Freddy Beach

Well, I've gone and saved our biggest fall event for last. I've alluded to being away and being in airports in previous posts and now you get to find out why. Our close friends J&R (only in that order for alphabetical reasons R...) have been together for quite some time, and this past summer, they got engaged. Given that they're both from the Maritimes, they decided to have the ceremony in Fredericton, NB over Thanksgiving weekend. We were honoured to have been invited to come out to the East Coast for the big event (and they might have been a bit surprised that we accepted!). But hey, Max hadn't been to New Brunswick before, so why not?

In fact, the timing was ideal for us, in the sense that I had not yet returned to work and therefore didn't have to worry about taking time off. We were a little concerned that yanking Max out of daycare so soon after getting him started might slow his progress, but it turns out that the effect wasn't too great. The only hitch was that Holly had come down with a tremendous cold the weekend before and, on the 6th, was put on some heavy-duty antibiotics to deal with her flourishing sinus and ear infections. As the doctor said, "the flight will be very uncomfortable, but there is no risk of permanent damage". Holly survived the flight with very little discomfort.

We left on the 8th and, as per usual, Max was awesome on the plane. He slept all the way to Toronto and then played in a pair of empty seats set aside for us on the way to Fredericton. We arrived at the airport and immediately saw that NB had a beautiful landscape loaded with trees showing off their fall colours. It was a short hop into town and, after setting up shop in the hotel, we headed out for some pizza, crazy good Caesar salad, and donair sauce. Thanks to the bride for the restaurant recommendation!

On the Thursday, we drove out to Oromocto, where Holly renewed her acquaintance with Frenchy's, a most interesting chain of East Coast thrift stores that I first ran into in Church Point, NS, in 1998. Picture everything you'd normally find in a thrift store, but in waist-high wooden bins that are essentially tables with edges. Nothing is hung up, just piled in these bins. Ready...one...two...rummage! Needless to say, Max and I snoozed for 90 minutes in the car while Mom charged it like Betty and Wilma.

It was a bit of a rainy day, so we stayed in town for the afternoon. We enjoyed some fantastic shopping, including an awesome toy store where we picked up these weird balls with bugs in them and some glow in the dark skeleton pirate figurines. We had run into J&R quite unexpectedly at lunch (amazing food again!) and decided to hook up for dinner at El Burrito Loco, an authentic Mexican restaurant smack in the middle of Freddy Beach (what the locals call Fredericton). Run by what must have been the only Mexican expat in New Brunswick. Sadly, Max did not get to try carne asada. Maybe next time.

J&R and their family were tied up with that whole getting married thing on the Friday, so we took off to King's Landing, an historical "village" about 30 minutes north of Fredericton. I put village in quotes because it never was an actual village. King's Landing is cobbled together from a variety of 19th century buildings from all over the province that merited preservation. It contained some farm houses, a general store, a blacksmith's shop, a sawmill, a grist mill, a print shop and an ox barn, among other things. The one thing that impressed us more than other similar places we had been to, like Upper Canada Village and Lower Fort Garry, was that this place was fully functional and self-sustainable, in the sense that they raise their own animals on site for food, they cook meals on site using traditional methods, the blacksmith actually makes things to improve the other buildings rather than just hammering out some metal for the kiddies. They actually had a turkey shoot and Thanksgiving dinner planned for the Sunday...too bad we couldn't be a part. However, we did get to try some raisin pudding baked in a stone bread oven (Max loved it). It was a beautiful day to wander around and the people working there were wonderful characters. I was afraid it was going to be a long haul when Max ripped himself out of the ring sling 15 minutes into the 150 minute tour, but he was totally happy to be lugged around on my shoulders for most of the day.

Later that night, we were invited to the family dinner, which was quite the privilege. We ate at a seafood buffet at the Delta and toasted the newlyweds. Max, oblivious to the reason for all the fanfare, gorged himself on zucchini and salmon and charmed the pants off of everyone in attendance. Dad, fully aware of the reason for the celebration, gorged himself on white wine. LOTS of white wine. We had a great time.

Finally, on the Saturday, we swung out to the "camp" (cottage for non-Easterners) of J's aunt and uncle, which was out toward King's Landing. Holly pitched in with the decor (which looked awesome by the time I arrived with Max), and I helped get the sound system up and running. Guests showed up mid-afternoon and had a good time munching, chatting and partaking in a brew or two. It was a beautiful fall day and Max got to visit with a LOT of people. A friend of the bride's took some great pictures and the food was delicious (yay meat on sticks!). Max had a bit much to eat and threw up a bit, but he was forgiven because he slept very well while the party carried on into the wee hours.

A BIG thanks to J&R (and their families) for making us feel welcome and being so hospitable. We had a fantastic time meeting everybody and really enjoyed getting to know Fredericton. The funny thing is, now my shenanigans of last summer to get across the Confederation Bridge to say "I've been to New Brunswick" are moot. Which I suppose heightens their shenaniganness. Silly me. Now that I think about it, Max has now been on 20 flight legs and has visited 7 provinces. I think I hit my seventh province when I was 22. Too bad we eventually have to start paying for him.


