Road Trips and new tricks

Fidget has survived her first major roadtrip. We left at 4:15 a.m. on Wednesday, headed for Myrtle Beach. The trip down only took 14 hours, and Miss Fidget handled it like a champ. She did very well considering that she was harnessed into her car seat for so long. However, I'm already eating my pre-parenting words: "We will not use the DVD player." I gave in on this trip. Fidget did get a little fussy at one point while I was driving (terrible rain, cars completely stopped on 95, and fussy Fidget created some extra tension), so MAC put in The Little Mermaid and that helped get us through the rough patch. And she LOVES Under the Sea! Later when he took back over driving, I popped in her Baby Signs DVD (she won't normally watch it at home), and we learned some new signs. So, at least I feel justified that it was educational!

We had a nice visit with MAC's parents and their friends. Fidget had a great time playing at their house, though she didn't quite understand why their cat wouldn't tolerate her like her cat at home does. And it seems her favorite toy at her grandparents is a dish towel. She had one in her hands every chance she got. She dusted with it, cleaned the floors, wore it as a cape, played peek-a-boo... She had so much fun that we should have left the bags of toys we packed at home!

Fidget loved Thanksgiving...especially the stuffing!!! OH, and a close second on the favorites list was Mom's Doberge cake Dad had delivered all the way from New Orleans for her birthday! (Dad, can you get me one of those for my birthday next year? It was yummers!

We came home Saturday, hoping to miss some of the holiday traffic on Sunday. We took two back road detours (around D.C. and in N.J.) to avoid stand-still traffic, and we did take a couple of longer breaks than we did going down. Fidget was a little fussier Saturday morning, so we wanted to give her more breaks to run around to give her a little relief from the car seat. Although our detours only added 20 miles to the trip, the travel time for the return trip was over 17 hours! Yowser! And eventhough she had her moments of fussiness, and she pulled her famous trick of fighting sleep...Fidget really handled it like a champ!

As you can imagine, Sunday was a great day for her...no car seats! She had a blast playing at home, and she even had a couple of new tricks to show us. She's always bopped along to music when she hears it, but now she's actually beginning to dance a little more. She'll wave her arms and hands and wiggle her shoulders and hips a little. She bounces her knees a little more, but best of all...she's started twirling in circles! She actually did a double turn last night and then stopped and stumbled around from being a little dizzy!

Well...she's telling me now that it's time for her to eat. She's very ready to try her first pot roast!

And this post has been sitting as a draft for a couple of days. I forgot to come back and publish it!