Back from vacation

We just got home from 3 weeks in Europe, spending 8 days in Sardinia and the rest of the time hanging out with my ILs. It was so nice to have time off work, but to be honest, I sometimes think work is more relaxing than spending all day with an energetic Mama-crazy toddler.
My ILs LOVED having so much time to enjoy K. My SIL recently started working, so she wasn't around as much as usual, but my 84 year old FIL couldn't get enough of her. Sadly, his health seems to be getting a lot worse now, and he is so short of breath and low on energy these days. I really wouldn't be too surprised if he doesn't stick around too much longer, which will be very sad, as he's a lovely man. K did manage to get him up and about a little more, dragging him out to the park one morning with DH. He initially said he wanted to stay home, but couldn't resist a little K hand grabbing his hand, trying to pull him out of his chair, and saying "Opa, komm mit!" (Grandpa, come with). He thought K was so amazing, and took tons of crappy pics of her. I feel so badly that we don't live closer and can only visit twice a year. At least when we do go, he gets over a week with her at a time.
K enjoyed riding on her new ladybug Trunk.i through the airport on the way over. We forgot to take photos to show my Dad, who got it for her for her birthday. It worked great for the most part, though we had a couple tip-overs during the trip as the wheels don't rotate, so steering can be a little hard.
This time, when we arrived in Germany, she really remembered her Opa and aunt and uncle and cousins. She was a little shy with some of the cousins, but was ready to interact with Opa right from the start. The last couple visits, she was scared of him at the beginning and screamed bloody murder when he'd come out to greet us.
The first week we were there, DH was away on a business trip. K and I got taken to the local open air swimming pool and splash pad by my BIL and SIL, and she had a blast. Her new favourite thing was going down the big waterslide with someone. As soon as we'd lift her out of the pool at the bottom, she'd take off like a shot for the staircase to head back to the top. I have a feeling my girl and I are going to have a blast at amusement parks when she's a little older. (I love fast and crazy whirling rides, while DH hates them. I think K takes after me.)

