Quiet Time

We will someday get around to posting our Vancouver/Whistler vacation pics, but right now we're just too busy and exhausted. In a nutshell, though, we had a fun and exciting vacation, despite a rocky beginning involving a strange body rash that appeared on Ronan the day before we left, that progressed into blisters on all of his fingers and toes. Over the course of a few days, the rash and the blisters subsided, but we were still kind of shocked. Several doctors (including Uncle Matt) provided great long-distance phone advice. Nobody could tell for sure what the blisters were -- maybe hand-foot-mouth disease or eczema or heat rash.... Good news is Ronan seemed unfazed by the blisters and they soon went away - whew.

We learned so much about vacationing with a two-year-old. It's not easy, but it can be done! Ronan delighted us and surprised us with his sense of humor and ability to adapt to new places and sleeping quarters. Despite hot weather and no AC, he kept his long afternoon naps and was down for the count each night. He took turns sleeping in our bed (upside down, with his legs draped over our faces), sleeping in a rented portable crib, sleeping on his low-tech, padded "floor mat," and sleeping on the... floor.

Other parents of toddlers will know how hard it is to go to restaurants with active little ones. It usually involves lots of coaxing, chasing, and cleaning up. Nevertheless, we managed to go out for dinner on most nights. Vancouver has excellent places to eat, and in between chasing duties, we actually DID eat. One of our favorite places was a tiny, hole-in-the-wall that specialized in handmade Chinese noodles. Ronan watched the "noodle man" turn a ball of dough into perfect, long strings of noodles with a few turns of his wrists, in a matter of seconds. Very impressive! We opted for take-out Thai to celebrate our fifth anniversary on July 7. It's hard to believe we've been married for five years and together for ten!

Other highlights: biking through Stanley Park, watching the whales and sea otters at the Aquarium, taking the ferry to Granville Island, buying Ronan two horns to play, splashing in the many water-themed playgrounds, "swimming" in the lake at Whistler, relaxing on the patio of our condo at sunset. Oh, and Lost! C and I watched several episodes each night of our vacation!

Ronan developed an interesting behavior while in Canada. He got very picky about which parent he wanted to be around and often times, at least in the beginning, he would push C away and say with a frown, "WAY! Daddy, WAY!!!" He insisted that Mama carry him, read to him, bathe him, etc. Kind of strange but, we hear, pretty normal. We coached him and told him that it was not nice to treat people like that, that it made Daddy sad (and Ronan really doesn't like it when people are sad), and that basically it was too bad, Daddy was going to carry him and read to him anyway! He stopped pretty soon after that, and there were actually a few times later in the trip when he told Mommy to go away.

I titled this post "Quiet Time" because up until yesterday we thought we had created the best cure for tantrums, which we called "Quiet Time." When Ronan kicked and screamed and acted like eating dinner was the LAST thing on earth he would EVER want to do, we would say, "Ronan, do you want Quiet Time?" and he would say, "Aye," through his tears. He would relax and we would put him in his crib and leave him alone for a few minutes. Then we would come back to his room and he would smile and say, "Quiet time... Nice..." and he'd do whatever he was previously protesting (dinner, bath, diaper changes) as calmly as a little lamb. Presto!

Except little kids are SMART. He quickly learned that Quiet Time was kind of relaxing, kind of fun... so much fun, in fact, that he'd rather do Quiet Time than anything else. So he started to ask for MORE Quiet Time and started to throw fits when we told him Quiet Time was over. Which quickly defeated the whole purpose of Quiet Time! Arrgh. So we're now moving toward a more traditional "time out" approach that doesn't involve his crib, blankets, or Lambies. We'll see how this goes.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer!