Ta da! I'm back! I have a new laptop, so this should be a whole lot easier than me trying to update from my phone with a yelling Claire in the background saying, "Play with Mommy's iPhone, please?"
So the Christmas trip went swimmingly! We flew down to Jacksonville on December 19th, and spent a few days with my parents. Claire was very excited to see everyone - which is a vast improvement over her being terrified of my Dad's beard. I'd say that "Gammie," "Poppy," and "Uncle Sef" enjoyed their time with the munchkin and seemed pretty sad to see us go. Uncle Seth got Claire a super cool Astronaut suit, which Claire was terrified of at first. After we went to Nana Jan's house in North Palm Beach, though, she loved it! Grammie and Poppy got Claire a Kid Camera (VTech Kidzoom). Talk about a hit! We now have hundreds of pictures of blurry Claire legs. She is in love!
So, the big hit with Daddy. My mom got EVERYONE this helicopter that can be flown around - inside. Bryce was seriously so amazed by it, he went out the next day (literally) and bought one for himself. And broke it within hours. (side note, we took it back and found out that the possession of the aircraft was user error - first on, last off when it comes to Remote Control). But it wasn't too hard to fix - just a bruised ego and a $4 piece of plastic.
I gave my parents a new coffee table. Or, at least, I tried. It came in before we got there, and was damaged. Not sealed properly, and gouges galore. We got the company to make it good, and my parents got a new one delivered - it was screwed up, too. So, total refund of monies, and I'm back in the coffee table hunt. We will make this good, darn it!
We didn't get to see any friends in Gainesville this time around. Audra was sick, Lorrie was not in town yet, and no one else was coming in until the weekend. *insert sad face here*
We drove down to North Palm Beach on Thursday, the 22nd. Wow. The drivers were absolutely terrible. Freaking awful. So many people sitting in the fast lane going way under the speed limit, while everyone had to pass them in the SLOW lane. And then, someone wasn't paying attention (and didn't seem to give a crap), and ran us onto the shoulder. They were going extra slow in the passing lane, realized they needed to get over two lanes, and just did. Without looking at who was in the lane. And we were driving a boat of a rental car. I can't figure out how they could've missed us.
We got to see Grandpa Gary in Ocala at Cracker Barrel. Claire was a little shy, but eventually warmed up. He has the Grandaddy of all RVs. That thing is huge and fancy! Claire got a Beanie Ball Bumblebee which she loved on the entire trip down to North Palm Beach. She loves editions to her stuffed animal collection!
We got to North Palm Beach and went out to dinner. Claire was so darned exhausted that she was in her unreasonable state. Nothing could please her, nothing was good enough. So all during dinner, Bryce and I took turns going in and out of the restaurant, observing the fountain, the stars, the rocks, the Christmas lights. She even loved the squishy fake grapes on the polls outside the restaurant. On reentering the restaurant, however, her obsession with Christmas trees ended up with an ornament tragedy. Apparently, nice trendy restaurants in North Palm use CRYSTAL freaking ornaments on their trees, all within little kid grasp. So, a certain curious monkey touched a blue fishy ornament, and CRASH! Tinkle, Tinkle! Dun, dun, dun. The restaurant was awesome about it - I apologized, (I made) Claire apologize, but they were more worried that Claire didn't get cut by the glass. Pretty cool.
Friday, Claire got to ride the carousel with Auntie Shana and Nana. And then rode the Tot Train! She loved it! Of course, she had to wave to me every time the carousel went by my location. It was precious. And seriously, that was the coolest music I've ever heard from a Tot Train. Nana saw a doggy boutique after we got done and bought herself a doggy stroller. She received quite a bit of ribbing for that. But we tried it out later, with Claire in her little umbrella stroller, and the doggies in their little stroller, and everyone was pretty happy.
We got to see Bryce's friend Andrew on the 24th, before the Christmas party at his mom's. We went to the beach at MacArthur State Park. Claire was so darned excited by it all. We received an epic tantrum when we had to leave. Part tiredness and part excitement fueled quite an embarrassing flip out on her part. I didn't realize until I had walked past this Muslim family, but my bathing suit had slipped and I had flashed them. Oi. Well, when you have a toddler sobbing uncontrollably on your shoulder, some things are bound to be missed.
The Christmas party was strangely subdued this year. The pictures were done by the same people who did Claire's pictures a few weeks ago. They looked awesome. Claire got a cute tea set from Bryce's Aunt's sister (Claire - she's been partial to my munchkin of the same name). Bryce made the filet mignon this year (with some help from Ed), and he did an amazing job. Dinner was super late, though - 10 pm. Claire went to bed right after. I think I did as well.
Christmas Day, Bryce, Claire, and I were up at 8:30 with his mom. Nobody else rolled in until 10:30ish. We didn't open presents until 11:30. That was rough trying to keep Claire entertained until everyone showed up. Santa and Nana got Claire all the Thomas the Tank Engine trains and sets she could ever want. Auntie Shana got Claire a Twilight Turtle, which, at the moment, might beat out Thomas. Every single night, she has to turn on the turtle and display the night sky on her ceiling and walls. And when she wakes up in the middle of the night, the same thing. She adores it. Although, it's becoming a bit of an issue when she wakes up crying, saying, "My light up turtle! My light up turtle is broken!" Then we have to go down, turn it on, put her back to sleep. Does anyone know where they sell adapters to keep that thing on all night?
The flight back was totally not cool. I'm done with American Airlines. Totally done. On the way down, the person announcing allowed families to board, which is crucial for us because we have a car seat to install. It takes a bit of time with the tightening down, then getting Claire strapped in. Well, on the way back, they didn't give us family boarding. They announced First Class/Priority Access. Then the chick just totally didn't pay attention to what the ticket checker person was doing. He went ahead and scanned everyone and their brother in that walked up. So all these families are waiting, and it gets down to just the families and ten other people when a lady pipes up, "Who is boarding now? Because I just saw 2 Group 2's board, and I thought we were doing First Class/Priority Access." The lady rushes over, confers with her ticket person, and then allows all the groups to board. Awesome. Thanks guys. So helpful for all the families to have to wade through everyone because you guys are uncoordinated. Then, we get on and get to Row 31 (2nd to the last row), and. we try to install our car seat. I mention to the flight attendant standing a row back that we really need a seat belt extender to install the car seat properly. He just kind of blinks his eyes at me and motions that he'll get it (and keeps standing their slumped over the last seat). Claire is screaming because she can't get in her seat, I finally say, "Claire, we can't put you in until your seat is installed properly. We have to have the extender. I hear a jingle, and the guy is literally shaking an extender in my face when I look up. WTF? Shaking it at me like I'm cattle? Moo. Then, when we put the extender on, it won't install the seat without unlatching itself. So we have to have the seat extremely loosely installed because the seat belt extender is a POS. We put Claire in it (and I'm cursing audibly at this point), they push away from the gate, and then we sit for 30 minutes in the same spot, unmoving. When we finally take off, our flight attendant back in our area sits in his jump seat for 90% of the flight, picking his nose and dozing. The other flight attendants took care of the whole plane, but I guess he couldn't be bothered. I'm so done with American. I've been noticing during the last several trips how awful their service has been becoming, but this takes the cake. Shame on you all, American Airlines.
When we got home, my laptop had arrived. Yay! So here I am, typing away at it. Couldn't be happier to not be typing up a post on my phone.
