39 weeks
Ezra is loving the outdoors. He is often headed for the exits on our hand held walks around the house and gets mad when we try to redirect. I suppose he is true to his Canadian lineage in his love of the great outdoors. Happily, I would much prefer to be outside too, so at least it's not much of a hardship to enjoy the great excuse to put off indoor cleaning to hang out with Ezra outside. We are enjoying our new deck, and Ezra can freely make a watery mess with bowls, pans, and cups of water I bring out for him.
He is also refusing a soother at this point. And honestly, it might have been a week or two before now, I can't remember exactly when it was, but none-the-less it's a thing of the past. It is nice that we don't have to break him of it, but there are moments when he is fussing that it sure would be nice if he would take it once again.
The end of this week found us packing up and hitting the road after Sunday morning service for our family vacation!! There was much anticipation and excitement leading up to our departure, so to say that we were ready to go was an understatement. We drove as far as Radium Springs for our first night and then worked our way to Maple Ridge, BC to visit Ezra's Aunt Laura and Uncle Josh and to meet the newest cousin M. and get reacquainted with her brother N. Ez finds little babies fascinating and it was challenging to get him to look without squeezing or hitting, I'm pretty sure he was trying to figure out if his little cousin was a toy or a real human. It was a great few nights enjoying family time before heading over to Vancouver Island.
40 weeks
Thursday morning we took the ferry over to Vancouver Island to continue our vacation exploration first in Nanaimo and then Victoria. I was happy to see some whales on the trip over! In both locations we stayed with friends, and had a great time seeing new things as well as getting to know new and old friends better. Ezra began his seafood journey on this leg of the trip (other than some canned Tuna at home) trying Salmon and Haddock. I also enjoyed the seafood as I, along with Ezra, work on developing my fondness for those fishy creatures. Coming from landlocked Indiana and now in the very similar province Alberta, seafood is not on the must have list, but we continue to work on it with positive experiences like these! Ezra continued to be a trooper and gets a variety of sleeping locations including his own room in Nanaimo (what a luxury!!) and technically his own room in Victoria as we stuck him in the shower room, as we were in a one bedroom apt with friends who graciously gave up their room for us, however we are always trying to figure out how to give Ez his own room as we are not accustomed to sleeping with him in our space and vice versa. Nobody sleeps that great when we are all together. And that shower room worked perfectly!
We really pushed him when we were on the island because there was lots we wanted to see, and we found he generally does great if we missed a nap time as long as we are in motion. So we took in the Butchart Gardens, and Ez did amazing in the stroller and enjoyed running his hands along the flowers as we walked past them. We spent some time on the rocky beaches and exploring the downtown areas in both locations.
41
We finished off our vacation time enjoying more time with family in Kelowna, staying with Ezra's Great Aunt Linda and Great Uncle Don's, and Aunt Laura and Uncle Josh and family joined us here as well. We had our first real dose of "summer" weather here which was great. We enjoyed the beach, lounging outside in the shade, some various activities with just our little family, including a trip to the mall to Ez his first real pair of shoes with soles, size 5 :) After Sunday church service we decided to blitz the drive home (9hours) hoping that Ez would sleep for a good portion once we hit his normal bedtime hours. Thankfully, this worked beautifully and Ez slept 5 hours of the trip from 7pm to midnight. Within a few days of returning home, Ez's gross motor skills began exploding...crawling on all 4's, pulling to stand, and climbing the steps. My theory is making up lost time from being cooped up in the carseat for so many hours. Really the kid was such a great trooper and did so much better than I even expected, the the stops we made for bottles and stretching legs were nice for Mom and Dad too.
42
With the return from vacation we continue to get readjusted to daily routines, Ezra began refusing his puree's and soft mashed foods upon our return, so we gave him table foods for this week and he was happy, although struggling to eat them well...crazy kid. But perhaps he got an overdose of the travel pouches, and he got a taste of a lot more table foods, and I think he liked the novelty of them.
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After giving Ez a fair shot of table foods for a week, we reintroduced puree's convinced the little guy must be hungry as he certainly could not eat the same amount he was with the easier to eat puree's, and sure enough he happily returned to this friendly baby form. And we are happy to have him eating more and varied foods now. We also suspect he might also be allergic to wheat, as Nate is. With our return home and not seeing much improvement in the diaper deposits (I know, too much information) I began taking things back out of his diet that had been introduced on vacation. Toast had become a favourite breakfast treat for him, and taking the bread out seemed to improve Ezra's said "deposits." ;) All in all, it will not be much of a hardship as I mostly cook 100% gluten free anyway, but it makes me a little sad wishing he might somehow skip this allergy.
