Back from our latest vacation

We just got back late last week from our latest trip to see all the German in-laws and to spend a fun week in Barcelona. It was a pretty great holiday, all told. (Well, except for the 37th birthday part.)
We had a good flight over with K, who managed to sleep for a good part of the trip. She didn't get to sleep till quite a bit later than her bedtime due to the meal service and duty free, but we lucked into an empty seat between us, so once the lights were dimmed, she was pretty amenable to lying down in her PJs and Gro.bag, hugged her teddy, and slept for a few hours. She was very excited to see all the airplanes at the airport, and only got more excited each time she saw more on the later legs of our trip.
K completely flipped out when we got to DH's hometown and she saw her Opa (Grandpa). She knows him well from skype and is always excited to talk to him on it and says Opa all the time, but he must be scary in person (loud voice, old, white busy hair) because she went hysterical. She started sobbing madly and screaming, clutched onto me, then 30s later was reaching for DH, clutched him frantically for 30s, then back to Mama. Rinse and repeat. Poor Opa probably wasn't feeling the love. She adjusted much better to her aunt, uncle and cousins, which was a relief. In fact, her Aunt got called Mama too quite a bit, until she finally mastered the word "Tante" (= aunt) by the end of our visit.
We had a nice time staying with my in-laws while DH went to a conference for work for a few days. K got to decorate her first home-made pizza, which was fun. She started off picking up one piece of a topping and placing it carefully on the pizza, then rapidly switched to grabbing handfuls and tossing them on anywhere, to even dumping the bowl on the pizza. Another day, we baked cookies with her aunt, who had prepared the dough ahead of time. K got her own kid-sized rolling pin, and could help roll out the sugar-cookie dough before using the cookie cutters to make interesting shapes. She did quite well at it, which I think is because (as I found out from her nanny when we got home) she's used to using a rolling pin on playdough at the local school drop-in centre. We went for a couple walks, to the park, and the days flew by.
Getting over the jetlag and a strange sleeping spot was another story. The first 3 nights, K slept in bed with me because she wanted nothing to do with her loaner pack'n'play bed. She went hysterical even seeing it. We had a few rough restless nights, and finally on the day DH was coming to join us again, I got her to sleep in it in our room for a nap (instead of next door) while I lay on the bed as she fell asleep. She then slept in it again that night, and the next day I moved it back out to the living room next door. She'd freak out if I didn't stay in the room till she fell asleep, but got over that over the next few days. Interestingly, she had no trouble adjusting to the pack'n'play in our apartment in Barcelona.
K's a good little German girl. She loved her potatoes and Leberknoedel (liver dumplings - they taste better than they sound). Her understanding of German was quite good before we got there, and she could say lots of words, but her language abilities really took off over the course of our trip. By the time we got back, I counted up that she has over 160 German words that she can say, and she's combining them into 2 word sentences quite a lot. Things like "Mama Brot" (Mama bread), "Mama tragen" (Mama carry), "Mama Schultern" (Mama shoulders), "grosser Flieger" (big plane), "mehr Wasser" (more water).
We had a good, though not entirely relaxing time in Barcelona. We spent 7 days there, and it wasn't enough really, which surprised us. A couple of days we had a more relaxed schedule and made it back to our apartment for naptime, which made for a much less cranky girl in the evenings, but many days we were out walking around when K needed a nap, so she'd fall asleep in her carrier backpack. She didn't sleep as well in there though (obviously), so she'd sleep much less at her nap and have a much shorter fuse at night.
The big challenge to being there was the food. We love Spanish food, but it was hard to find places to eat that would work for a baby with an afternoon nap and not-so-late bedtime. Restaurants often open as late as 2pm for lunch, and as late as 9-10pm for dinner. We generally had K in bed around 9-9:30pm, so those wouldn't have worked well for us. Instead, we ended up eating a lot of tapas which were good but pricy. Our favourite meal was at a self-serve seafood restaurant where you go in, pick out your seafood like you're at the market (and you pay by the weight), confirm how you want it cooked, and then get called up by your ticket number bit by bit to pick up the dishes. It would have been a lot easier if I hadn't decided we should get a crab, because we didn't have enough room to eat all the stuff anyhow, and that damn crab was a pain in the butt to get the meat out of!