She loved all the attention she got from everyone, and had a great time singing grace at lunch/dinner every night. The last time we where there, she'd hold hands and grin while we sang, but this time she knew all the words and could sing right along. Our family thought that was awesome. Everyone kept saying how advanced she is with her speaking, how well-behaved (our nanny has her saying please and thank you like it's no one's business, and she really is very charming a lot of the time). One of her cousins got a few books out of the library for her, a few of which she was totally obsessed with reading before naps and bed ("Zara Zebra zieht sich an" and "Klopf an!"). They pulled out all their old duplo and a doll with stroller for her to play with, so she was well supplied with toys. My ILs have a sandbox and swing set in their back yard, and there's a little playground across the street, so there was lots to keep her busy.
Sleep and jet lag was an issue again this trip. We didn't transition to our usual sleep times this time around, as we were going to Sardinia where dinner isn't usually till 8pm, and lunch is 12:30-2:30 or so. We shifted from putting her to sleep at 8:30-8:45pm to putting her down at 10:30-11pm, which worked pretty well. The first couple nights, she insisted on sleeping in bed with me, even though we put the travel cot in our room. Then when I managed to transition her to the travel cot, she still flipped out with major tantrums if I didn't lie down on my bed for a nap/sleep at the same time. Luckily, when we went to Sardinia the next week, we were able to get her sleeping in the travel cot in her own room from the start. Even then, that involved Mama putting her in after stories, tucking her in with her spotted blanky, and then usually holding her hand for a while while she gnawed on and played with her soother (she uses it for sleep since we used Mav.ala stop to get her to stop sucking constantly on her fingers). She always insisted she wasn't tired and didn't need a nap or to go to bed. Then she'd fight sleep for a while, want to hold my hand, and then when I finally got her to let go and moved away, she'd poke one foot out of the blankie and start whining about needing her foot tucked in. A couple days, she refused to nap entirely, and she'd always try to get us to let her sleep in Mama and Papa's bed (with us).
The flight over was ok. We had a talk with her beforehand about how the expectation was for her to be quiet in the airplane, and she stuck to that pretty well. Unfortunately, there were 5 kids under 2.5 in the row in front of us, and the kid directly in front of us was a screamer with parents who didn't really try to calm him down or distract him. Amazingly, K slept through his nighttime screaming fits, which were very loud and frequent. The rest of the kids were pretty good, and K was great. I can't say the same about our Ryan.air flights to and from Sardinia though. On the way there, she was supposed to nap during the short flight, but fought it and fought it, finally passing out 45min or so before landing. So 30min into her nap, we had to wake her up and put her back in her own seat to buckle in for landing. She doesn't like being woken up early, and really didn't want to sit in her own seat. The stewardess ended up telling us the pilot wouldn't approach for landing till she was buckled in, so it took the two of us to force her rigid screaming body into the seat long enough to buckle her seatbelt. Then she screamed full force and kicked for the next 15 min, trying to wiggle out of her seat and stand up. I'm sure the whole plane was thrilled. She ended up with the belt under her armpits, and I took her onto my lap (still screaming) once the plane touched down and was off the runway. Even then, she was still having a bit of a tantrum when we were in the baggage claim area. Yikes! The return trip wasn't much better, as the same problem happened again with the nap, but at least that trip another kid was louder and more persistent with the screaming farther back in the plane.
Sardinia was beautiful. We had a fairly nice apartment a 10 min walk from the old city centre with a couple great restaurants nearby. We had a rental car the whole time, so we'd frequently go to a nice beach after K's nap to wade in the water and dig in the sand for a while before dinner. It was great to eat good pizza and pasta again. We had some nice day trips and drives, and K was so excited to spot cows and sheep and things as we drove past, and even more happy when we could find a place to stop to get out and look at them more closely. Then she'd say "Ciao Kuehe!" (ciao cows) as we'd head back to the car. The only real downside this trip was that she's suddenly become a more picky eater. The only veggies she'll touch these days are peas, corn, broccoli, cauliflower, and asparagus. The only one of those occasionally available in restaurants in Sardinia was asparagus. Otherwise she'd pick each piece of onion, zucchini, pepper, tomato, or fleck of parsley off her pizza or out of her pasta. She did love her pasta, pizza crust and meat though. Finally at the end of the trip we picked up a big bag of frozen peas to keep at home, and she loved those. Hopefully this phase of pickiness won't last for too long. I had to bribe her with pieces of salami to get her to eat spinach, which she used to love. I think that's the wrong tactic to take though, so I'm going to stop bribing/rewarding her with food and just try to keep getting her to taste things. The most interesting thing we ordered on this trip was deep fried sea urchin. I thought it wasn't that great, but K and DH quite liked it. Strange that she'd enjoy that, but not some delicious spaghetti sauce with zucchini in it.
We took along our travel backpack, which she enjoyed riding in. Unfortunately, she's a Mama's girl these days, and so often insisted that I take the backpack or carry her. She loved all the little dogs she saw, and kept wanting to pat them. She became obsessed with the little steps leading into shops, as all the shops were shut when we'd walk home from lunch, and then there'd be a wide step in front of the "garage door" shop front which she could climb up on and then jump down from. Some of our walks home seemed to take forever. Hopefully next time we go away she'll be into walking enough that we can leave the bulky backpack at home. I think she was fairly close this time, but not quite there yet.
K got her first real sunburn on the final day of vacation, when we went to an agriturismo for lunch, and got there around 11:30am in time to walk around looking at some of the farm animals. Then DH took her off into the sun to play on the playground equipment, and despite my liberal application of SPF 30 sunblock, she ended up with lightly burned arms. I felt so bad. She'd also cut one foot's toe and instep on some shells on the underwater rocks at the beach, and had scraped her shin on the stairs to the waterslide in Germany, so she spent lots of the trip talking about being "gerletzt" (= "verletzt" = injured). She's now well able to say "Kortisonsalbe" (cortisone cream) and "Zinksalbe" (zinc cream), so she was forever asking me to put cortisone cream on her injuries and always wanted a bandaid on them too. (While we were visiting my SIL one day, I asked about her always complaining that her bum hurts, and she suggested putting zinc cream in the folds to prevent irritation. K used to really fight me on washing/putting cream in there, but on the trip decided to be ok with it as I told her I'd be very careful and it wouldn't hurt. Things seem to be improving.)
We only had one night-time accident while away (which kept me up for an hour taking the portable bed apart and washing everything out), despite her really fighting being woken up to go pee and me giving up on doing that early on in the trip. Travelling without diapers was great. We had a few incidents with wet pants because her pee would come out the front of the big toilet under the seat and get onto the pants, and a couple urgent stop and pee at the roadside events (plus one urgent pee+poop at the beach, which I had to flick off into the bushes with a piece of driftwood). I've now learned that I don't ask her if she needs to pee before we go out, but I have to make her sit on the toilet and try before we head out, otherwise 30min later, she's sure to suddenly insist she has to go.
We were very sad to say goodbye to everyone and head back to Canada. K had an awesome time hanging out with her teenage cousins, who she kept dragging upstairs to look at their pet turtle. She loved helping her aunt to bake a cake, and had a blast climbing in and out of their high chair by herself. Her Opa misses her desperately, and kept telling us what a "goldiges Kind" (darling child) we have, and how quiet and empty his house will be without us there. It's so good that we have skype to keep in touch with.
Unfortunately, our first weekend home hasn't been so great as K started vomiting periodically 36 hours ago, and isn't back to normal yet. She's so brave, just told me her tummy hurt and asked for it to be kissed better before it all started on Friday night, before throwing up masses of stuff a couple minutes later. I think she maybe cried a bit the first time it happened, and kept desperately asking to blow her nose as it came out her nose too. Other than that, she gets quiet and tries to hug me just before she throws up, looks worried/upset while it's happening, and then keeps asking to brush her teeth. Two minutes later, she's smiling and looking sweet and cuddly and tired again. She had her first morning nap in who knows how long this morning.
She's still waking up very early in the morning with the jet lag, but hopefully we'll be back to a more normal routine soon.
Her speech just keeps on improving in leaps and bounds. She's getting much better with verb tenses in German, and puts things together very cleverly. I should start carrying around a notebook to write down some of the things she said. I'll add more as they occur to me.

    Opa sagte: K es regnet, da koennen wir keine Kirschen pfluecken. (Opa said: K, it's raining. We can't pick cherries.)    K ueberlegte und sagte: K haben Regenschirm, Opa! (K thought about it and said: K have umbrella)
    K said "K groeser bist, K haben grosses Auto" (K's bigger, K have big car)