Max playing around at the airport.

Dad vs. Luna's donair-sauce-slathered garlic fingers.

Max fell in love with this cupboard in the hotel.

Some ESL students fell in love with Max through a restaurant window.

Max loves climbing on stuff. This is him scaling the wheels of his stroller.

Max, getting a little crabby because he's too far away from the happy couple at El Burrito Loco.

Max and Dad in a field at King's Landing.

The whole family hanging out by a sawmill.

Mom, Max and a horse.

Max, chilling out with two women from the 1830s and one from the 1890s. Now that's a cool feat!

Max had some fun on my shoulders, bending down and poking at my nose.

Dad had a turn posing with the horse too.

Max looks pretty good in his vest combo while auditioning for Michael Jackson's Black or White video.

Max had a 30-minute nap, but then got up crying. Somehow, after I put him on the hotel bed, he drifted off while mellowing to Nick Drake.

Dad model-posing with his baby, er..., toddler.

Max works on his walking.

Um yeah, so back to the subject of this blog.

Thanks Mom, for hijacking my blog for a couple of posts. Give it back. Love Max

OK, Dad here. As promised, I wanted to blog about the Thanksgiving dinner that our friends threw for us...well, for themselves, really, but they thought to invite us. We had just rolled off the plane on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend (more on that later), and the last thing we wanted to do was go home and cook. Thankfully, our friends M&E were whipping up dinner for parents and another friend and were kind enough to let us tag along :) for their first big meal in their new house.

Max fell asleep on the way over (in his stroller), so while we all caught up with one another, Max snoozed on the porch. Thankfully, the weather allowed this - it was a gorgeous day outside! Eventually, Max got up and joined the party, but was mighty cuddly and did not want to be let go. After about a half hour or so, he finally decided that toddling around and meeting people (and the dog!) would be OK.

That's when the breakthrough began. Max started walking like he had never walked before. Walking over to the cheese plate. Walking over to the stairs. Walking over to the box of empty beer bottles (and taking a swig...uh-oh...). Walking over to the golf balls rolling across the floor. And the china cabinet. And the toy car garage that got dug up from somewhere. He was still crawling a bunch, but this will certainly be the night we point to as the one where Max became a toddler.

As for the adult-related stuff, the food was amazing. Heart attack potatoes, yummy turkey (Max's first!) and a delicious homemade pumpkin pie! We had a wonderful time chatting and trading political jibes until Max got a bit cranky and needed his beauty rest. We're very lucky to have friends like this - THANKS!

A couple of nights later, we all headed over to Auntie K's place down the street for an Electorama party. The election itself was a little anticlimactic, but Max had a great time wandering back and forth on the hardwood floors and, after he went to bed, we had a blast catching up with good friends and eating all of the orange finger food, crudites and vegan pumpkin pie we could ask for. Our candidate won in our riding, so that totally put a cherry on the evening.

Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving evening:


Max, touching base with work on a Blackberry

Showing off some toys and a sweet new couture jacket courtesy of uncle Chris.

So Max has started to climb stuff. Here's one of his more daring attempts.

GG's New Wheels

Check out Great Grampa Frank's new wheels:



I don't know ANY other octagenarians who look this sporty and cool behind the wheel. Go, GG, go!

Apropos of nothing - just a cute photo of John

We promise that we will be hopping back on the blogging horse with vigour in the coming days. Watch out for more stories, photos, etc. and the latest and greatest on Max.

Until then, here's a little tidbit on John. As part of a team building exercise at work, John recently did a photo scavenger hunt of Ottawa. It sounds like it was a blast to run around the city trying to find various items, including a group of five ducks, shoes hanging on telephone lines, a picture of the pope and a Smart Car, and take pictures of them.

Here is a cute photo of John bagging one of the things on the list - the O-Train:

More new stuff

Before moving on, as promised, to a couple of neat events that we've attended over the last while, here are a couple of new Max talents that I neglected to mention last time.

Max likes to climb up off the ground now. Walking was really not that much different from being able to clamber around the furniture in our house. He couldn't really reach more things and wasn't really getting into more trouble. Getting up off the ground is troublesome though. Obviously. He likes to crawl up on stools, or the wheels of his umbrella stroller (yikes). Best of all, he has figured out how to swing his legs over things...so now he loves sitting in boxes and such. In particular, he lives in our recycling bin on the top floor of our house. We've had to stop putting small ripped papers in there because Max would always spread them everywhere. Or eat them. We also can't unload the dishwasher when Max is loose in the kitchen because he likes to crawl up on the dishwasher door and sit on it.

Also, Max has started putting things on his head. Anything that can act as a hat. Knee pads. Face cloths. Tupperware. Pasta. Really, if it will stay put on his head, awesome.

