The Happy List #44: Melbourne edition.

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Oh hey there! So, it’s been no secret on my social media accounts that this time last week I was having an absolute ball in Melbourne. I hadn’t been for 5 years (i.e. I was pregnant with the Little Mister so it’s been a while) but now I had the perfect excuse. My brother lives there – yay!

The Little Mister and I joined my parents on a trip over (sadly Mr Unprepared couldn’t get away due to work constraints) and I swear there isn’t much I didn’t love about it. Except the flight home, but that’s a whole other story (and surprisingly does not involve the Little Mister) haha.

So, here’s a shortlist of the things that made me happy – a special Melbourne trip edition!

Seeing the Little Mister with his uncle

Definitely the biggest highlight. It was hero worship all the way. He’d been missing his uncle a lot since he moved to the eastern states. I think there’s some weird soulmate thing they have going on. Any time we went somewhere, he chose his uncle’s hand to hold and whatever his uncle said, he pretty much did without complaint (by 4 year old standards haha). Just the way he literally looked up to him was freakin’ adorable. He wanted to be just like him and while this means that he now wants to support a rival AFL team (Mr Unprepared is not sure what to make of this) and spent the holiday wanting to stand on the tram like a grown up (because apparently that is the very definition of being a grown up), I am so happy for him that we had that experience.

Getting to visit mythical places that I’ve only ever seen on social media

Yep. Look. I’m from Perth. Things are looking up for us, but it’s not quite Melbourne, OK? Melbourne has this well established ‘cool’ factor that we do not. So, of course when I saw (and partook in) places like Doughnut Time and we ate at Supernormal, Kitty Burns and visited the Jurassic World exhibition at the Melbourne museum, I was going out of my mind with the obliteration of the FOMO I had been storing up since forever!

My black puffer jacket

It was a last minute purchase right before we left for Melbourne. I had started to freak out about the cold weather and even though it was pretty much the same as the weather in Perth while we were there, I was scared there’d be more wind and rain. It cost me $30 from Cotton On (I think it was on sale) and boy was I glad I bought it! Not only did I blend into Melbourne wearing it (pretty much the whole population had a black puffer jacket but for me it was a sign that I was nailing the whole ‘dressing for winter’ thing – something I am horrendous at normally) but it truly went with everything I wore and kept me feeling cosy.

Nailing that step count!

While eating tons of delicious and not always nutritious food was a big weakness, I was so stoked with the exercise we got done. We caught a lot of public transport (gosh the tram system is amazing) and walked so far. It was awesome. My fitbit was going off all over the place! We had three full days in Melbourne (not including plane travel days) and I racked up 46,252 steps during that time. Which is a lot for me these days, as I have struggled to hit my daily target of 10,000 a lot.

Reliving great Melbourne memories with my Little Mister

Like I mentioned above, I hadn’t been back to Melbourne since I was pregnant with the Little Mister. It was obviously a very special time for Mr Unprepared and I. We had just announced my pregnancy publicly and we were off for a fun time interstate before we became parents for reals. It was so fun telling him that he’d been to Melbourne before in my belly. Great memories flooded back of dinners with friends, footy games and wandering around the city doing whatever we felt like. Sharing some elements of that with the Little Mister meant so much to me.

It was a really nice escape, which I think I needed on an emotional level, because when you’re going through all the infertility shit you just have to get away sometimes. Remembering my first, very special (although fraught with ailments – the rose coloured glasses are only so good haha) pregnancy and the fact that my body did that and could maybe do it again, was a nice reminder to look at the positives and to not be scared to feel hope.

All in all, the trip was a massive success. Here are some other things that made me happy:

• My expectations for travelling with a 4 year old were spot on, which meant no disappointments. He did so well and it was way less stressful than the last time we’d done something ‘big’ with him at the age of 2.5!
• Catching up with family friends.
• The electronic babysitter aka iPad (it doesn’t come out with us much but was very necessary in a restaurant at dinner time after a long day)!
• The Little Mister sleeping well every night in the hotel room.
• Hilarious conversations with the Little Mister (often in public and on embarrassing topics at a loud volume).
• The Little Mister telling everyone in Melbourne that we were from Australia. I think he meant Western Australia, but it was bloody funny. If I tried to correct him, he was most offended!
• Realising that I’d packed the EXACT right amount of stuff for the Little Mister and I. I nailed it. I packed so well. This is not a common occurrence. Some might call it a miracle!
• Seeing how happy Melbourne has made my brother since he moved. Good decision, bro!

I’m sure there are many other things that should be on my list, because I truly had an awesome time. I missed it as soon as we got on the plane home! Lots of great memories were made.

Have you travelled lately? What’s been making you feel happy?