PEI Post Mortem: A Few of My Favourite Things

PEI: The Final Wind-Up

This has been mommy-blogging/scrapbooking at it's finest, and I do thank all of you for stopping by and commenting. I feel the need to keep a record of this trip, and since I don't do diaries or scrapbooks, where else can I do it but here? Plus, I actually took a few decent photos. It's a rarity in my world.

My mom had a funny comment when she saw the pictures I downloaded:

"It looks like we had a good time."

What she meant was, it looked like it was sunny and nice the whole time. In actuality, it was windy and rainy for a large portion of our stay. It was probably just the backlash of Hurricane Ike, but if we were to go again, I would probably want to go earlier in the summer. On the other hand, we had the beach almost exclusively to ourselves.

On days that weren't so nice, we hopped back in the car (ug) and went on a trip somewhere fun.

We visited The Gouda Lady, and found out how cheese was made. The Boy was more interested in trying to pet the sheep and llamas. So we stood at the fence and said "Here sheepy, sheepy, sheepy..." about a thousand times, trying to pry the sheep away from the salt lick. No dice. I nudged the Boy and pointed out a llama biting another llama's bum, and then they started to copulate. (And I thought this was a PG trip.)



We went into Charlottetown on a particularly foreboding day and saw The Biggest Ship Known To Man. Seriously. I thought it was some kind of building, or a fake backdrop at the very least, and then I realized it was real. You can see it in the background.

The Boy was worried the whole day that it was going to make a large honking sound when it set sail and would hurt his ears.

One day, we had to stay inside and the Boy taught the Little Guy to read:

Determined to make the most of our trip, we went to the beach on a day that no sane person would ever go. It was very cold. And windy. And kinda misty. And I have the bad hair to prove it.

That afternoon, the sun was peeking through the clouds, and we decided to go back again. The sun was out! It had to be warmer, right? Plus, we were going a bit stir crazy indoors. The Boy firmly refused to set foot on the beach, though, so he stayed with my parents, and we took the Little Guy down to the beach with us.

The Little Guy was fascinated by the waves. He would stare and stare and stare some more. He must have at least a little bit of me inside him, because I could spend days watching the ocean. I would live by the water, if I could.

That afternoon, possibly elated at having two (!) Parents (!) full (!) attention (!), he was laughing hysterically at everything we did. And Mr Earth and I love a good audience. He spent the majority of our jaunt just screaming with laughter, and eventhough he did, this is the face he pulls for the camera:

(I have the rarely granted permission of Mr Earth to post a photo with him in it. It may not stay up, so best get an eyeful while you can. Isn't he sexy? He thinks he looks terrible in pictures, so please tell him in the comments to stop being so silly.)

AH, now this picture more accurately reflects the mood of the day:

And so ends the tale of PDI...uh, PEI. Was it always fun and games? No. Was it worth it. YES. Would I do it again?

Absolutely.

PEI Post Mortem: Life's a Beach

We'd been talking about it for weeks. It was pretty much the whole reason for the trip. The Boy was so excited that he could barely contain himself.

The Beach.

Tuesday afternoon, after a much-needed nap, we took off for the beach. One the big selling points of this cottage was that the dunes were just a five minute walk away. The Boy was jumping up and down with eagerness. We crested the dunes, walked down the stairs, took our our shoes. And the Boy sat down. And would go no further.

"Don't you want to play in the sand?" I exclaimed.

"No, I'll just sit here."

I think he was overwhelmed. I wouldn't call the Boy timid, but he can be somewhat reticent in unfamiliar situations. I prefer to describe him as "a thinker". He calmly weighs all the options and then decides that it's ok to participate.

As anticipated, not long after, he took off.

When he got to the ocean, he stopped again. Unsure.

And then he took the plunge.

"Let's catch the waves, Mummy!!" he shouted as the ocean licked our toes. When the water became more bold, he'd scream: "Let's get outta here!!"

He loved the feeling of the 'icky, sticky mud' between his toes. He flung mudballs into puddles. He had a ball. We had to drag him kicking and screaming when it was time for dinner, promising to come back tomorrow.

And where was the Little Guy in all this?

Eating sand, of course. (But don't worry, his beach adventure is a story for another day..)

I've never seen the Boy like this before - fearless, free. His only boundaries were ocean and dune. He was like a completely different person. Every single penny spent, and every single stress was worth it for the look of pure joy on his face. I wish I had the words to explain how my heart wanted to beat outside my chest in jubilant abandon. It was one of those moments that happen when I feel fully alive: heart, mind, body and soul. It's a feeling that no camera will ever capture to my satisfaction. But I will keep it in my heart, and take it with me every day.

I feel echoes of it sometimes when I look at this, though:

Listen. Can you hear my heart smile?

