A few weeks ago I found out a friend was taking her son to Disney for the long President's Day weekend. I invited myself along because she is one of my best friends here, and Lily LOVES her son. The initial plan was that I would only come up for Friday and Saturday nights. Then I found out Lily's preschool was closed on Monday, so we added an extra night to our stay, and that made it so that we could all ride up together.
Lily and I spent most of our time at our resort or around Orlando, and didn't go into the parks with our friends - the point was that each of us wanted time alone with our child, but we had some fun together time each morning. Plus, we wanted to wait to do parks again when we had Daddy with us.
Saturday morning we ate breakfast and went to Downtown Disney with our friends. She was only 9 months last time we were there, so I'm sure she didn't remember anything. She loved having lunch at Rainforest Cafe and making monkey and elephant noises. Then she and I spent the afternoon together - playing in the ginormous whirlpool bathtub, watching Sesame Street on Netflix, and eating dinner at O'Charleys - they don't have one in Fort Myers :(
Sunday morning we went swimming with our friends - we had a freak cold spell in Florida and it was only in the 70's, but we handled swimming for a little while because the pools were heated. Then Lily and I played in the bathtub again, went shopping at Walmart, and ate dinner at O'Charleys again. Lily was obsessed with dipping and she loved the cheese wedges, so we had to go back while we had the chance. Then we watched Thumbelina together and she fell asleep somewhere in the last 15 minutes of the movie.
Lily is normally a great sleeper. She has slept through the night every night since she was 8 weeks, and has only woken up a night or two each time she has a tooth come in. But, for some reason, she woke up on both Saturday and Sunday nights. She wasn't crying or upset, but I woke up at midnight each night to find her wide-eyed staring at me. Then she would want to snuggle and say "mommy" over and over for an hour each time before she finally fell back asleep. It was actually really sweet. But, it definitely wasn't a restful trip because of that, and the feather pillows (which I hate and am also allergic to).
While I packed up everything Monday morning she lined up a couple pair of shoes on the coffee table and then kept grabbing more shoes from her bag to add to them - that will teach me to take 7 pairs of her shoes on vacation again. Side note: I almost bought a Minnie Mouse pair of sandals for her when we arrived and then put them back when I remembered that I had just counted her shoes and she already had 16 pair.
We had a really great moment Monday morning, which was one of my favorite parts of the trip. She was sitting on the top of the car and I was standing in front of her on the curb, so we were at equal eye level, and we were waiting for our friends to come down from their hotel room. She was pointing out different things to me like fountains, airplanes, and flowers. She would turn my face to look, and then she'd give me a little kiss. She also gave me a bunch of hugs. It was just a really sweet moment for us.
After we got back on Monday we ate lunch at Bajio, where she got to dip more food. If there is a dipping sauce anywhere, you can bet she will start yelling "dip!" no matter what it is. Then we went home and she colored a "miss you" card for her Daddy. Side note #2: it was really hard for me to find an appropriate card - didn't realize so many cards had gotten so vulgar. She colored her greeting card and then lined up and re-lined up her crayons in different orders (obviously this type of behavior is a trend for her right now). I know she really missed her Daddy because I heard a whole lot of "Daddy go?" while we were gone.
Since I was trying to spend as much quality time as possible with Lily, I didn't even bother to bring a camera, so any I took were quick ones from my cell phone.
Riding in the car - she loved having her friend in the back seat with her. She got to ride forward facing for the trip, so we could fit a person in the front passenger seat, and I did not have a heart attack! But she will be rear facing again this weekend (sigh of relief).
Coloring at breakfast:
Loving her new Minnie Mouse bracelets:
Downtown Disney is so much fun:
Rainforest Cafe:
Wearing here Belle dress that she got for Christmas from her aunt Jodi:
Lunch with Mommy once we got back to Fort Myers:
It was really hard to go back to work on Tuesday, because we had so much fun just spending time together. I'm so glad this afternoon starts a new weekend!!!