I went to the Picasso museum alone on Sunday afternoon when it was free admission, after managing to get an overtired K to fall asleep on our bed with me (she refused to stay in her pack'n'play). She's in a really big Mama phase these days, so Papa wasn't going to cut it when it came time to going down for her nap. I waited till I was sure she was well asleep and snuck out to the museum.  She was so warm and cuddly beside me, it was hard to tear myself away. DH told me after that he heard a movement later on, and got up from the living room to go check on her. (I'd thought he was going to go lie down with her while I was out to be sure she wouldn't fall off the bed) He opened the door to the hallway, and there she was, standing there quietly, already having safely climbed out of bed. She proceeded to call out for Mama and raced in the living room to look around the corner at the couch, and then searched the apartment for me, only to be severely disappointed when I wasn't there. Aww. It was hard to be the only one she wanted at times, because it meant she always wanted to be carried by me (in my arms or on my shoulders), or to hold my hand if she was in the backpack or walking. She'd always want to sit on my lap at dinner, and only wanted to sit on me in the planes.
We had a nice final day in Germany before flying back home, and even managed to bring a wooden German sled back with us on the plane, which I'm so excited about. Her Opa wanted to buy her a long-lasting present, so that was what we picked out for her. Unfortunately, she and I got hit by a little GI bug on the day of our long flight back, so I was weak from not eating much of anything (felt sick to my stomach for half the day), and K threw up twice. I packed extra clothes for both of us for the plane, just in case, but she seemed to eat a decent dinner and then fell asleep. 4 hours later, she was awake again and watching a movie (without sound) when she looked uncomfortable. I helped her sit up a bit more, and out came her entire undigested dinner. I know it's TMI, but I thought the poor girl was going to choke on it, it was coming up in such thick huge clumps. She looked a little surprised and was gagging on it a bit, but 2 seconds after it was all out, she was back to watching the movie quite happily. She threw up one more time (the first time she's ever thrown up all over her bed and floor, and smeared her teddy in it too) the second night we were home, but seems to be over that part of it now. Today was just a little runny poop. She was very tired and cuddly and lethargic yesterday, and hardly peeing at all, but is doing much better today. She refused the electrolyte drink I made up for her, but ate salted pretzels, gummy bears, and drank water ok yesterday. Soft-boiled eggs and a bit of bread seemed to go over ok too. By yesterday evening, her energy was coming back a bit, and today was much more normal. On Friday, she was so subdued that she wasn't at all excited to see her nanny, but just wanted to go back to bed, and nearly fell asleep standing up leaning over the couch.
The jet lag may even have been better coming back due to the illness. She slept 4 hours or so in her own bed the first night, then spent the rest with us. Same thing the second night. Last night, I managed to tell her she needed to sleep more when she woke at 4am, and that she needed to stay in her own crib (she wanted to come to our bed). Hopefully tonight will go OK too. It's easier now that she understands enough that I can reason with her a bit - I'm sure a couple months ago, she'd have just screamed when I didn't take her where she wanted to go. Even things like "no, you can't eat goldfish now, they're for your snack, not breakfast" seem to be understood these days, preventing huge meltdowns. She's learning so fast!
She's also getting more interested in potty training, telling me she needs to pee and wanting to sit on the toilet. So far, there's been no success in acutally producing anything while on the can. Hopefully that will change soon!
All in all, this is a wonderful age. She's such a loving generous girl. She shares her snacks with us and loves feeding me crackers etc. She gives wonderful kisses, and has such an infectious giggle and laugh. She loves me giving her fishlip kisses too, which are a surefire way to make her crack up. If only she could stay this cooperative and helpful forever! She loves to throw things out for you, fetch things for you, and carry things for you. She cooperates with tooth-brushing if I sing the ABC song for her. She tells me what she wants for breakfast. And she's always reaching up saying "Mama Hand", whether it's to take me somewhere to show me something, or to get my help to climb up or down stairs.
I sure do love my little K! (Not so little - she's now 11.6kg after 3 days of not much food/drink, and 87.5cm tall)