoor stuff, Birch also had a few outdoor areas that Nora got a kick out of as well.
…except the “touch” part. She had no interest whatsoever in touching any of it. Ha!
Forcing a laugh out of her. She was still moping about not wanting to touch anything.
Apparently we were supposed to be able to see the ocean from here. Um, not happening. Thanks for nothing, fog!
The weather had obviously not improved much, but we decided to take a ride to La Jolla and check out Seal Beach and grab some lunch nearby.
Seal Beach was pretty cool. Nora kept yelling at them repeatedly, “Wake up!” or “Awake!” They were not cooperating. Lazy bastards. ;)
A few of them came up out of the water while we were standing there, which was cool. Those poor things, it looks like such a huge struggle to move with those short arms (well, fins?) and big bodies!
From there we decided to grab lunch at a brewery/restaurant called Karl Strauss. Good stuff. Michael and I had really good salads (and Michael had a flight of beer samples, I was so sad I couldn’t partake!), and Jay had some crazy good macaroni and cheese dish that had ham and bacon in it.
The kids menu was cute, too. We ordered Nora macaroni and cheese, which she enjoyed for a few minutes… until two pieces fell from her spoon and hit the floor.
A total meltdown ensued. It was reminiscent of our experience the day before on the plane, with LOUD screaming. I plucked her from her seat and took her outside, only to have her hit me out there. NOT COOL, kid. NOT COOL. So I had no choice but to leave our half-eaten lunches on the table and drag her back to the car, where I put her in her car seat for timeout.
To be fair, by this time, we were past naptime, she was clearly tired (and jet lagged). But still, really frustrating. She eventually did calm down and tell me she was sorry. I asked her if she was ready to go back to the restaurant and be a good girl and she said yes, but alas, as we headed back to the restaurant, Michael and Jay were already on the way to the car—with the rest of my lunch in a box. *sigh* Oh well.
Back to Jay’s place we went to put Miss Sass down for a nap. I ate the rest of my salad AND the rest of Nora’s macaroni and cheese. It was delicious. Her loss! :) We laid low and watched a movie during her snooze, then when she was up, we let her have yogurt as a snack. No dining chairs/table at this bachelor pad = eating while standing up. She’s getting good at it.
The weather was still gloomy but wasn’t raining anymore, so we decided to go up to Old Town to walk around a bit and then grab some dinner.
I can’t tell you how tempting it was to buy Nora one of these little ukeleles. Especially after she showed an interest in one. But alas… willpower kept us moving on.
There were some cool shops and stuff that we wandered.
We went to Coyote Cafe for some Mexican food for dinner, where I learned that I am not completely over my Mexican food aversions from early pregnancy. Ughhhh. I freaking love Mexican food, why do you have to mess with me, baby?? Nora had another mood swing (no tantrum, just a lot of pouting) toward the end of dinner, and refused to take even one bite of a cheese quesadilla, which is basically unheard of for her. I even tried to bribe her with a rice krispie treat, which didn’t even work. She has been challenging to say the least.
We called it a night to get the once-again-crabby girl into bed. More tomorrow!
Our morning (and therefore our vacation, woohoo!) started with an early flight that was taking us all the way to Phoenix—which was FIVE HOURS. To say I was nervous about this with a 2 year old would be an understatement.
While we waited for our flight to board, Michael kept Nora busy by riding the people-movers… over, and over, and over again.
Since this was the first time that we’ve ever bought Nora her own seat, we decided to bring her car seat on board with us to strap her in—both to control her wiggly ways, and also with the hope that she would fall asleep since it was familiar to her. Um, no.
First of all, the car seat gave her excellent access to kick (repeatedly) the seat in front of her. With an older gentleman in it, who—thankfully—looked like he slept peacefully through most of it. But after a while he was awake again and I couldn’t take the stress, so mid-flight, I uninstalled her car seat and turned it so it was rear-facing. That way, the only seat she could be kicking was her own.
Unfortunately, movies did not hold her attention the same way they have during road trips in the past, and apps and other activities—stickers, coloring, EATING—could only do so much. I swear, we fed the kid nearly the entire five hours. She ate snack after snack after snack.
All of this effort and methods of distraction were no match for five hours in the seat, though. She had a COMPLETE.FREAKING.MELTDOWN about three hours into it. We were those parents. At first we did everything to try to calm her, but she kept at it, screaming even louder in some cases, so I eventually gave up, put her on the floor at my feet (she was standing), and LET her hit me repeatedly. Of course, she NEVER would have gotten away with this at home, but at 20,000 feet, what exactly was I supposed to do? There is no “time out” on a Southwest Airlines plane. It probably lasted all of five or maybe 10 minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Coincidentally (or not), this was right around the time she would’ve been due for a nap… which she wouldn’t take.
