Max and I just got home from a trip out west, sans Mommy. Fittingly, Max's two years of abusing the heck out of the "free-until-you're 2" rule started and ended with flights out to visit his grandparents in BC. Let's do a quick tally of Max's flight legs:
Ottawa-Toronto (8 times)
Ottawa-Winnipeg (5 times)
Winnipeg-Toronto (3 times)
Toronto-Kelowna (2 times)
Ottawa-Halifax (2 times)
Ottawa-Calgary (2 times)
Toronto-Orlando (2 times)
Calgary-Kelowna (1 time)
Victoria-Calgary (1 time...remember the bong under the bed and middle of the night fire alarm?)
Freddy Beach-Toronto (1 time)
Freddy Beach-Montreal (1 time)
Ottawa-Montreal (1 time)
That makes 29 flight legs (and seven provinces!) in just under 22 months. Yikes. I'm not sure how old I was when I took my 29th flight leg, but I'd bet it was 21 years, not months. With the imminent arrival of #2, Max will be unlikely to break the 30 barrier before his second birthday (or even soon after that, given the price tag). This makes me sad for poor baby #2 - there are a lot of cool things that we got to do in Max's first two years that we are less likely to be able to expose the youngest Stardom to. Hopefully we'll be able to do enough to fill baby's early life with a lot of special experiences.
So about the trip to BC, Max was an expert traveller. I scored him 9.5/10 on the way there and 8.5/10 on the way back (although, being a good statistician, if I adjust the scores to take degree of difficulty into account, he probably gets a 9.5 both ways - starting the day by waking up in BC then getting in a car for 2.5 hours then getting on a plane for 4 hours is no fun). Max made a lot of friends, both of the passenger and flight attendant variety. The Calgary crew of Yvette and Lesley, in particular, were stellar. If you're reading this, Max thanks you. The best part about both travel days was that there were sizable layovers at the Calgary and Toronto airports (calculated bookings on our part - yes!), allowing Max a couple of hours to run all over the place (I sure didn't have to pick him up much at either airport) and gawk at airplanes, cargo carts, fuel trucks and assorted other vehicles. The little guy sure is into heavy equipment...
While I could do the typical 50,000-word essay breaking down the trip a day at a time, I'm just going to provide a list of highlights from the trip interspersed with photos and video. Here goes:
Old friends of my dad's (R&J from Winnipeg) dropped in unexpectedly for a couple of days on their way through to their place on Saltspring Island. Yes, they flew into Grand Forks. In a plane they built. Partially out of shirt fabric. Awesome. On the day that they left, we all went to the GF airport to see them off. Max got to try the flight gear on and sit in the cockpit as the plane got pushed around. That was super.
Max spent a staggering amount of time wandering around the backyard of the property and it was a coin toss as to whether he was more fixated on visiting the horses and birds, or if he wanted to go sit on the tractor. Invariably, we ended up doing both each time, but the order changed. Max fed the ducks and peacocks lamb's quarters (a weed, not animal parts), collected duck eggs (Dad had to keep his hand in the pail to cushion the impact of a Max-thrown egg:), fed the horses hay and even snuck a couple of strawberries out of the garden. He rejected the opportunity to ride the miniature donkeys, though. Maybe next time.
On our third full day in GF, we took a little road trip to Osoyoos to see what was happening over there. While GF was eternally rainy (unseasonally so), Osoyoos was 37 degrees of awesome. We hung out by the lake where we fed Max a picnic while he squealed at passing boats and jet skis. We also gave Max his first ice cream cone - he had no idea how to eat the soft serve so we had to keep telling him to touch his tongue to the ice cream. He'd stick out his tongue and get the cone close before killing himself laughing every time. I repeatedly had to clean up near-drippings and Max gave me huge doses of "MINE!" and "GO!" every time, but he was taking so long laughing... After ice cream, we had a stroll and then had amazing pizzas at the Pizza Factory. Max got a little cranky on the way back to GF, but that was the first day he slept well through the night, so we did something right!
Returning to the theme of vehicles, my stepmother (who works as a paramedic in GF) came by with an ambulance one evening and gave Max the tour. Max was pretty terrified at the beginning - it was probably overwhelming seeing this loud vehicle roll up with lights going and then get ushered inside...either that or, like girls at an NKOTB show, it was just too much - but he warmed up to the ambulance and even got a blown-up glove for his troubles.
Aside from all of the critters living out on the farm, there were three dogs and two cats in the house and Max had adventures with all of them. Bailee the dog (sp?) liked Max a lot, which led her to cross into Max's personal space and lick him, resulting in tears and Max calling Bailee "no dog" for the rest of the trip. He said "no dog go!" a lot. Unrequited!!! Buddy the dog was pretty much a non-factor while Timber, the eldest dog, was slow and wary, just the kind of dog Max likes. Every time he pet Timber though, he wiped his hands on his pants, likely because Timber had recently been shaved and the stubble felt funny. As for the cats, Qi was never anywhere to be found, but Mikey absolutely fell in love with Max. Mikey would search Max out and then rub up against him while Max gave him lots of pats. In fact, their relationship was so close that Max has become very frustrated by Lily's skittishness since coming home. He just wants a cat who will love him back!
Max had a great time being spoiled - the BC folks bought him a fire truck with a shape-sorting feature and three little books that he spent a lot of time with. Also, there were a couple of wooden toys that he played with a lot out there - a rocking horse and a push cart that he would throw stuffed animals in and then push them around the yard.
Finally, a note about me - on the last day, I tried to help my dad get some hay down from the hay barn to feed the horses and, after being told which bale to grab, I reached out to get it and OUCH! That hurt! I had seen my dad throw bales around bare-handed and thought he was pretty studly to handle hay that sharp without gloves. It felt like slivers or glass or something...then I saw the wasp crawl out of the bale where my hand had been. Ah. After a Benadryl run, I was back in action. My dad is now only slightly studly again.
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