Liam slept through the night in his own bed (which is a word he says, btw Track Keepers!) on Friday, leaving Mama & Dada with enough rest to face the day ahead of us! Typically, Liam will not sleep through his first night in a place away from home, regardless of how many times he has stayed there before. He will normally wake up between 11 & 1am and only fall back asleep when he is put down in our bed leaving us to sleep with him the rest of the night. Thankfully, most normal people have larger Queen size beds than our puny Full size bed at home so we do have more room & are more comfortable BUT Liam will also wake up at Butt Crack O' Dawn and stay awake whenever he is in the same room as us or in bed with us. It's almost as if he cracks his little eyes open, spies us there & is UP for the day. Usually this occurs between 5:30-6AM. It seems this trip he alternated his Butt Crack O' Dawn wakings with his Normal 7:30 Please Jesus Stay Asleep wakings - this was new for him but surprisingly routine by the end of the 5 sleeps!
Anyway!
After a lovely breakfast of eggies in a cup with fingers/chimneys/ solders/whatever you call slice of toast you dunk into your soft boiled eggies (Christina, ask Kevin what he calls them!) at Barbara & Mike's we organized our Stuff so we could head over to The Condo to spend the day with GG & tour around Greenfield Park.
Liam played around in the morning & took his nap on GG's bed - a first for him to sleep by himself the entire time in a "normal" bed & although I was a little worried about him rolling off & freaking out when he woke up, I was interested to see how it would go. I don't worry too much about him rolling off since he already has his Pillow with him & I spread some others around his perimeter and, of course, laid him sideways to sleep.
We had lunch with GG & hung out until Liam woke up, catching up on everything & about everyone in The Park. It was great to see Liam interacting with GG, "helping" her with her walker, hugging & giving kisses and not being shy around her. He loved showing off all his wonderful signs that he knows & is real quick at learning people's names so that when you say "Where's GG?" he will point right to her! This also helps earn some "points" with the family, but really when you are that cute, that's just icing, right? :)
"Helping" GG with her walker!When he did wake up, he merely called out for his Mama and stayed in the middle of the bed, sitting up but not budging to get down & fall off! I was hoping that would be the case & he just wouldn't get down (although he could) and come on out, I would like it if the same thing happened when we transfer him to a Big Boy Bed (which is not on the horizon, just saying) or we might be in trouble come 5:30 Butt Crack O' Dawn ;)
We decided to go for a walk around Greenfield Park showing Matias all the sights - he remarked numerous times that "y'all have history on every street, on every corner, on every block" and yes, that's just about spot on. Greenfield Park is a small suburb, with old families there (both in age and amount of time they have lived there) and lots of intertwined histories because of it. Example - my parents both grew up on Fairfield but on different sides of Churchill - if you ask my mom she'll tell you that my dad was from the "wrong side of the tracks". The pool I learned to swim in is down the street. The Canadian Legion where just about everything happens is across the street from The Condo. So and so's son bought so and so's house and look at all the renovations they've done is a common conversation starter. If the house didn't stay in the family, some other established Greenfield Park family bought it.
Mama, Nana & Fellow (still in a good mood) walking around The Park
We went by the church my parents got married at and there was a wedding that had just ended! We walked by Grauntie Jean's house, we stopped and gawked at all the houses that are so out of place with their over-the-top tacky-ass renovations, took pictures of all the cats we passed that were outside lounging, smelled blooming lilacs, found rocks & tossed them in puddles as we passed by.
Collecting rocks for Liam to throw into puddles. Here he expertly chooses the perfect one for the task.
We went past my Grannie & Poppy's house (my dad's parents) that has stayed in the family and now one of my cousin's family is in it - a lot has been changed on it, that's for sure, but I'd like to think I'd still recognize it! Unlike the house we used to live in that we passed TWICE and still didn't recognize it until I finally convinced them that it WAS the right address! Then we went down to see Grandma's house, I will always refer to it as Grandma's house even though a different family lives in it now - it was hers for 63 years, and in my mind it will always be hers. It's the house my mother grew up in & it's the house with the Haunted Room. And I wish I were kidding with you. That room is haunted, for real. It was a relief to see that next to nothing had been changed since the title switched hands - only windows & doors had been replaced but nothing had been torn down. I saw someone in the dining room and lingered as long as I could without looking creepy hoping they might come out since we were taking pictures and all...but no such luck. I would have liked to have shown Matias around - maybe next time though, right? We got our picture in front of the tree though so I'm pleased about that - three generations in that picture - not too shabby, eh?
In front of Grandma's House on Fairfield
Haunted Room is upper left one!
By this time, Liam had had it with being strapped in his stroller. He was begging to get out but we couldn't let him run/walk/do an Irish Jig because there's just too many "busy" streets for him to run out in (and plus, we are still working on the whole hand holding thing). We let him out for a bit to throw some rocks in a few puddles but man, did he get cranky! Once we got back to The Condo, Matias took him out to run (he sounds like a dog...) but when he brought him back in he
clearly was not done with Being Outside so my mom & I took him on a walk across the street to discover the playground there. He had a blast on all 5 of the slides - they do their parks right there, let me tell you that much! Finally got him tuckered out & got him all Fresh Air-ized to the point that he finally calmed down & was back to being his typical Fellow self instead of this maniac brute throwing himself on the ground for 5-10 seconds at a time! We had fun too, chasing him around & playing with him on all the different set ups they had :)
We had dinner with GG & Carol (a nice lasagna, if you are interested!) and headed back to Barbara & Mike's (we'll just call this Wright Base from here on out for my lazy typing sake, ok?) for the night.
Grandma & Auntie Carol fixing the salad -right before Nana heckled GG into sitting down right this minute or I'll sit you down myself ;)
My mom came back with us this night & we got to Party It Up Crazy Canadian Style until 1:30am! I believe this was a 6am wake up call from the Fellow morning but we don't let him leave the room until 7:30 at least so that other people can still sleep so we usually end up watching Charlie Brown in bed until we hear someone else go into the bathroom :)
It was a nice, slow day - just the right kind to ease you into your vacation full of Touristy Things in your hometown! We had a lot more walking & sightseeing in front of us & this day simply consisted of the 4 blocks surrounding The Condo!
I can watch him throw rocks in puddles for hours.
