One of the biggest themes of the past weekend was Max getting his sleep seriously back on track. It all started back on Thursday when Holly tempted fate with her first curried meal since last October, at Ceylonta, one of our favourite restaurants. When we last tuned in to the battle between Max and second-hand curry, the winner was gas at 2:00, 4:30 and 6:00. This time, Max decided to pass out at 11:00 after we got the first chunk of packing for our weekend together. We hit the hay right away in preparation for the rocky night...only to wake up at 7:00 in the morning without hearing boo from the nursery. Nuts. The first night he gives us a solid night and we were about to seriously mess with his routine...but good to know that Max can handle curries :)) Holly is really, really, really looking forward to Thai again.
We got the rest of our packing done, fired Max in the car and picked up Auntie Lar for a roadie to Toronto. Which Max would surface in the vehicle: Whitemouth Max or Manning Park Max? (drumroll) The winner is Whitemouth Max! After the rain and snow lulled him to sleep, he stayed out for a record couple of hours before we pulled off for a food stop at the now notorious Flying J of Napanee (frozen hard-boiled eggs, slimy chickpeas and white margarine made for a five-star meal for Max's Auntie). Once we hit the road again, Max fell asleep after a little bit of coaxing and stayed out until we got to Toronto, where I hopped out to go play some Scrabble at the National Championships (click here for the details:
http://www.scrabble-assoc.com/tourneys/2008/csc/build/index.html).
Holly here: I know this blog is about Max but I would be remiss if I didn't give a MAJOR shout out to Max's dad for finishing 15th at the Canadian National Scrabble Championships. He was seeded 29th but finished 15th. Yes, 15th in the country! How many times in your life can you say that you are 15th in the whole country at something? Not very often so super gold stars to our very own super Scrabble star.
At this point, Holly, Lar and Max got back on the road to go visit Auntie Krysta in Guelph for a couple of days. Manning Park Max emerged for a few minutes when we got stuck in gridlock leaving Toronto but we survived. After a nice dinner with some of Auntie K's friends,
Max realized that he had slept a gazillion hours that day and didn't do so hot that night. Poor Holly. On Saturday, everyone took their time getting on the road, and then headed out to a local butterfly conservatory with a good friend of Krysta's (that's him holding Max as close as he's ever been to a butterfly. Afterward, everyone ambled off to a hip bookstore (Max didn't find any first edition Sandra Boyntons and so kinda lost interest...) before tucking into a fantastic dinner. Everyone got to hang out, stuff peas, carrots, apples and bananas into little dude's craw and then send him off to dreamland. This night, he regained his composure and had an OK night.Sunday morning, Krysta bid everyone farewell (thanks Keister!) and Max was
whisked back to Toronto, where he got to hang out with our close friend Jenn. Brunch got the day started right, and then some fab shopping on Queen Street West helped while away the afternoon. Jenn even got to carry Max around all afternoon! Max got to go on his first streetcar ride and his first subway ride, all in the same day. Everyone stopped by the CNSC site to pick me up and meet some elite Canadian Scrabblers. Then we retreated to Jenn's pad for a yummy dinner and some chilling out. That night, Max ran the score to good nights: 2, bad nights: 2. Just to keep it fresh, you know.Yesterday, we all headed home. Whitemouth Max was in full effect on the way home and we were happy that the ride home was peaceful. We stopped off in Kingston for some delicious wood-fired pizza halfway and got home in good time. The last night of the weekend, we figured Max was going to give "bad nights" the best-of-five victory ,given the amount of car sleep on the way home. Oddly enough, when Holly stepped out for some groceries, I gave him some chow and then Max started signaling sleepiness with eye-rubbing and general crankiness so I put him to bed at 8:00 pm, before Holly got back. Again, we packed it in early (just like on Thursday) to prepare for a rough night...except that, once again, Max fooled both of us. I had to return the rental car first thing in the morning, but I figured I wouldn't need to set an alarm. Heh heh. Max slept right through to 7 am (!!!) He started off the weekend with a tremendous sleep, had a couple of blips and then wrapped it all up with a tremendous sleep.
Holly and I (probably mostly me) have been a little concerned about his nighttime habits for some time as he hasn't really had any routine or solid sleep patterns since the end of 2007. It was really wonderful to see him handle car trips better, have more long sleeps and get to visit good friends and family with the little guy. We had a wonderful weekend and look forward to (hopefully) providing Max with more routine and seeing him develop better sleep habits. But we'll still sneak in visits with all sorts of cool people :)) A big thanks to everyone who put us up and kept us busy this past weekend - we had a super time! Max thanks you too.
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