Detto Family Vacation (in Pictures)

We got back from the yearly Detto family cottage vacation on Saturday. It was a really nice week with lots of time down by the lake, lots of eating good food, and lots of laughing and antics (both kids' and adults'!) Here are some pictures from the week.

We weren't there fore more than a few minutes and Max swindled Rick into reading him a book.









Day two and Max in in the water.






Max hung on Connor's every word and action. Come Christmas time, he'll be running after Connor!










Max discovered Bacci. Lining up for the perfect shot.











Max also discovered and new toy. You can see how excited he was when he figured out all the knobs and dials.










Little cousing Emmy. Check out those gorgeous blue eyes!











Max and Mike did some bonding.








And Max and Opa too.








Dinner time!









Chili was in doggy heaven.

Another milestone

No, no, he isn't walking. But it won't be long yet!

Today at the library Max pulled himself up to standing for the first time. No, he hasn't done that yet. As he doesn't crawl, he is never on his knees so pulling himself to stand is a little trickier. Try pulling yourself up from a sitting position. It's damn near impossible! But our little guy did it today. Marty tried desperately to recreate the scenario for me when I got home from work, but it wasn't to be.

Today was the first of the many things that I will miss the "first time" of. I was too excited to hear about his accomplishment to care that I missed it. That bodes well for future events I imagine.

How cute is he?

For Max's first birthday, Nana and Opa bought him this cool truck toy. It's sort of a walker that transforms into a ride on toy that transforms into a wagon. And on the steering wheel there is a horn button. When Max first tried it, he repeated "Doot! Doot!" Every time that he plays with it, he will repeat "Doot! Doot!"


A few days ago he saw a picture of a truck and he said "Doot! Doot!" How cute, right? Wait, it gets better. Today Marty calls me at work with this little gem that made my heart melt.

Max was taking his afternoon nap. The recycling truck comes down our street, making a stop at each house. A few minutes later Marty hears quietly through the monitor "Doot. Doot." Every time the truck moved to the next house, Marty would hear it again. This is how Max woke up this afternoon. How cute is that? Too cute. Man I love that kid!

Marty and Max left for Toronto

...

(insert sound of crickets here)

Happy Canada Day!

Hope you had a wonderful day and that the weather was as spectacular for you as it was for us. We went to Grass Creek Park just outside of Gananoque for the afternoon. Actually, the afternoon turned into the whole day. It was wonderful. We were with the Stewarts, the Guerins and the Druirys (Beth who is 8 months pregnant with twins and looks fabulous!). The day couldn't have been any better.

Here are some moments (funny that we only have pictures of Max and no one else! Honestly, there were other people there!)

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.

What weekends are all about

This was a good weekend. I can't say great because of a couple of things that happened that I will get to, but it was really good.

It started Friday with a little shopping. Actually, I was returning a pair of shoes I bought online. I bought shoes on line from FeetFirst. It's great because if they don't fit or you don't like them, you can bring them back to a store! Very convenient. I actually bought two pairs. One a size 6 and one a size 5. The 6 fit, the 5 were too big. Go figure. So I returned them and went hunting for a pair of strappy sandals to wear the the wedding we have in a couple if weeks. No luck. Either supper high or not my size. Don't know what I am going to wear. So that was one thing that down grades the great to good.

Saturday was a busy day. Max was up at his usual 5am. I tried for an hour to get him back to sleep. It was my morning to sleep in so Marty got up and I went back to sleep. We made it to the dog park pretty late due to Max's much needed mid morning nap. After the park we had lunch and then headed over to Sara's birthday party. Heather and Dan live right in front of a park, so they set up a picnic table and some blankets for the kids and had an instant summer party. Max was in need of another nap by this point and was not the most pleasant person, but he managed to steal some toys from Sara, even though it was her day, which made him smile. Then there was cake. Yummy cake that Sara and Max seemed to enjoy thoroughly. We had to leave a little early because Max was getting more and more cranky (even after a belly full of berries, goldfish crackers and cake) and needed a nap. So we got Sara to open her birthday present and got Max home. We felt bad that we had to bail, but it was just going to get uglier and we didn't want to ruin everyone else's enjoyable spring afternoon.







Max had a solid two hour nap. Actually, we almost had to wake him up. We were going to Marty's friend Chris' place for dinner. It was a really nice evening. Max did OK until he was really hungry and then was pretty cranky until food was on his plate. Then he was pretty good. He made it to about 8:30, which is really late for him. We considered putting him down on their bed, but he is just starting to get into a good through the night sleep schedule and we didn't want to mess that up. And guess what? He didn't fall asleep in the car and then slept straight through to 6:08 this morning. Nice!

Today was beautiful. We got out to the dog park on time and ended up running into the marathon runners. We decided to walk along the running route and cheers them on. There were a lot of people out on the corners, or sitting on their front porches cheering. It was a great community feel. I get very emotional during these kinds of moments. I'm not sure what it is. It's like when I cry during the Olympics, or hear the Native People's drumming. It touches me on a different level and I tear up. Call me a weirdo.

When Max went for his nap after lunch, I ran out to get groceries. I do it at two different places. I start off at Price Choppers and then go to Loblaws to get what ever I couldn't get at PC. When I got out of the car at Loblaws, I realised that I didn't have my wallet. I left it in the shopping cart at PC. Shit. I race back to PC (I couldn't have been gone for more than 10 minutes) and check the cart. My wallets gone. I go inside and ask the cashiers if anyone has turned in a wallet. Nope. I walk around the store to see if I could see it in anyone's cart. Nope. I start to curse humanity. I get home, mad at the world. Call of the credit cards to cancel them, figure out how I am going to get my license and OHIP card, and thank god that my bank card is with a friend (long story). At least I can get some access to money (very little money, but money none the less).

I wake Max up, stuff him into the car and head over to Karen's (yes, I drove without a license). We haven't seen each other since I went back to work and it was so nice to be able to go for a visit. With the nice weather, we all ended up in the backyard. Max had a great time playing with the plastic veggies in the kitchen, skooting around a new yard exploring and loved sliding down the slide. It was so nice to sit and catch up with K and made me realize once more that it's something I really want to keep doing. Maybe we can plan a monthly meeting? At least that way we know we are seeing each other at least once a month and any other chance meetings would be bonus. I must suggest this to her. This visit definitely made up for the lost wallet.

When I get home there is a little note on the front door "Hi, I found your wallet. I'll come back around 5:30. Dave" My faith in humanity was restored. Dave showed up a few minutes later with wallet intact, every penny still in place (actually there were only pennies in there!). This should have been a great weekend right? Well the fact that I canceled all of my credit cards and when I called them back to see if I could cancel the cancellation, that just doesn't seem to be something they do. So that knocked the weekend down from great to really good.

Then we had dinner outside on the deck. Hmm, maybe I should be classifying this as a great weekend after all. How as yours?

A deck

And here it is. The deck.

It's lovely isn't it. Built in just four days. Mom and Dad arrived Sunday night. The building began Monday morning and by Thursday when I got back from work, they were sitting under the gazebo having a beer. Let summer begin.

How can we repay my parents for all of their help? Not sure yet, but hopefully they know how much we really appreciated it. Now we have a great place to spend the summer and Max is loving it already. Just a railing to put up, some landscaping to do and the backyard will be our little paradise. I plan on spending my summer there. Care to join me?

A visit from the Detto grandparents

Last weekend Nana and Opa came for a visit. They are Marty's parents. We are really lucky in that we don't have two grandmas, or nana, or grandpas, or papas. All four of the grandparents have different names. It does make things easier, trust me.

Anyhow, I digress. Nana and Opa arrived last Friday evening. We had a great barbq feast, Max opened his birthday presents and there was lots of giggling. You see, Nana has a great knack for getting Max to laugh uncontrollably. I don't know what it is, but he just loves laughing with her. It's really sweet.
Max really likes his new truck. He sits on it saying: "Toot! Toot!" which is the sound it makes when you hit the horn. He gets rather annoyed when you stop pulling him around the living room and kitchen. I can't wait until he can propel it himself!


Saturday was the most beautiful day, but it wasn't raining so we headed out to the Tulip Festival. Since it hadn't been a very sunny week the week before, the tulips weren't at their peak. A few had opened, but most were waiting for a little sun on their petals. Regardless, Major's Hill Park was busy. We arrived for lunch and poked around the international tents to figure out what to eat. There was a huge selection. I ended up eating Argentinian and Marty and the grandparents ate German. The Argentinian food was really nice. I don't remember what I had, but it was made fresh on the spot and was really yummy.Max displayed his German heritage with pride.

After lunch we poked around the site a little more and then went for a little walk through the Byward Market. The sun never really came out and we were feeling a little chilled. So what better to do than go to the French pastry shop. After an overload of chocolate (blueberries for Max) we headed home and ordered Greek on Wheels. The best Greek food in the city by far. Nana and Opa were very gracious and offered to babysit for us, so Marty and I went to see a movie. We saw Baby Mama, which was really good. Marty called it a chick flick that guys would like. I just thought it was really funny.

Sunday turned out to be a really rainy day. So Nana and Opa decided that they would check out a day early and make their way back to Brampton. Not before filling up at Chez Cora's first. The line was long and the service slow, but Max was pretty good considering. The food was good as usual and Max eat his weight in pancakes and ham.

It was a quick visit, but a really nice visit. One thing that I really liked, Opa's nose kisses (Inuit style) with Max. You just know that this is going to be a thing for Opa and Max. I love seeing things like that in the making.

Time to go back

The last few days have been pretty teary eyed for me. Every time I look over at Max and think about not being with him 24/7 my eyes well up. I just can't seem to help it. For the past year, 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, I have been with him. There are a few hours here and there that we weren't together but they aren't significant. Tomorrow I will go nine hours without him. Nine hours, 540 minutes, 32400 seconds. That's a lot to count down.

As you can guess, I am a little apprehensive about going back to work. The apprehension is primarily about how much I am going to miss Max. It's going to be terrible separation anxiety, for me that is. I don't think Max is going to be too put out. He gets to have a great summer with his dad. I get to have a great summer looking out my office window and thinking about all the fun things they are going to be doing. I think I might come down with a couple if "symptoms" over the summer. (cough cough)

I am a little apprehensive about going back to work, on the work front. It's been a year. Things have changed, things have happened. I'm going back to a boss I am not terribly fond of. What's nice is that everyone at work has been really looking forward to me coming back to work. That's a nice feeling. I am looking forward to new projects and using my brain in a completely different function. Marty says I need to go back, that it's time.

I haven't been feeling guilty, but I imagine that will come. There is no question about me staying home. It's not something that I want to do, and I know that in my heart. And there is no way we could do it financially either.

Whether I think it's time or not, it's tomorrow. Now I have to figure out what to wear, get my cycling gear organized, remember to pack deodorant and try and get to sleep. Wish me luck.

Maxim's First Birthday in Pictures