Finally, Max is making strides in feeding himself. He still does the same old thing when left to his own devices with a spoon - flipping it upside-down on the way in to his mouth so that the bowl of the spoon dumps directly on his tongue. That's if there's actually anything left after the spoon spills on the high chair tray or Max's Buddha belly. After a few tries, he'll usually offer the spoon to the supervising adult, but won't accept being fed. What he actually wants is for the adult to hand him the full spoon in the best possible position to get everything in his mouth. It's pretty cute to watch him wanting to take more control...despite the increased mess and longer meal times.

Okie doke. I'll start with the baptism of Max's future wife, Maddie. I got to fly solo on this one with Max as Mom was conked out sick at home. It was a United Church service, probably not too different from my own baptism years and years ago. The cool part was that the baptism ceremony was performed by the baby's paternal grandmother, who is a minister at the church. Max and I got to catch up with friends and partake in the fabulous spread in the church's basement before the little guy passed out. I was a little concerned that it would have been a lot harder to keep him quiet in the church, but a friend and I kept him fairly entertained in our pew. Solemnly entertained, that is.

Here are some pictures and a video. Tomorrow, I'll try to post a bit about our Thanksgiving dinner!


Max in his new favourite place to be. At least he is learning one of the three Rs early.

Max trying on a plastic bowl with Great Auntie K. Dapper.

Max chilling in his pew at the baptism with our friend P.

Max donning some yummy pasta

Where did the fall go?

Wow, it feels like it was just yesterday that Holly went back to work. Now, I'm done raking all the leaves in our driveway (21 bags!!) and I'm shoving off to work tomorrow myself. I'm going to hopefully get a few posts up here over the next few days so I'll attack the last couple of weeks in chunks.

Daycare
So Max has spent about a couple of weeks at daycare now and things are going somewhat better. He's still trying to get used to having only one nap a day, which leaves us with a cranky little guy on our hands when we pick him up. However, he goes to sleep really, REALLY easily at night. And earlier too, so Mom and Dad get to reclaim a bit more evening time together, which is nice. In fact, he goes to sleep so easily now that we may have to cash in some babysitting favours in order to have some hot dates :). Max seems to prefer Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays when he gets to go to play group with his two buddies. But he's eating better every day and isn't crying when we pick him up anymore. This past Tuesday, Max was playing with a tricycle in a pile of leaves in the driveway when I picked him up. He didn't notice me at first, but then caught me out of the corner of his eye and immediately broke into a frantic crawl over to me so that he could stand up and hang on to my pants. SO CUTE!

Swimming
Grandma Heather bought Max a term of swimming lessons for his birthday, but has been unable to take him for the past few weeks. However, he's still been going with Daddy and is progressing way beyond what I would have expected by this point. He can get in the pool, toddle down the ramp a bit, float (assisted) on his front with his chin in the water, get water poured on his head, hang out in a lifejacket, fall in off the side of the pool (into my arms, of course) and (best of all) enter the pool on a slide...all with very few tears. He'll be missing tomorrow night's class, but we'll pick it up again when we can.

Mobility
Um, let's see. Max is really walking now. On Thanksgiving Sunday, Max decided he would go from trying to take a few steps every now and then to opting to walk whenever possible. Prior to Sunday, he had maybe taken a hundred steps or so across a couple of weeks. That day alone, he probably took 150 steps. Since then, he has started choosing walking over crawling, which has been cool to watch. In fact, he is already starting to test his balance on his feet by bending over or crouching down (sometimes to pick stuff up) and then standing up again. He hasn't started to get to a standing position from the ground without the assistance of furniture or a wall or something, but I'm sure that's coming. Neat aside: Max is even starting to "walk" on his knees and is learning that by rocking in a movable object (high chair, stroller), he can move it around a bit. Cool. The only irritating thing is that when he's pushing around one of his rollable toys (his favourites these days) and gets it stuck against a wall or jamb, he has a mini meltdown. Sounds like he's about as patient with roadblocks as his Dad. Boo.

Motor skills; understanding speech
Two of the neatest things that Max has started doing VERY consistently is waving hello or goodbye and clapping for himself whenever he finishes a course at a meal. Max has started to understand that "Yay", "Good job", "Good boy", "Right on" all mean "you should give yourself a hand". Max has also started to dance and clap when he hears music. Dancing is not just jiggling around, either. Max has figured out how to do knee bends AND twist his upper body a bit. Super cute.

Babbling
Max is getting more and more vocal these days. He still hasn't blurted out a definite word, but is inching from MISS to HIT on mama and dada. Allegedly, he yaks all day long at daycare too. I have a feeling that once Max starts actually speaking, he's just not going to stop.

Here are a few pictures. Stay tuned for some events we've taken part in over the past weeks.


Here's Max enjoying his first spaghetti. Yum. Check out his awesome Venetian gondolier t-shirt courtesy of the Wieners in Wien (aka Rob and Jessa).

Max loves to hit the slide at the park.

Max is still trying to understand this autumn thing.

Here's Max wheeling around his birthday gift from his great-grandma.