RT continued

Yesterday Victor not only grabbed his toy bird from me (which he has done before) but held on to it and brought it up to his mouth to test out various parts of it! That's the first time he has brought a toy up to his mouth to try and eat it. He wasn't too impressed, but it was something new :) His favorite toys right now are his feet and his reflection. His favorite snacks are still his hands and blankets.

So roadtrip. Friday morning we got a late start because we did most of our packing then. We left around 11, determined to make it through LA as quickly and painlessly as possible. It wasn't too bad, considering. We made it up along the 101 before we stopped in the afternoon. We randomly picked an exit, and it turned out to be a cute little town called Summerville with a small park overlooking the ocean! Picnic time! I thought it looked like there were big pirate ships out in the water, but they turned out to be a series of oil rigs. It was a nice little stop, except a train came by right next to the park and scared poor Victor silly with its loud horn. 20 minutes down the road, we were at our hotel! We stayed in a nice little place with a lagoon in the middle filled with water lillies and turtles swimming around. For dinner we ventured in to downtown Santa Barbara, which was a very nice place with lots of upscale stores all along the street. Damian carried Victor in his baby carrier because we didn't bring the stroller, and it's a good way to keep Victor entertained enough to fall asleep again later (after sleeping all day in the car). Not that Victor didn't fall asleep in the restaurant, but it still kept him pretty amused.

Saturday we got an early start, thanks to the little man. I think this is the first time Damian and I have stayed in a hotel and NOT done the late check out ;) We cut out from the 101 and ventured on to Rt. 1, which is a bumpy little two lane road--trust me, very small after the 10 lanes you get in LA! This is the scenic route up the coast. We passed a few small beach towns, but there's a whole lot of nothing out there--again, nice after the endless suburbia of SoCal and the endlessness in general of LA! One town we stopped at Damian called "spillover from a sleepy little beach town." It made even his hometown look big! But it was a weird little tourist place with a 70's kind of vibe. Further up the road we stopped at a resort with a little rest area. This was kind of getting in to the national park zone. Damian had even checked it out online while we were researching hotels--those rooms went for $1500 a pop, easily. It did have some nice views up and down the coast as it was up on a cliff. Looking at the winding roads was a bit intimidating! We took Damian's truck and took it pretty slow, though, and did all right. Fortunately traffic was light enough that we didn't have to pull over to let other people by very often. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous. The water was blue and sparkling but shallow so you could see all sorts of rocks and things. We were up on a cliff a lot, but the water was pretty shallow--except for these random huge rocks that popped up just off the shore all over the place. Once we got up in to the Big Sur park we actually had some streches of big trees--small redwoods, I think, in some places. I was surprised that there were several homes in these backwoods areas and national parks, but I guess I shouldn't have been since my own in-laws live in the Adirondacks ;) We made it all up the coast to Monterey and stayed in a town just past it. We were too tired to go back there to look at the fancy downtowns, so we got pizza and went to bed early, which was just as nice! :)

To be continued, my little munchkin just woke up with hiccups! Poor baby!

Roadtrippin

We had a lot of fun! We planned out our driving to be about 5 hours a day plus breaks, and I think it worked out really well. Victor slept for most of it, and it seemed about all he needed. He usually falls back to sleep in the morning anyways, so we tried to do most of our driving in the mornings. We made sure to take a break when he woke up--feeding him and walking him around and stuff. We brought stuff for sandwiches so we could feed ourselves, too :) When he was awake, though, we had some annoyances. Lately he has been categorically refusing pacifiers--he's always been picky about when he will accept them, and it seems he no longer wants to accept them at all. So if he would start getting fussy while we were driving, one of us (usually me since Damian was driving) would have to reach around to the back seat and either jiggle his toys around or stick a finger in his mouth. Yes, he still likes the taste of flesh and fabric the best. His favorite part of the trip was a bit odd. In two out of the three hotels we stayed in there was a light switch plate next to a wall mounted hair dryer, and apparently they were HILARIOUS because when we were carrying Victor around and he saw them he would get huge grins on his face and let out these squeals and shrieks that I think are precursors to laughter. He's been doing that more frequently anyways but for some reason these were especially hilarious. The other thing he's been doing more often is grabbing his feet. He used to kick his legs around because he was still figuring out how things worked, now he does it because he wants to grab his toes, especially during diaper changes, of course.

Uh oh, Mr. Fussypants is waking up (he's had a rough couple of days, tummy-wise), I'll have to continue this later...

Iron Baby

Yay, we finally got to see Iron Man 2! And thanks for calling it Parent Movie Morning instead of something non-pc like Mommy & Me Movies or something (you know who you are) because Damian was able to come, too! Poor guy had to get up extra early and probably will have to stay late (and its his class night, too) but it was worth it. Victor enjoyed it, too--he was actually awake for parts of it and sat on Damian's lap contentedly watching away. I'm just annoyed that they promise lower sound levels but I don't think they follow through because dang it was loud! Good movie, though!

This weekend we're going to take our first family road trip! We're going up north in pieces. We won't get as far as San Francisco because we don't really have time to do it justice plus it means looooong days of driving instead of just long days. Should be fun though! We're going to try and meet up with some of my cousins, too. Damian's taking the day off Friday so we'll leave then and be back Monday. We'll take lots of pictures!

Movie Experiment

Victor playing with his little play set this morning. I'm experimenting with the video stuff here, we'll see how well it works! I hope there's sound, too. It's short because I had to stay within the size limit. It's from my camera instead of the video camera because I haven't figured out the fancy one yet :)

Did I mention

How adorable he is in his baby carrier? Here's a hint. Now imagine him with an adorable little tropical print bucket hat and his little pink tongue going in and out and try not to pass out from the cuteness overload.

Just a tip

If you want to seduce an old person, wear a baby in a baby carrier. Just sayin'. I took Victor to the outlet mall today because I needed a particular item, and he was awake so I put him in his little baby carrier (facing out again!) and put his little tropical bucket hat on him, and he was soooo cute! I got smiles and stares from people all over! He makes a great distraction from unbrushed hair and unshaved legs, that's for sure :) He liked it, too, he just chilled out and licked the front of the carrier the whole time. That's his current favorite thing, licking fabric, be it towels, shirts, blankets, or the baby carrier. Oh yes, and his hands, and my arm or hands. Sometimes when I feel liquid running down my arm it's not spitup, it's drool. I still can't get him to lick or chew his toys, of course. Even though we tried to stay in the shade as much as possible, I think all that sunshine wore him out because he's passed out in his car seat still.

I'm pleased to say that Victor seems much happier this week! He hasn't had one of his meltdowns yet, and he's started talking and cooing again and smiling much more than he was last week. And he's been sleeping so well in his crib in his own room that we took the pack 'n play down! It's so funny, I can't get him to take a nap in his crib for longer than 30 minutes during the day (where at the same time he can sleep on me for hours) but as soon as we put him down at night he falls asleep pretty quickly and stays that way for 6-8 hours at a time. Yay Victor! I don't know how long it will last but I'm certainly enjoying it for as long as it does :)

Standing Tall

For those of you who didn't believe me when I said that Victor can stand by himself when I put him up on the front of the futon! He only lasts for a little bit, but we're working on it--we're going to go ahead and skip that whole wimpy crawling phase!