Our family trip to Europe!

In August Chris and I took Cade on his first trip overseas and we had a BLAST. Despite the fact that his first year molars decided to come in the first week we were there, and the fact that the airline lost Cade's luggage from Sevilla to Venice, we had an amazing time spending our holiday with our family. Cade got to meet his Uncle Mike and Tita Logi for the first time. They live in Sevilla, so we rented a big van and went on a whirlwind tour through Spain. We had a delayed flight so we decided to take a quick cab tour through Barcelona as our first taste of travelling with a toddler. Cade did pretty well despite the jet lag. From Barcelona, we flew to Sevilla. It was fun meeting our spanish relatives! Jose Ramon, Marie Carmen, Daniel, and Marie Carmen took us out for a fun night on the town. We walked along the river and listened to flamenco music. Sevillanas are very proud of their city, and they should be! It is probably one of my favorite cities ever in all of Europe and I love all the moorish architecture.

Here's a pic of us in Toledo. The streets were so narrow, and Cade was feeling anti stroller, and anti hand-holding so we put on the baby backpack / leash that our good friends lent us to keep him from jumping in front of his beloved scooters. Cade was not a fan!! Look at the pained look on his face. He kept looking at the dog, and saying "doggie?" and tried to get away from the dog, to no avail.



Cade is mesmerized by the Flamenco guitarrists on the streets of Granada.Granada is an amazing city. Here we are in the Albazin ( the moorish marketplace). Cade had a good time smelling all the teas and spices and curries.
Here is Chris, my Dad, and my brother Mike in the big Cathedral in Granada.
So Spain was great, but after checking in and out of hotels, and driving for hours on the road we were REALLY looking forward to checking into our cruise and being able to stay in ONE PLACE for the duration of our trip.

By far, the highlight of our Mediterranean cruise, was the actual cruise ship itself. We chose to travel on the Costa Victoria, which is an Italian cruise liner. They are known for "cruising it - European style". It was fun vacationing with the Italians. The passengers were 90% italian, and the rest were either Spanish, German, and there were maybe 10 total Americans on the whole ship. Which meant that the food was INCREDIBLE. The people were GORGEOUS. Seriously...picture beautiful italian ladies, hanging out near the pool with their bikinis and high heels. Picture ladies in long formal evening gowns, salon up dos, and blinged out with jewelry , 24/7. It was like the freakin Titanic!

I was just glad to be able to run back to our room for more sunblock, or another swim diaper, whenever we needed to. And travelling with our parents and siblings was just heavenly. We thoroughly enjoyed the ship and all its amenities, so consequently most of these shots are from the cruise itself.

Cade loved our porthole. He spent so much time just staring out the window as we moved from port to port, shouting out whatever he could name..."Bus! Boat! Wa!"

viva la cruising!
Cade kicking it with his bottle.
Cade loved the food. He was in pasta heaven every night!

Oh yeah, enough about the cruise already...how about the ports that we visited? Well they were all great. Our favorite port hands down was Mykonos. I so heart Greece and am totally coming back one day for an extended holiday. So romantic.

Here are the windmills in Mykonos at sunset.
My beloved family in Mykonos.

Me and Mom.
here is Santorini. The water was as blue as I always thought it would be. Maybe bluer. Pictures do not do this place justice.




TOP TEN TODDLER TRAVEL TIPS

So some people have asked me to share some of the top things we learned about travelling with a toddler, so here are our top tips:

1) BRING YOUR PARENTS (the more laps, more hands, more entertainment , the better)

2) Bring a roll up high chair tray mat (its nice to always have a clean place for your toddler to enjoy his cheerios and cheese)

3) LOTS of hand sanitizer (most restrooms dont have changing tables so you end up doing diaper changes on the run....for us, the reclined baby jogger doubled as his bed, and his changing table alot of the time)

4) Bring the BOB. It might seem like a big bulky ride, but trust me...those big wheels were meant for un even cobbly european streets. Plus, if you have a group of people they can take turns pushing it, and it also is handy for carrying bags, purses, water bottles and cameras. Even with the steps in Venice....for the on the go naps, it was SO SO SO worth it to not have to be back in our cabin for naps. An umbrella stroller, though lighter, would never have cut it on a trip like this.

5) ALWAYS pack WAY more diapers, wipes, food, than you think you need. You never know when you'll run into issues (plane delay, trapped on board, teething....all these things happened to us). Hope for the best, plan for the worst!

