Day 1 Belfast

21months 8 days

What an early start!! We got up at 3.30 am. Not really enhanced by Katie's insistence on one more watching of the Wiggles before we left, but I didn?t mind that much (10 days without them after all!) She went back to sleep in the car then happily sat in her buggy (unusually) whilst we went into the airport. She watched everything going on, and was fascinated by it all. She wasn?t too amused when they made her hand Monkey over to be xray-ed at security, mind! Mummy wasn?t too amused to lose the brand new suncream (forgot it was there) and the biggest size nappy cream (it's solid, not a liquid!!) Hey ho! Once we were through, we had breakfast whilst watching the airplanes taking off. One of the airline companies were setting up a promotional stand and she begged for a balloon from them.

She wasnt too sure what to make of being taken out to the plane and going up the stairs, but once she saw her little belt fastened to my belt, she was quite amused by it all. She loved takeoff and was very excited watching the ground below her and then the clouds. It was only a short flight, less than an hour, and she spent it snuggled up to me, watching the rest of the people around us (in the tiny twin prop plane, the likes of which I would normally jump out off, not willingly stay in). We landed in Belfast and I was delighted to see my friend Christine stood waiting right at the baggage reclaim.

I was sure Katie would be a bit shy and quiet at first around Christine- she's not seen her in 17 months, but she was soon chatting away. First stop in the city centre: Starbucks! Katie enjoyed the freedom of being out of the buggy and ran fast and lots! She had a really great time at the Big Blue Fish and climbed under it, round it, touched it. She posed in several sets of Americans photos (they said she added a great size perspective!) We went to see the woman with the globe statue, rather cool. She began to flag and we put her in the pushchair for a snooze.

We got chance to go up to the viewing platform in Victoria Quarters, wow is that incredible! It was weird picking out from the ground things that I'd noticed from the airplane, like Samson and Goliath, the big yellow cranes. When I woke Katie up, we took her to Build-A-Bear. She picked a rather lovely dog and excitedly help build him. She picked and kissed the heart for him, helped operate the stuffing machine, although that spooked her a bit. She refused to give him up to pay.

We headed to Frankie and Bennys for lunch. She got given a highchair. She put Monkey and Dog in it. The drinks arrived and she sat in it too. She decided to try my appletizer. Then pushed her squash away in disgust and wrapped her arms round my glass. Katie never eats chips, she doesn't like them. However she decided she liked the F&B chips and kept pinching Christine's from her plate. They brought her ice cream and she was very frustrated to discover the spoon was too short for the bowl.

We went to meet Christine's husband, Stephen, and headed to their house. She settled in very quickly, playing with a big bag and a load of beanie babies with him. She passed him them (in the same order every time) before reclaiming them one by one again, and repeating the process many times. We went to do some food shopping and she got a trolley with one of the ride in cars on the front, so she was very excited to go round the supermarket. Whilst we were talking about what we were getting, Katie announced we should "get strawberries". So we did.

We headed back to Christine's, had a spot of tea, before Katie came up to me and said "splash?" I asked her if she wanted a bath. "Yes, Katie splash". My tired little lady had a lovely splash before quickly settling. She's been incredible today. So many new experiences, sights and people and she has been nothing but happy, cheeky and confident all day. What a start to the holiday.