Mercifully, we made it to Phoenix without much more issue. Nora was good in the airport (we were no longer packed into seats like sardines, so I can see why), and although our flight to San Diego was delayed a half hour or so, it wasn’t long before we were on our way again. For the one-hour flight, we gave up on the car seat and gate checked it. Muuuuch better. I still don’t know that we’ll make it through five hours like that (how on earth we are going to survive the five hours back, I don’t even know), but the car seat certainly didn’t work, so we’ll give it a whirl. Can’t get any worse, I don’t think (BUT OHMYGOD KNOCK ON WOOD PLEASE DON’T LET IT GET WORSE).
She never did nap.
Once in San Diego? ANGEL. We got her loaded into our friend’s car and within two minutes of pulling away from the curb at the airport, she was out like a light.
We arrived in San Diego to RAIN… like, a lot of rain. Jay said that today was one of the Top 5 worst days he has seen since he moved to the city. Go figure. But still, it is like 60 degrees, which feels amazing compared to the 12 degrees we left this morning.
We went back to Jay’s house and got settled in, then went out to pick up a pack ‘n’ play for Nora from the rental place. From there, we swung by a local pizza joint called Luigi’s and got a few slices each. Nora hounded an entire slice all by herself.
Not much else on the agenda for the evening, since it already feels way later than it is… time zone changes, whew. When we put Nora to bed, she fell asleep in record time. I won’t be far behind. Weather still looks iffy for tomorrow, so we’ll see what it brings.
First of all, thank you for all of the congratulations on the big “announcement” yesterday. I figured I’d stay true to the way I first revealed my pregnancy with Nora, and let the ultrasound do the talking.
Many of you were insightful and apparently had hunches that I might be expecting another baby. And truth be told, my pregnancy is a MAJOR reason why I’ve been so quiet on the blog the past few months. This baby has sucked the life out of me. Seriously, first trimester was awful. I know women who have had it way worse, of course, but it was just so much different than my pregnancy with Nora. Back then, I felt more tired than usual, and I had a LITTLE bit of yucky feeling and food aversions, but it was NOTHING compared to this time. Up until a week or two ago, I had a very, VERY short list of foods that I could handle thinking about, let alone EATING. I’m still not completely out of the woods, as I found myself gagging when putting dinner into the crockpot the other night. But hey! I was actually making dinner, which is a huge improvement over where I was a few short weeks ago.
We found out about the soon-to-arrive addition to our family the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Due to the holiday weekend, I had enjoyed a good bit of wine on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, so at least I had my fill before I had to give up the good stuff. :) I was really expecting the test to be negative, and then… holy crap.
I had all of the same fears about first trimester this time around, so we kept it pretty quiet until we went in for the NT scan yesterday at 12 weeks (well, 12 weeks, 2 days if you want to get all technical). The due date is August 6. Nora and her baby brother or sister will be just under three years apart.
Speaking of Nora, whenever I ask her if I have a baby in my belly she replies, steadfastly, “Noooooo.” On a related note, my friend’s 2-year-old boy goes to daycare with Nora and he has taken to running over to me and giving me hugs when I walk in to pick up Nora, and although Nora tolerates it to an extent, she always is sure to say, “MY mama!”
I think she might have a hard time coming to terms with sharing me.
But alas, every time we ask her if she’s having a brother or a sister, she says “sister” in her own little way. Don’t get too excited about that, though, because when asked if it’s a boy or a girl, she has been known to say, “boy.” The kid is no help. Patience, though… we will find out in the delivery room. That’s right—we are planning another surprise this time. It was a lot of fun when I was pregnant with Nora, so we are excited to experience the surprise all over again.
With blogging, I always feel like my inspiration and my drive to write is hindered when I am keeping a secret like this. I felt the same way when I was in my first trimester with Nora—if I can’t write what I am experiencing at the time, it feels like I can’t write about anything. That, combined with the sickness and exhaustion (oh, and the hustle and bustle of the holidays), kept me away from this space. Hopefully I can slowly and surely get myself back here more often.
I’m hoping to start weekly pregnancy updates at some point, but it still feels too soon. I still LOVE looking back on those posts from my pregnancy with Nora, so I want to chronicle this experience in the same way. I think I started at 16 weeks with Nora, so I’ll aim for that again here—unless my belly suddenly pops out in a way that is too big to continue to ignore. :)
We are on our way to becoming the parents of TWO children. A family of FOUR.
It’s a wild ride. We’re pretty excited about it.
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
