Finally! We made it to and from our destination (the farthest from home we’ve ever been with Gianna) with NO tears. Nada. Zip from the car seat. Can I even explain how sweet it is to have memories from a trip as a family where no one was crying? Not her and not me either! YIPEE!!

Ok, enough rejoicing and on to the details. We spontaneously planned a trip over the holiday weekend to visit family in Lucia (quite a few miles south of Big Sur). That’s a 5.5 hour trip from our house on a good day, without holiday traffic and crying baby in tow. So, we decided the only way to make such a long journey enjoyable over only 3 days would be to pack everything up the night before and then leave the house at 2:30 in the morning. I know, we sounded like crazy people even to ourselves.

But it worked! Gianna woke up when I took her out of her crib but she was calm and quiet for the car ride down the hill and into the Sacramento valley. An hour and a half after putting her in the car she fell back asleep and didn’t wake up until 6:30 when we arrived in Monterey. It was mostly thanks to our prior engineering of a blanket wire strung between the two back windows so I could drape it over her car seat and keep the morning sun from waking her too early. And when we stopped in Monterey we were all ready for breakfast and her first words were, “voiture Mama”. And I was like, “Yes, sweetheart you are in the car. Funny huh?” We zipped down the coast after breakfast in record time, making Lucia in just over an hour flat (usually takes 90 min.).

Then we spent the whole day visiting with my aunt who has tremendous views of the coast and introducing Gianna to the Pacific Ocean for the first time. She was hilarious to watch! And, I’m uploading video of it to youtube today so check back tomorrow for that. She just had a blast frolicking in the waves, sifting sand through her fingers, picking up stones and shells and putting them in her bucket and giggling as the waves rushed over her feet and up to her thighs.

After a simply gorgeous day and night in Lucia we headed back to Monterey to visit the aquarium and let Gianna ogle the harbor and all the boats. “Bateau” was officially her favorite word of the trip. And when we thought we would have to contend with a grueling trip home during the daylight hours on Monday, she surprised both of us by sleeping for almost two hours and then happily shopped with us at the outlet mall conveniently half-way through our trip home. We stayed for lunch and then headed back on the road for another 2 hours home. She didn’t cry or get antsy until we were on our street and I think she would have happily rode on if she hadn’t realized we were home.

I’m just amazed at how perfect this trip was! It could have been a total disaster as most of our other, shorter trips have been. Could this be a sign that my little girl is growing up?–She did just turn 17 months this weekend! In any case, I think this is just what I needed to give me a confidence boost for our international travel plans this September.

Now a little photo show of our trip!

The Monterey Aquarium:

On one of our side trips while visiting Fall River, we stumbled into a shop in Shasta City that purported to be a fair-trade art and music store. We snagged a super cute maraca made out of a painted gourd from Peru and a non-toxic set of finger paints and chubby toddler paintbrushes.

A few days after we returned from our trip I invited Gianna’s friend Sara and her mom over to test out the finger paints. To say Gianna had fun would be such an overwhelming understatement. She painted, she blotted, she squatted, she slapped and did every other impressionist through abstract art move to get that paint on paper. She preferred working with the vibrant red and blue colors than the yellow and green which were also on hand and now when she passes the pots of color sitting on the table outside she points and grunts and whines until she’s back on the floor, paintbrush in hand.

Here’s a look at our budding artist’s work!

Sorry for the two week hiatus from my blog life. Sometimes between updating Twitter and Facebook, emailing my family and friends directly and then posting on this website and another for a group of moms I know, it’s gets repetitive and obnoxiously boring. I have to admit that if it weren’t for this blog and how great a record it will be of Gianna’s first years, I wouldn’t even be keeping it up anymore. All my scrapbooking and baby book keeping energy is gone and this is all I can muster. I’m not sure it’s really worth it to keep this site going but since I haven’t made a decision to shut it down, here I am, trying to catch everyone up to speed and make sure I document for Gianna’s sake all the interesting things she’s been doing these days.

One of those interesting things is getting to see her aunt and uncle who live on the Fall River in Northern California. She had a blast riding on their friends’ patio boat, dropping rocks in a small stream and just getting acquainted with the more rustic side of life. Here are some photos (to make it up to you for being absent so long) of our trip:

Their big red barn which I love to photograph in all seasons.

Gianna’s face when Papa set her down in the snow-melt stream.

After her feet went numb she shot me this gangsta kid pose.

Steering the boat with her uncle.

Family time at the wheel.

Curled up against the wind.

Fencing with the river grass.

Signing “bird” over and over again when one caught her fancy.

Gianna in profile. My beautiful baby!

Gianna and I have been bitter embattled foes lately whenever I take her out to run errands. The constant in and out of the car seat, each trip seeming to promise her fun and only ending in the disappointment of further restraint and goal-oriented marching down the street had us fighting, one independent soul against another. And her cute factor meant I did not have the audience approval ratings in my favor.

So, I broke down and bought her a leash. Yes, that is a good handle for my parenting strategy these days. But, all joking aside, this is surely the single best parent tool in the box when it comes to being in a public space with a toddler who likes to roam and doesn’t yet respond to “No!”, “GIANNA!” or any other various words in French or English yelled with increasing levels of distraught panic. I was sold on the cuddly backpack leash as soon as I saw her hugging the box. I figured anything that could be that adorable that she would want to play with it before it was even paid for and unwrapped would have to be magic. And it certainly was.

Being the true genius I am, I decided not to mess with her love of the lion and strapped her into the leash/backpack backwards, with the cuddly lion facing inward and wrapped around her torso rather than on her back. After fastening the tail–ehm, leash–to some other part of the harness she was set to go spinning, chasing her tail of course! She literally walked in circles for the first 10 seconds until she realized Mommy was definitely attached to her new toy too–which may have lessened her panic about being attached to her toy in the first place, now that I think about it. Then, she took off running and I was able to keep her within reach, out of harm’s way, and leaving no more than minimal destructo damage in our wake. Best $13 I’ve ever spent!

All smiles with her new “toy”, wink wink:

Hugs for lions!

Mommy’s ingenius idea to put it on backwards: