A Road Trip and the Return of Freaking Out

Yesterday was David's first trip out of our fine city, as we headed down to Cincinnati to visit Brian's family. We celebrated Mother's Day with his mom and our niece's birthday. Katy was absolutely beside herself, she had such a good time. That's one of the things that has surprised me about motherhood: I never knew how truly enjoyable it would be to watch your kids have fun. But she loves her cousins (and some family friends who were there as well), and there was face painting, a trampoline, a cozy coupe, and sidewalk chalk. Oh, and I didn't mention the cake. She was so excited she didn't even mind that she didn't get to open a single present.

Right after Brian and I got married, his brother and his wife and 3 girls moved to Cincy from Philly. It was such great timing, because we were starting our family and the kids love to see each other often. But alas, they are moving back to Philly in a few weeks. We are really sad that we won't get to see them as often, but we know they are really happy to be returning to a life they loved out east. So it's bittersweet...

I love visiting family when you have a baby, too, because I'm happy to have other arms that want to hold him. He's happy, they're happy, and I get a little break. It's a lovely arrangement.

Overall, the trip went well. I don't know if I mentioned that my wonderful in-laws got me a portable DVD player for Christmas, so Katy was absorbed in Dora the whole time. And David, bless his little heart, is a car seat sleeper. I didn't believe they existed when I had Katy, but apparently they do, at least for the first few weeks! So Brian and I even enjoyed some adult conversation on the trip down and back.

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You may remember about 6 months ago that I was very concerned about some severe stranger anxiety from Katy. Well, for a while, it had tapered off and was fairly typical for her age. But in the past couple of weeks, it has reared it's ugly head again, and in full force. Here's what we know: She has complete freak-outs/melt-downs/tear-fests in the presence of many adult men that she doesn't know. Beards and dark complexions seems to enhance the problem, as well as men who approach her in any way, shape, or form, such as, "OH! What a cute little girl!" You may as well bring the check, because we're going home at that point.

It's gone a little bit beyond inconvenient to being slightly stressful, because you never know when it's going to happen. I was not anticipating yesterday that Brian's childhood friend who came with his wife and children who scare the heck out of her and cause a meltdown - even in the middle of so many people she knows and loves, while we were outside, and he didn't even approach her! Eventually she warmed up, but jeesh! What are we supposed to do? Not go anywhere or see anyone that Katy doesn't see on a weekly basis? And why is this flaring up again now? I guess maybe the whole New Baby thing could be a factor.

But on a funny note, Katy has started adding the word "Honey" to the end of many of her sentences (I didn't realize how often I call her this until she started doing it). She'll be coloring and ask, "Where's the crayons, honey?" or of course, "I wanna watch a video, honey. " Or my all time favorite, as she's going to bed, saying to Brian, "I need a tiss (kiss), honey." Priceless.

And as I'm completing this post, I'll make it a goal for this week: take some decent pictures of my son, for heaven's sake! Every time I download my pictures, I realize that I haven't taken any of him. Poor second child...