6) Bring medicine

7) Take lovies on your carry-on luggage (we packed Cade's lovie in his suitcase for the one hour flight from Sevilla to Venice....and that was the flight where they lost his bag - - not good!)

8) Pack as light as you can.

9) To avoid the liquid restrictions for carry on luggage, place Desitin in a contact lens case. (Also helps to avoid potential mixups with the toothpaste! :)

10) Always play the baby card (it gets you onto cruise ships faster, and gives you fast passes in other situations too...like if you miss the time cut off for something...point to your baby and say "dientes" (teeth) and they will usually sympathesize enough to let you past.

11) Bring a DVD player for long trips. Especially if its dark outside and there's nothing to look at!

12) And my number one suggestion.....Don't hotel hop! Cruise or Resort so you're always 5 minutes away from your room to reload suppies, have a quick bath, go down for a nap, spread out, set up shop, while SOMEBODY ELSE cooks, cleans, and pampers you during your stay. I am serious. This is the only way the Burdicks are going to go abroad again until the kids are older.


I will sign off now with a video of cade, thoroughly enjoying his perch in the porthole of our cabin. The best part of our trip was not the gorgeous greek islands, and not even the opulence of our cruise ship, but simply having two full weeks with my family, and giving cade a chance to spend time with both mom AND dad for an extended period of time.

Conversations with Cade - 16.5 month update!

Cade is talking more and more and it is cracking me and Chris up. This kid is seriously a chatty one, and I am not joking. He gets more and more fun and Chris and I are cherishing this ever so special time with our young son.

Here are some of my favorite "conversations" with Cade this past month....

• We were at the zoo looking at the giraffe in the distance. I said to Cade..."what do you say Cade? what does the giraffe say?" immediately i realized that i have no idea what a giraffe says! umm, hello!? Cade puts his head between the bars of the gate and bellows to the giraffe...'whasssupp?!' (For my parents that are reading this blog entry, that would be "what's up?" :) Pretty dope :)

• Coming back from europe we discovered that Cade literally grew a couple of inches, including his shoe size (7.5). Chris' mom was in fits over his shoes being too small (and she of course was right) so she marched this kid straight out to Nordstrom to get fitted for some new shoes, which was just so nice of her to do. The next morning I said to Cade..."hey cade! let's go to the park! can you find your shoes?" He runs to his room, grabs his shoes, brings them to me and says with excitement and delight, "Shoes!....NEW shoes!!!" I have to admit, I too get excited when I get a new pair of shoes, so I say the apple does not fall far from tree in that regard :)
  

• We were in the toy section at Target. Cade ran across a baby doll that says "mama" every time you touch its tummy. I think Cade thought it was a real life baby because he carried the doll very carefully to me and was stroking its head nice and gentle. After the doll said "mama" about a dozen times, Cade, wanted to teach the doll a thing or two. Every time the doll said "mama", Cade frowned at the doll and wagging his little finger at her, he says "Da-da!". The doll again said "mama"...he gets more adamant, and says "DA DA!!" This continued for about 2 minutes. Just the perfect amount of time I needed to scan the toy section and pick a gift out for one of his little friends! I'll take it! (It's about the the little snippets of time that we can capture throughout the day, am i right mama-friends?)

• My most favorite conversation with Cade demonstrates how quickly he is learning to manipulate me (it starts early...i had no idea!). So Cade is a little bit (okay alot) obsessed with Sesame Street - The Musical Adventure. Simply known by Cade as "Sessss" in our house. He busts out his baby drum and enjoys drumming along with drummers, and playing his xylophone along with the music. In fact, I should note, since this is his journal after all, that his first singalong EVER was to the "Batty Bat" song. I will sing the beginning of each phrase and he completes it with a very satisfied and toothy little grin. No kidding. I will never forget how excited he was to be part of his first Burdick family singalong, right on the changing table! So, the Cookie monster comes out and sings his song. Cade scampers into the kitchen where I was baking muffins and looks up at me saying very earnestly..."CooKEY, CooKEY!" I said..."Cade, its too early for a cookie!" But me being the weakest mom ever, caves in. He opens up the pantry and points to the container of Nila wafers. I open it, letting out the super vanilla-y aroma and inhale deeply (to entertain my son as he for some reason, finds the ritual very humorous I've found) I then proceed to give him his one cookie. He smiles and scampers away. When he was finished he returned to kitchen, pointed at the cooky jar again saying , "CooKEY, CooKEY!!" Then he says AND signs (double communication people, because this was a VERY important message he needed to give me apparently)...."mama??... moooorrrre?....peassss?"
  His eyes were earnest and hopeful. Seriously? Did he really just link his first three words together? Apparently so, and of course, it was kind of a bribe because food was involved. Sigh. Bad mommy is starting bad habits...rewarding him with food! Clearly, Cade understands how marketing works...you need all different kinds of messaging media to get your point across!