PEI Post Mortem: Walk Through the Fire

Before I talk about PEI, I feel that I must somehow acknowledge the unspoken: The Dreaded Roadtrip. You know, it wasn't all that bad. In fact, it was much better than I thought it would be. Except when it was horrible. I thought that the kids did pretty well, considering that it is a long trip. And the Little Guy was cutting two new teeth. And the A/C in the car was on the fritz.

We started out on Sunday shortly after noon because my dad was filling in for a vacationing minister that morning. We had to pack in a downpour, but we got off pretty much on time. The kids napped. We stopped at a service centre to breastfeed in a parking lot (Hi random parking lot dwellers! Did you enjoy the show?), and to get coffee at the slowest Tim Hortons on the planet. I love me some Timmies, but hot damn some of the people working the counter need a shot of speed. The woman in line in front of me was rocking back and forth on her feet the entire time, and not only did it make me seasick but she kept bumping into me. She's lucky I don't have connections with the mob.

After the pit stop, my mom took a turn in the backseat and we drove until dinner. My parents had the foresight to pack a picnic dinner, so we just pulled over at a Welcome Centre to eat, and the Boy could run around. Then my dad dropped the bomb. He wanted to get to Drummondville in order to avoid the early morning Montreal traffic. It was 6:30pm and it was at least an hour an a half away. We start bedtime around 7pm in our house, and while the Boy could possibly stay up later, the baby needed to feed by 7:30pm and would be screaming for bed not much later. I tried to explain this, but no luck. I understand why he wanted to do it, but still! We got to Drummondville shortly after 8pm without too much fuss thanks to the novelty of the portable DVD player, but then all hell broke loose. By the time we checked in and got set up, it was 9pm before I got to feed the baby and he screamed so much that he threw up. (He did sleep for the first night ever without swaddling, though, so...small blessings...silver linings...blah, blah).

The Boy was up at 5:30am the next day, and we played with cars (not so) quietly till the Little Guy woke up. My dad, in a misguided attempt to find the perfect stopping place for the late morning feed, ended up stranding us roadside while I fed the baby (Hi random people on the Transcanada Highway! Did you enjoy the show?). The car shook every time someone rocketed past and the Boy and my parents did a bush pit stop and blew Dora bubbles. I had to hit the bush too, and I went so far back from the road that I'm pretty sure I peed in someone's front yard. Yay me!

The naps were sketchy throughout the day, and the Little Guy ended taking a quickie nap at 5:30pm, so we pushed on to Moncton and I waved a sad hello-goodbye to Mad from the car on the way by. Of course, we had no hotel booked in Moncton and it must have been a rockin' town because no rooms were available in any of the regular places. We had to book a room in the posh new Hampton Suites. The Boy stayed in my parents' room and the Little Guy and I had the place to ourselves. Since he was asleep, I couldn't watch the fancy new flatscreen tv, and ended up reading my book in the bathroom and texting Mr Earth. I'm SO glamourous.

The next morning we took our time getting going because we didn't have far to go. Of course, the Boy was up at 5:30am and so both he and the Little Guy were sound asleep when we went across the Confederation Bridge. I've never been so glad to see the end of a road trip in my life.

By the time we drove back from PEI, though, I really thought we had found our travelling legs. The Boy understood that "quiet time" was necessary so that the Little Guy could sleep. The Little Guy stopped balking and screaming every time we put him in the carseat. We were able to convince the Boy that he didn't have to be entertained every single minute of the trip, and that he could, in fact, look out the window and see the sights and be just as entertained. We had a lovely picnic dinner with a fantastic view of a lake near Rivière-du-Loup. We picked a hotel at random from the CAA Guide and it ended up being a lovely waterfront motel. And even though I have huge motel issues, I managed to have a great time. We had our set up and take down running like clockwork. Breastfeeding stops were quick and easy (Hi honking truck drivers! I KNOW you enjoyed the show!)

And even when the car wouldn't start after we stopped at a random service centre in St-Apollinaire Quebec, we managed to take it in stride. (Our attempts to run the A/C had sucked the life out of the battery. Thank goodness we weren't on the road. We got a jump from CAA and then saw an "air climatique" specialist who said we could make it to Toronto, but we could not use the A/C. My years of french immersion were worth the time and money for this event alone.) Of course, we got stuck in Montreal traffic, in 32 degree Celsius heat with no A/C and that kind of sapped the will to live, but we still made it.

It's hard to explain, and it seems kind of extreme, but I feel like the road trip changed me. It was a lesson I needed desperately to learn: the trip is part of the journey. I wasn't sure I could handle it. I didn't handle it well sometimes. I had a few freakouts. The baby screamed. The Boy learned how to make the most annoying sound in the world. But we survived. And we are better for it. It didn't kill us, it made us stronger. But for the next little while, I think I'll walk. Thank you very much.

Hey, it's Thursday and I'm doing a road trip round-up over at Playdate - talking about the toys, books and gear that worked for us on the road. Please stop by and say hello! And, if you have suggestions for other great road trip booty, please let me know. Who knows? I may brave the car again someday.