Monday morning, we got everything packed up again, got in the car with Grandpa behind the wheel and hit the road. It looked like a beautiful day for driving, but we were reminded that with all the valleys we'd be driving through, the weather might vary quite a bit along the way. Max started to get upset pretty early on, somewhere around Greenwood. We threw the car song arsenal at Max, willing him to be happy. But no matter how much "Charlie Chaplin", "Acka Backa Soda Cracker", "It's a Driving Day", and the ever-popular Grand Forksicized "Jig Jog Donkey" (formerly Jig Jog Pony, this was reworked by Holly in honour of Rosie and Trixie, the grandparent's miniature donkeys), he just couldn't be satisfied. The two saving graces? Well, they ended up being his little hand rattle that he's been playing with (and chewing on, natch) since week 2 and the "Lala" song - man, that one can sidetrack him from just about anything!
Max fell asleep a couple of times between Rock Creek and Manning Park, but for the most part, he did a lot of crying. Holly took over in the back seat at Keremeos, when it was apparent that I wasn't having any effect on Max anymore (kind of like a sports coach getting sacked when the players start tuning the coach out). Holly had a good go of it, but Max was intent on crying for a good bout. Maybe we were spoiled not having a colicky baby, but man, was it hard to hear Max be so upset for so long. Typically, we don't let him get too worked up, but there really wasn't much we could do in the car. The prevailing idea was to just keep plowing ahead and get it over with as soon as possible.
Max finally gave up and conked out again somewhere in the middle of Manning Park. The Park itself was gorgeous, having recently been hit with a massive amount of snow. All of the trees, power lines and rocks were covered in almost a foot of snow. I think we were expecting that part of the drive to be snowy, but this was impressive. Not a lot of other traffic on the road, which was good news for us (or bad news, if they were all smart enough to stay home...). Normally, when you come out of the park and descend into Hope, everything gets green pretty quickly. Not this time, as Hope was under snow as well. Crazy. We made an executive decision to let Max sleep and press on to Chilliwack, as we weren't sure whether he'd be able to get back to sleep or not.
Max woke up with about 30 clicks to go and, not having been fed in a long time, wasn't even interested in the "Lala" song. We eventually hit Chilliwack and got off the road to grab a bite at Earl's. Unlike the Winnipeg versions of the restaurant, the servers out in BC seem to still be allowed to wear clothes. The food was good, Max loved his new outfit and we all got to take a breather from crying baby. The last leg wasn't so bad, given that we were not that far out. Max ramped up again just as we got past Burnaby so the last few km were covered with much haste. Many thanks to Grandpa for the lift out to the coast - it wasn't the quietest of road trips so it was much appreciated!
Holly and I were looking for some forgiveness from Max and (surprisingly, to us) he acquiesced almost immediately after coming out of the seat, showering everybody in the hotel room with smiles. The rest of the evening consisted of feeding, playing and eventually putting Max to bed.
The four of us had a good time in Vancouver - dim sum in Chinatown, Grandpa becoming a Blenz regular, shopping on Granville Island, some all-you-can-eat sushi, checking out my grad school alma mater (SFU)...the only thing was we had to do all of our exploring with half a foot (at least) of snow on the ground! In the two years we lived in Vancouver, we'd never seen anything like this. All schools and universities were closed on the Tuesday because nobody could drive in the muck. Except the Maxmobile with its snow tires. Sweet. This picture is a shot of the parking lot where we used to park the sorely missed convertible at our SFU residence apartment.
The highlight of the visit was definitely getting to see my family on the Tuesday night. For only the second time in Max's life, he got to share a room with five other Stardoms (the other being at Thanksgiving this past October). My Aunt and Uncle hosted a dinner that was simply succulent (of course it was - perogies were on the menu...sour cream with everything!!!). My other Uncle, my cousin and his girlfriend were excited to meet Max too. It was great to get some visiting in with them, in particular because it was Max's arrival which kept Holly and I from being able to attend the first Stardom family reunion in Winnipeg this past September.On the developmental front, Max came along quite well in Vancouver. We noticed that in Grand Forks, he was starting to get a bit better with his fine motor skills, being able to grab exactly what he wanted without missing the mark a bunch. In Vancouver, he managed to get Holly's glasses off her face and started grabbing accessories so much that she has since sworn off necklaces in his presence. And even bigger news: he rolled from his back onto his front for the first time! One day, he just started this sort of extreme squirm, craning his neck and arching his back. We thought he was really gassy, but he wasn't really upset. We put him on the ground and saw that this motion immediately put him from his back onto his side. He does this all the time now. However, he still hasn't quite figured out how to consistently get over the hump. I'm not even sure what he did the one time he did roll over, but it worked. Then he figured out that he was on his belly (which he hates), so he just kept on going and rolled onto his back again. Apparently, he repeated this feat twice about a week later, but he still hasn't done it again. At least we know that he's got it in him.
In our next episode: ferrying off to the Island.
Here are some pictures from Vancouver:
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