Here is a litany of his favorite things this month ( not unlike most kids his age but of course, fascinating for his parents that are experiencing all this for the first time with their toddler) :

• Watching Sesame Street and singing along (loves the batty bat song)
  
• Stripping off all his clothes and thinking its HYSTERICAL to be all nudie (still)
  
• Bellowing from the top or bottom of the stairs...usually "Da da? Da????? Ma ma? Ma MAAAA?"

• Waking up from a nap and immediately pointing at everything he can name (usually SKY! da BOAT! da BUS! da BOTT (bottle)....(quickly followed by ...) Ma-Maaa???)

• Helping mom and dad throw away garbage and wipe down various surfaces including his high chair and his face (I'm going to continue to work on this with him and we're encouraging his independence every chance we get!:) We cheer him on as he walks to the garbage can to throw away things ....saying things like "MESS!!!! DIRRRRT!!! MESS!!!" ...followed by "no no!"...followed by clapping long and hard for himself! OMG!
  

• Speaking of clapping....and much like his father, Cade is an encourager. He shows it by clapping. Anytime ANYONE sings a song he will CLAP vigorously at the end. On tune or not, live or off the stereo...he will CLAP after and in between songs. He also rocks out to music (and is partial to hip hop and salsa...of course, right?)

• Collecting things - i.e. when we're outside he will gather all the pinecones and stack in a pile, or all the train cars and place in a box with compartments...close it...push the box around...and then take all the train blocks out one by one...and do this OVER and OVER again.

• Pointing at various things and asking us..."what DIS??" or sometimes..."what DAT?? dat???" I'm looking forward to the day he starts asking me "why?" but we're a long way from those deeper questions of life (or so it seems). For now, its strictly identification and he is getting better at parroting words out of his word book. He's learning alot under the collective tutelage of both sets of grandparents, his aunties and mom and dad. It really does take a village and its fun for all of us to teach him new things. (my mom for example taught him to say A, B,C,D and 1, 2, 3 this month. She also taught Cade how to clear his throat and cough to get our attention from his high chair or anywhere!....Chris' dad is teaching Cade all about different kinds of boats. When he was first learning how to walk Chris' mom taught Cade how to go down the stairs backwards. She also takes him on lots of walks, and to the library every Tuesday as well as the water fountain, and taught him what a school bus was, what ducks are and what they say, and how fun it is to eat corn off the cob! It such a blessing to have so many people around him that love him and want to teach him cool new things. They could not possibly love this kid any more!

• Sitting in small places - i.e. boxes from Costco are his favorite. He enjoys sitting and taking a chill-lax in his box, maybe reading his book about "Cars, Trucks, and Trains". Speaking of which...his favorite word themes this month (and last) have centered on: TRANSPORTATION: i.e. Bus, Boat, Bike, Dump Truck (dump-teh), Cars (cah?), Lift Trucks (Liff-tuh), Trains (choo choooo!), Planes (pane...vroom!) ANIMALS (thank you Baby Einstein): Cow (mooo), Dog (dog! woof woof), Duck (quuuuack), Sheep (Baa), Elephant (oooh!! with arm up), Bee (bee! bzzzzzz bzzz!), Tiger and Lion (grrrowll!), Cat (mow!), Monkey (oo oo ee ee) BODY PARTS: He loves showing me his tummy, his "stinky" feet, his head, eyes, nose, mouth and ears... and of course, FOOD i.e. among his latest favorites App-pull (apple), Muff (muffin), and when I pointed to a picture of an ice cream cone in his word book, he simply says "Numm numm!!!!"
  
• Telling us when he's gone "poo POO!" My question is, if he can tell us when he's gone...can he tell us when he needs to go? If we were only that fortunate. Until then I have no problem changing his dirty diapers, and all of the other not so fun parts about motherhood (the body that will never be the same, the spit up, the diaper blow outs, the tantrums) because I can say from the bottom of my heart, that there is no greater privilege for me than to be the mama of this precious boy. He could not possibly be loved any more by his mama or his dada. We are so very blessed!