Traveling With Little Man

Getaways around here have definitely taken a different turn.

In my prior life, I used to gear up for a girl's weekend with trips to the nail salon for a mani/pedi, slathering on the sunless tanning lotion, carefully picking out my outfits and planning out an itinerary full of shopping, cocktails, dinners and bars. These days, it's turned into planning a slumber party with all of our kiddos, hastily packing a bag for two with comfy clothes, and comparing bed time schedules for our little ones so we could map out when the first bottle of wine could be cracked and the real fun would start.

We took off for Kansas City early Saturday morning (the hubs tagged along for a night in the hotel + some poker), dropped him off and then C and I headed to what can only be called as my heaven: an outlet mall.

Eating our socks is a cool car ride game.
Bouncing on the hotel room bed.
Locking the kiddo in the shower = hours of playtime fun.

Little man and I spent approximately five hours at the mall. If you would've told me my 15 month old little boy was going to be such a great shopper, I would've laughed in your face. But this kiddo rocks! And I just about die when he gets all flirty walking around and waving quick hellos to all the ladies. He knows how to work a room. And, of course, they all melt.

We hit up T. Rex Cafe for lunch, which could only be described as my nephew Aasyen's favorite place in the world due to his dinosaur fascination. On a side note, after lunch we headed over to the retail section and I loaded up on a bunch of goodies for Ace's birthday. The only problem: it's in May. I'm sure to have forgotten I picked up his gift or at the very least misplaced it over the next couple months. I'm just not one of those "shop for Christmas gifts throughout the year"-type people. I would rather be a "pulling my hair out of my head piece by piece because I don't have my shopping done and Christmas/birthday is just a few days away"-type person.

The many faces of Cruz. T Rex Cafe

But I digress...

The shopping was nothing short of a success. I had certain things in mind that I didn't find - a new pair of tennis shoes for little man since last time daddy took him out on his own, he only came back with one shoe on and they were the new Puma ones we had just bought for him over Christmas - but I scored on many other things. 

• Under Armour - zip-up jacket/matching pants for Nick, t-shirt for Cruz, two workout tanks for me
• AE - pair of ankle-skimming jeans and a bracelet for me
• Nike - a pair of compression pants for me, zip-up white jacket & workout pants for Nick
• Converse - a pair of slip-ons for Dominic's birthday
• BCBG - a stud covered clutch for me in silver/slate and gold/cream for my MIL (replacing the one I got her for Christmas that I just didn't love), a new pair of heels, a $9 hi/lo skirt (score!) and a summer dress for me
• Old Navy - a pair of swim trunks for Cruz
• Gap - two v-neck t's and a pair of gray linen pants for C

(I told you it was a successful trip!)

After our shopping escapades we met my girl Patricia at her place (she moved away almost a year ago this month and I miss her Irish self terribly, but cherish the time when we get to see each other). Her little man had left early to visit his dad, so that coupled with the fact that our friend Heidi and her boys were sick and couldn't come over meant C had both of us to himself all night. We made our dinner - pasta for C and Boursin cheese, crackers, rotisserie chicken for us - and opened up our first bottle of vino.

Lot's of girl talk, a visit from her English neighbors (I was loving the accents going back & forth) and some more vino later, my sorry self passed out at 10:30pm (seriously, I told you my girl's trips have changed drastically) and awoke at 5am feeling terrible. I can only describe it as a mix between stomach flu and food poisoning, so you can imagine what was happening. I was in and out of the bathroom all morning, I could barely walk, but lucky for me little man seemed to sense this and stayed pretty immobile. Mostly because I bribed him with a box of donuts.

Mmmm donuts....my little Homer Simpson

This virus was a major B and really messed up our trip - I ended up being sick for two days after - but am finally back to my happy little self. In case you were worried...