Max eating... what else is new

Max had his first apple the other day. Do you think he liked the experience?

I am starting to avoid going into the museum lease days, even though it's one way to pass the time (work has got ridiculously slow again). Why am I avoiding it? There are so many babies.

I can't believe how many babies there are in there every day. And every time I see one, my heart aches for Max, especially if the baby is close in age to him.

My little baby is turning into a little boy and it's just going by too fast. I mean look! He's eating apples on his own now! Soon he'll be leaving for university. Ugh. I can't handle this. I need to go watch an episode of early Friends when they were all single, childless and carefree.

Gardening

I enjoy gardening. I didn't know if I would, so I started small when we first bought the house. Then I discovered that I really liked it. I only have perennial gardens, no veggies. We live on an old garbage dump from the early 1900s and our soil is contaminated, hence no veggies.

I am still learning. I wouldn't say that I am a novice, but I don't know if I am yet into the intermediate classification (if there is such classifications). I tend to talk about gardening as if I know a lot more than I do. For some reason, people seem to think I am an old hat at it. Hopefully the advice I have been giving is good and not just blowing smoke!

Here are the fruits of my labor so far this year. I haven't spent nearly enough time in the gardens and they are looking a little jungle-ish, but some of the blooms are gorgeous.

Weekend at home

Went to Montreal for the weekend. It was hot. I'm talking melting the tar on the pavement hot. And it was Grand Prix weekend. We managed to avoid the traffic, but there was no avoiding the heat.

Max beat it by staying cool in his new pool.
Then Max spent a whole lot of time playing with Mitchell...
And eating...
And more time in the pool.
It was hot but time well spent with the family.

Weekend with the Stewarts

You’ve heard me rave about our friends Dave and Andra, and their two beautiful daughters Zoe and Andy. Well here I go again.

We headed down to Oshawa on Friday, June30. It was sunny, the road was clear and the baby was sleeping. It looked good, until about an hour in when Max woke up and decided he didn’t want to be strapped into his car seat and every time I turned around to look at him, he screamed louder and put his arms out to be picked up. Heart breaking and funny all at the same time.

We arrived at the Stewarts’ to open arms and screams of joy from the girls. They are so in love with Max, Andy especially. She was all over him. Andra constantly tried to get Andy to give Max some space but she wouldn’t go for it. Max didn’t seem to mind, or at least he never protested. There was lots of playing and goofing around. Max went down really well and once the girls went down the adults sat around with drinks in hand, chatted and watched Battlestar Galactica. It was a wonderful evening.

Saturday morning we woke to beautiful blue sky and hot sun. The weather network was still forecasting rain, but we decided to chance it and packed up and headed for the park. We went to a park in Whitby (I think!) down by the water. Dave had packed his little portable barbeque and we had hotdogs and veggies and chips. It was a great picnic. We blew bubbles, and played ball and played in the park. The weather was a little cool, but better than being a hundred degrees!

When the sky turned black at about 3:00, we packed everyone back up and headed home. The rain never came and we ended up barbequing and playing in the back yard. Max had had about 30 minutes sleep the entire day and was a little squirrelly, but the girls were good with entertaining him. Adam and Beth (pregnant with twins and looking fabulous) came for the feast. It was another great evening. The boys played Guitar Heroes for an absurd amount of time, once again. I think they are actually going to get carpal tunnel syndrome.

We ended the evening with Marty and I convincingly beating Dave and Andra at a game called Like Minded or Think A Like or something like that. We beat them twice actually! It’s a really fun game to play with couples. Easy, no need for huge amounts of concentration and you can get into some fun discussions.

Sunday morning, after a great breakfast we went to the park where Max left his little bum skooching trail behind him in the sand. Marty ran the dog and then we packed up and headed home. It was a wonderful weekend, with good friends and I am already looking forward to our next visit. If Marty and I get off our asses and get the basement done, maybe they will be visiting us!

Walking

This weekend Max took his first tentative steps unaided. Actually it was just one step: from the couch to the ottoman. I beamed with pride and so did he. He was just so pleased with himself.

Today he stood by himself for at least 15 seconds. He still puts his hands up to grab onto my fingers to do any serious walking, be he lets go every once in a while to test the waters. If only he would pull himself up. He still insists on using my fingers for that. He also wants to walk up the stairs all the time but he hasn't figured out bending his knees and it makes it a little difficult. I imagine by the end of the summer we will have a true toddler on our hands.