Nana Banana

We had a fabulous weekend chez Casa Stardom and I wanted to write a little shout-out to my mum (a.k.a. Queen Bee or Nana) who helped make our weekend so enjoyable.

Friday was John’s birthday so we had a little surprise family pizza dinner at our place. Mum made a wonderful shrimp appetizer and a citrus cheesecake then stayed to babysit so that John and I could hit the local karaoke dive with friends for a few hours. John and I both had a blast singing and enjoying the Hintonburg people-watching. Leo has been sleeping great but somehow chose that night to wake up twice, while we were gone. However, my mum handled it like a pro. The little stinker didn’t get up again after we got home at 1 a.m. so we were spared any of his shenanigans until he woke up for good in the morning. John took the early morning shift with the boys so I could get a bit of extra sleep - yesssss!

The weather was beautiful (warm but not too hot; bright but not blazingly sunny) on Saturday morning so we decided to head for the beach. The first thing Max said when I mentioned that we might go to the beach was “We go with Nana Banana?” We promptly called my mum who, despite being at our place for roughly the entire night before until the wee hours AND having a bum knee, was up for a family beach adventure. We ended up spending quite some time on the beach making sand forts and splashing in the water. Mum and I took the boys for a bit so John could get a little nap on the sand. I don’t know many women “of a certain age” who can rock a plunging V-neck swimsuit while building sand castles at the beach but my mum is one of those women. Check out the photo:


Max had one of the lines of the day when he saw a young man with a blue Mohawk: “Mama, why that man have a blue chicken on his head?” Priceless.

On Sunday, Mum and I went to an afternoon matinee of The Kids are All Right. Mum was disappointed to not get a seniors discount but it doesn’t start until 65 at Empire Theatres so she has a LONG time to wait. It was so nice to slip away for an intelligent movie!

Mum, you may drive me crazy sometimes but you always make me laugh and you are always there for us. Thanks for everything.

British Columbia 2010: 1 of 3

OK, so our whole BC trip breaks down pretty nicely into thirds and therefore that's how I'm going to lay this out. First stop: arrival in Grand Forks.

This was Leo's first flight, so we weren't really sure what to expect. However, given our experiences with Max and Leo's recent swing into happy baby territory, we were pretty optimistic. Sure enough, both kids were pretty good on the flight from Ottawa to Vancouver, although I don't seem to remember Max sleeping. Oh yeah, that's right, he got through the layover and everything and then crashed on the short hop to Kelowna.

Landing in Kelowna always blows me away. After spending so much time in eastern Ontario with its trees and flatness, seeing the combination of farmland and sharp elevation changes is always stunning. Also, on a trip where I'll be heading further west, it's a reminder that I'm about to see some mountains and soon. I haven't figured out if I love mountains or ocean more...hmm...but I digress.

After making a brief food stop, both kids slept well through most of the road trip from Kelowna to Grand Forks. After getting about 80% of the way there, Max woke up and started asking to get out and saying that he wanted to go to Grandpa's farm (aside from the time he asked to get out of the plane about 6 hours earlier, somewhere over the prairies, this was the first "are we there yet" we've ever gotten from Max. It was kind of cute, but a foreshadowing of what was to come).

When we arrived, Max's mood flipped from moody/whiny to ecstatic/manic almost instantly. He wanted to see and feed animals ASAP! Never mind the pleasantries... After he had confirmed that the animals were all still there, we got to settle down.

Over the length of our stay, Max was a very good helper on the farm, doing everything from feeding the horses, donkeys and birds to collecting eggs, harrowing the riding ring and shoveling poop. Check it out:







Leo also liked looking at all of the animals and romping around with the dogs. It was kind of surprising how much dog Leo would actually tolerate, considering Max was so wary of them, right from the get-go. For example:


On our third full day in town, we all packed up and drove down to Colville, Washington to see the sights. The drive was absolutely spectacular. It was a cute little town that reminded me of Whitehorse. We stopped off at a crazy antique store with a wide variety of things under its roof, including a functional old-time barber shop. Then, Max was ushered to the local toy store, where Grandma Karan bought him a set of Bob the Builder toys that remain some of his favourite playthings. We grabbed lunch at Stephanie's, an amazing little restaurant with a huge seafood menu, and then wrapped up the visit with a Wal-Mart run. Grampa stocked up on sugar cereals and Grandma Karan picked out some adorable outfits and beach towels for the boys. Holly got a few snacks for the road that you can only find in the States so she was a happy camper. We even passed a KFC on the way out that was advertising the Double Down but the boys were asleep in the car so we couldn't stop for a photo.

One really funny thing about our run across the border was that Max thought that Washington was actually Washing Things so he kept looking for places to wash things. We tried to find a laundromat for him but to no avail.


Max on a tiny merry go round at the antique store. You can tell it was our first stop in town by Max's "I just woke up from a nap in my car seat" hairdo and sleepy eyes.


The boys in a crazy big cart at the crazy big Wal-Mart.
We also got to check out the town of Grand Forks: shopping at the Dollar Store, grabbing some grub at the A&W, organic cheese shopping at Jerseyland Dairy, hanging out at the awesome playground by the campground, getting groceries at Extra Foods and even squeezing in a little thrift store shopping for Holly.

One of the highlights of our visit was Max getting the opportunity to ride a horse!! Although Sparky was referred to as a pony, he certainly wasn't as small as the ponies I have seen at fairs and such. Sparky was definitely a big 'un. Here is a picture (and hopefully a video) of Max saddled up on his ride.



Here are a few photo ops the kids had with both rancheros:







And lastly, a couple of random pictures:


Max getting acquainted with corn on the cob


Mom and Leo having a little hike while Max was waving at cars driving by...and getting "cool guy waves" from drivers in return (hand on steering wheel, extending the index and middle fingers from the wheel in a peace-ish salute).

Week 1 is in the bag

After four glorious weeks with two adults at home, Holly went off to resume her professional life last Monday and I started my time as stay-at-home Dad. Not everything went smoothly, but there were no major disasters (i.e., both kids are alive, all body parts are still attached, they are reasonably happy and well-fed) so I'd give my first week off a B+. Generally, the week was pretty busy and so we were out of the house doing things quite a bit...this was great for accomplishing things and passing the time, but not so great for Leo's naps or my energy levels. Plus, taking part in a workplace picnic on Wednesday cost Max a nap and resulted in a wonky end-of-week (sleepwise) for him.

This next week is still relatively unplanned, although it should repeat a few elements of the first week (CVO playgroup, library time, possibly another hit of Cosmic Adventures, constant errand-running) with a dash of something new thrown in (Leo's 1-year check-up, maybe some wading pool time, an outside shot of taking Max to Bluesfest). We'll see.

A big thanks to Holly's playgroup moms and babies who were very welcoming when I stopped in for a visit this past week. Leo definitely loves time with his peeps.

Two quick Leo developments to report

Before getting back to June, I wanted to take a second to announce two pretty cool things Leo has accomplished in the past 24 hours.

1) Yesterday, I was wearing a shirt with a cityscape, a couple of kids, some fireflies and a bunny on it. I kept saying "bunny" and pointed to the bunny. Leo sometimes touched the bunny, but sometimes touched the boy. Many hours later in the early evening, Holly came home and I wanted to see what would happen. I said "bunny" and Leo went right for the bunny. Awesome. (admittedly, it was probably a boy/bunny coin-toss, but sometimes the coin comes up heads...)

2) This morning, I was carrying Leo and put him down on the ground. He's become quite adept at standing unassisted for a few seconds before sitting down and he assumed a standing position this morning. Then, he moved his right foot forward. Not shuffled, moved. Then he sat down. The walking watch is now officially on.

A visit from Grandma

After Mothers Day, we were delighted to have Max's and Leo's Grandma visit from Winnipeg for a week. Upon arriving at the house, Grandma was promptly whisked away by Max to help with some building he had to do in his bedroom.


The rest of the evening was spent exploring Max's other favourite toys and books while Holly was off at a bachelorette party. Whoopee!

The next day, we all set out to catch the remainder of the tulips - remember, this is now a week after Mothers Day (see previous photos of toques and empty flower beds), so we figured the tulip gardens were going to be on their last legs. Surprisingly, there were still a few left standing. In fact, some of the beds were still gorgeous and the weather had done an absolute about face so we were joined by the rest of Ottawa. Definitely a good call to hit them ASAP. Here are some photos:


See? Some tulips WERE still alive on the 16th!

This picture kills me. It looks so pretty at first glance. What is it Max is looking at? A bug? A pretty flower? I can't tell...all I can see is that dead dandelion in the foreground. And is that a hot dog in his hand? Yup. (Max had the best hot dog lunch that day: 1 dog, 1 bun, 25 olives, 9 pickles. Sweet.)

I remember when I took this picture how stunned I was to catch a Leo smile on celluloidigital. Not to give away future post spoilers, but Leo is a different kid now.

We tried so many times to get everyone looking at the camera...no dice. It devolved into Max trying to sit on Leo and I think that's when we called it a day on family portraits.
I had to work most of the week so I missed out on some of the adventures, but on Monday there was an awesome visit to the Experimental Farm with the Bee Exhibit and awesome display of tractors.



On Tuesday, Max's wildest dream came true. Check it.


Your eyes do not deceive you - Max is in the cab of the backhoe. A pipe under our neighbours' lawn blew up and so there was construction equipment all over the place for a couple of days. Some sketchy-looking but actually very cool construction dude (see below for a close-up of his belly) decided that it would be OK if Max were to operate the backhoe loader and do some digging. On our neighbours' lawn. They don't know yet. Holly jokes that Max's life is going to be pretty sad now that his lifelong dream has been realized at age 2.7.


The next couple of days featured a playgroup rendez-vous at our place and an epic visit to Toys-R-Us (to that point, Max believed that the local consignment store was the toy store...SURPRISE!!), where Grandma immortalized herself by buying Max a big ride-on excavator with sounds and lights. Max loves his digger and even Leo is using it for climbing practice now. Here's Leo's friend Grace modeling the digger:


On Grandma's last full day in town, we went out for a belated Mothers Day sushi lunch. Leo picked at a few things, Max gorged on udon noodles (as per usual) and the rest of us also pigged out (possibly because I overshot on the ordering).


We retired to a nearby park to digest and Leo provided us with a high and a low:


HIGH: he posed for this great picture, taken by Grandma.


LOW: Leo ate sand. Quite a bit in fact. Even after a handful like this left a bad taste in his mouth, he continues to go back for more...

We had a wonderful visit, front to back. Thanks a bunch for making the trip, Mom!

Here are a couple of other cute pictures, just for you readers.



One day, Leo actually fell asleep in his Jumperoo. Isn't that supposed to be the opposite of what happens in the Jumperoo??


Another day, we had a yummy family lunch at the Works and Max conked himself on a table. Our favourite server promptly whipped together this stylish ice pack for him.

My boys in BC

I know we are crazy behind in chronicling the past few months of Stardom family adventures (be patient - we're working on it!) but I thought I would take a minute to post a quick photo. I think it is my favourite photo that I have taken of my three boys:


The photo was taken at Cascade Lookout in Manning Park on our drive between Grand Forks and Vancouver in early June. I've just finished sending it to work (I started back today - ugh.) so I can put it up in my cubicle to make me smile. Perhaps it will do the same for you.

A year has come and gone

To my beautiful one-year old boy,


Happy birthday! We made it. You are one year old. Seriously, where did the time go?

It has been an absolute joy to see you develop your own little personality these last few months. We have always loved you to bits but I think everyone can agree that you had some rough moments, particularly in the evenings, when no one could seem to figure you out. I think your dad took the worst of it in the evenings and at bedtime. Now, you let your Nana babysit you and put you to bed with nary a whimper. You are such a happy boy these days.

Unlike your brother, you love, love, LOVE sand and water. I’ve never seen you happier than sitting in the sand at the beach and playing in the water. You even like to eat sand. Big handfuls of sand in your mouth and wet sand smeared all over your face. Oh well. A few extra germs will bolster your immune system for everything else you are going to throw at it later in life. Bath time is also happy time for you. You don’t even care if you are in the bath; you are happy as a clam standing on the side of the tub while your brother is bathing. Heck, you even like standing, looking into an empty tub!

One of your favourite games right now is to shake your head vigorously side to side like you are saying “No!” in response to your dad or I shaking our heads up and down to say “Yes! Yes! Yes!” You think this is completely hilarious. You also like to wave “Good-bye” and “Hello” whenever you hear someone say it. You clap when someone else claps or says “Yay!” or "Good job!".

You also love to talk on the phone. Actual phones, toy phones, small plastic magnet toy pieces, stuffed animals, your shoe – you’ll use anything you can get your hands on to have a conversation.

You seem to be a pretty tough little cookie. Our playgroup mum friends are all amazed at some of the tumbles you have taken without a peep. Most of the time, you just right yourself and keep on playing. I think it might be a good thing that you have such thick skin considering some of the roughhousing your brother has been subjecting you to of late. Don’t worry – I think you are going to be a strong little dude and capable of defending yourself sooner than we think.

At the risk of disturbing the sleep gods, you have put in some great nights lately. Evidently, you love the outdoors because you didn't wake up at all the first night you ever spent in a tent. Then you slept through the night again the second night. I see some camping in our future!

It looks like you love to eat and have an adventurous palate. Avocado sushi rolls, artichoke hummous, and Creamsicles are your latest new tastes. You love cherries.

You aren’t walking yet but you are standing by yourself for extended periods of time and climbing on everything. We’ve found you kneeling on your brother’s play table a foot off the ground and standing on his potty in the bathroom. You also love ride-on toys and can get on and off of various wheeled objects with relative ease. When visiting your bro's favourite playgroup, you can always be found standing on the kids' picnic table. You also love toys with any sort of cause and effect – the dinosaur with the clear plastic balls, your brother’s mix and match farm animals magnet, the Elmo phone, etc.

You are spending your weekdays with your dad now but it is nice to know that you still think your mum is a pretty cool chick. Your smile and frantic crawl over to me when I got back from my first day of work was pretty awesome. You seem to be transitioning just fine.

I love you, little one. Thank you for a wonderful year. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for you.