Max's First Adventure - Part 1

Well, I can't believe it's already been a month (just about) since our last post. This next one (or two or three, depending on how we break it down) are going to have to cover a lot of ground.

Most of you are aware that the three of us decided to take our first family vacation over the past few weeks. It had been at least two and a half years since Holly or I did our last BC circuit. We try to get out there a little more often than that, given that we have so much family in the province and, since living out there from 1999-2001, we've always loved it out west. We thought to ourselves that a) we hadn't been out in a while, b) a bunch of family members out there hadn't had the opportunity to meet Max and c) wouldn't it be great to not shovel for a few days in a row?? That settled it, we were taking Max for the grand tour.

As it turns out, just because we have a baby doesn't mean that we'll start packing before the last minute. Well, OK, the second-last minute - we got started two days beforehand this time. We had never even taken Max out of the house overnight so we weren't really sure how much of everything to pack. On the 23rd, we made a plan - number of sleepers, outfits, hats, socks, changing pads, receiving blankets, toiletries, washcloths and accessories to pack. That way, a laundry plan could be put into effect so that the right stuff would be dry and ready to pack the next night. In the end, we chose to use a bunch of 7th generation disposable diapers (bleach and dioxin-free but still pretty nasty), rather than lug all of his cloth diapers around. The bulk combined with the extra laundry logistics were just going to be too much. Perhaps if we were staying in one place for a long stretch of time, rather than bouncing around so much... So we brought a bag of size 1 (leftover from his first few days of life) and a bag of size 2, given that he was right on the cusp weight between the two. As it turns out, he was probably a bit big for the 1s...something that we found out after about three days when Max got some nice elastic welts on his nether regions. From then on, it was all 2s, all the time. Take that, doctors: Max is growing.

The night of the 24th was a bit crazy even with Auntie Melody getting us dinner and saving us lots of time (Thanks!), but we managed to get everything rounded up into a giant MEC duffel bag, a large rolling suitcase, a small rolling suitcase and a diaper bag. Oh yeah, that and a car seat. Quite a pile of stuff. Midway through the evening, Max ran out of cloth diapers so we did one last MEGA load of those and switched him onto the disposables for the overnight.

So, let's discuss the overnight. Given that we had to leave at about 5:30 ish for the airport (thanks so much for the lift, grandma Heather!!!), we thought it would be ideal for Max to sleep until 4:45 or so, in order to get a good feed in before hitting the road. Well, Max thought otherwise. He got up at 3 (no idea why - he'd been sleeping well for a while) and went back to bed at 3:30. Holly had set her alarm for 4 to wrap some last minute things up and then, after Max got up again, I lulled him back to sleep and then got up myself at 4:30. Lots of last minute prep (somehow Max conked himself out well enough to sleep through it all) and then we piled everything and everybody into the car.

Checking everything went well, as did the stop at Timmy's for a little wake-up cruller. Delicious evil. On board, we were trying to figure out how best to prepare Max for takeoff. After hearing a pile of stories from friends and colleagues, we planned to wait until the flight attendants were seated and then we'd feed him on the way up to deal with the air pressure. Maybe not the "safest" position for him, but we didn't want to be the parents of "that baby" on a 4+ hour flight. Aside from me jumping the gun and having Holly start feeding on our way to deicing (the attendants had buckled in so I thought we were going! And what is with YOW deicing being 10 minutes from the terminal? seems inefficient...)


The flight was awesome. Max fed well, kept quiet and slept a bunch (making us believe that the early morning flights are the way to go). When we got off the plane, people were telling us that they didn't even know that there was a baby on the plane! Not like the 22 month-old girl across the aisle. She screamed a lot. We weren't sure when we were taking notes more: when her mother curled up to sleep and expected her girl to stay put and entertain herself, or when she took the girl to the back of the plane, ditched her with the attendants and came back to her seat for some peace.

When we got to Kelowna, Max's grandpa Richard was there to pick us up in the Maxmobile West (thanks so much for the lift!). It was a little chilly in the BC interior, so we had to make sure Max was well bundled. We got the car seat in OK, grabbed some lunch and hit the road. Max knocked himself out yet again, giving Holly and I a chance to catch up with my Dad. We go through Beaverdell and Westbridge and pulled off for a break at Rock Creek, where my Dad used to live. That's where Max got up and got cranky. The nice part about the plane was that if Max got fussy, we could pick him up and hold/rock/sway him...in a car, you're really at the mercy of Max's mood and level of consciousness. We got as far as Greenwood where we had to pull over and feed Max. It didn't really calm him down any, but we were only about 45 minutes out of Grand Forks so we pressed on.

Eventually, we pulled up to my Dad's place and marveled at the setting. He and Karan have a 7-acre property on the outskirts of Grand Forks, just under a mile from the US border (this picture is from the back of the house - the mountains you see are in Washington). The snow-covered trees and hills were really pretty and the central area in town had an amazing amount of services for a town of that size - looked like a pretty neat place to be. Now we'll have to check it out in the summer sometime.

Due to the cold, Max didn't really go outside except when we needed to help him get to sleep. So unfortunately, he wasn't able to make the acquaintance of the horses, ducks, miniature donkeys, chickens, roosters, or peacocks. That's ok, there were two cats (Mikey and Qi) and three dogs (Timber, Buddy and Bailey) inside the house for Max to play with. For a couple of weeks prior to the trip, we noticed that Max had started to pay attention to our cats, eying them as they walked by or even reaching out to grab some fur. Well, did Max ever have fun trying to keep his eyes on five pets. I think Qi was his favourite, but Buddy was certainly his bodyguard.

We all had a great visit in Grand Forks and were
treated to wonderful meals. A big thanks to Karan too, for taking a couple of days off from her hectic job to spend time with us (and for teaching Max that spoons are fun to play with and chew on!). While we were there, Max also learned that beards are super fun to grab, Home Hardwares put him to sleep (just like his dad!) and that different places can have different humidities (Grand Forks was super dry). I'm sure the next time we go, Max will put all of that yard space to good use. Well, maybe not the part with the horses. That's for later. Heck, when I visited the horses in 1999, I still didn't know where to stand in order to minimize the chance of getting hoofed.

In our next episode, our hero braves the 560 km car ride to Vancouver...

Here are some pictures from Grand Forks: