Visiting the Greats

Gosh it’s been a while! I pretty much can only remember about a week back because I’m stupid on lack of sleep and and baby-friendly monotony. He’s fun and I like him, but Derek pretty much likes his days to follow a predictable pattern.

Last Wednesday, I met Aidan down in Surrey to watch What to Expect When You’re Expecting, which was pretty much what I was expecting – a cute and fun girly movie. Necessary. Although there were a buttload of birthing inaccuracies in there, so if you are expecting, I would not watch this movie to learn what to expect because you’re expecting.

Expect. Expect. Expect.

After the movie, I did a quick run through the Timmy’s drive through for a water and a coffee to get me through the long ass drive home, then went over to the gas station and filled up. Yes, I was pretty much treating this as a road trip. Even though Surrey is a suburb of Vancouver, it’s still about an hour to get home with rush hour traffic. I needed a full tank and some coffee for this sort of haul. Only, I didn’t get to drink my coffee and water while cruising along the freeway with the commuters because the van decided to die right there at the pump. It was a cheap craigslist find. We love it for its cheapness, but we’re not expecting a huge lifespan for it. Mike’s mom luckily was smart and bought us BCAA for our birthdays this year, so I had a tow dude out to check it out ASAP. Dead battery. Like, battery needs replacing dead, not like I left the lights on dead. They weren’t able to replace it there because there was a nut giving them some issues there, so it got towed to the repair shop, and we got home around 3 hours later. The bright spot in all of this was that baby Derek was in a fantastic mood, even though it was past his bedtime when we got home. He’s such a good little guy. We are lucky parents.

I was supposed to pack for our trip Wednesday night but couldn’t because Derek was asleep and I couldn’t get our suitcases. His room is kind of attached to our storage area. It’s hard to explain, but just trust me that I couldn’t get our suitcases without waking him up. This made Thursday morning kind of crazy, but I got it all together, and we made our way to the airport (Thanks again to Mike’s mom – how to people with babies DO it without family nearby. Mind blowing. Anyway)

I brought Baby Derek plenty of toys in my carry on. Baby Derek scorns all toys and prefers my Tim Hortons drink sleeve. This seriously entertained him for about 20 minutes. I used this time productively and surfed Facebook on my phone.

We got on the plane, where he pretty much instantly fell asleep. I don’t even know, people. He’s just such a good little boy. Anyway, short flight later and we were at my grandparents.

Derek and his great-grandmother, who will happily pick up his toys all day long and wind up music boxes and just do whatever he wants to keep him happy. This left me a lot of time to catch up on Sims on my iPad. You would think, since they have internet and all, I would spend the time blogging or doing something useful online. You would be wrong. Sims people. The Sims.

Derek and his other toy retriever (also known as his great grandfather) and great grandma again.

Derek and his great great Aunt Liz.

The view from a nearby nature trail. We can see this river and the mountains from my grandparents place (the view is awesome), but I stupidly neglected to take a picture.

This is where Derek spent a good portion of his time when he wasn’t on someone’s lap. High chairs are great for flinging toys off of!

They’re also great for eating rice cereal, one of the few purees Derek will agree to eat. Other than rice cereal, he’d prefer just to have a small taste of whatever everyone else is having, thanks. No need to puree. Just put it on his tray and he’ll take care of it. He has teeth, you know.

He doesn’t really coordinate well with the living room furniture though, so I covered him with a pillow. It’s important not to ruin the decor.

Not pictured – we did a shopping trip in town, and my grandma spoiled me with clothes. We also saw his great great grandmother, great great uncle Jim, great great uncle Fred, and great great uncle Charlie. That’s really quite a lot of greats. I’ll have to post the pictures once my grandma gets them developed and mailed to me since I stupidly forgot my phone that day.

We flew back today, did laundry and unpacking, and then greeted Mike with smiles and kisses, and that’s pretty much where we stand now. I had a nice little vacation with my grandparents, but it’s good to be home.

P.S. – while we were away, Derek mastered the art of moving from sitting to his stomach, and I saw him push himself forward slightly with his foot in order to reach a toy. As it’s a house rule that babies STAY WHERE THEY ARE PUT, I am not pleased with this development. I really don’t think I’m ready for crawling. Not really sure how to stop this ridiculous idea he has about moving himself places though…