travel

i'm sure their are toddlers who travel on airplanes more often than my daughter - but she gets around her fair share. she's 21 months old now and i believe she's been on at least 10 journeys that included more than 6 hours of total flight time in a day. our last flight (at age 21 months) was such a breeze that i thought i'd take a moment to share the current secrets of my success.

here are the various gadgets that we bring along . . .

this past week, we took ava up to vancouver island to hang out with two of my best friends from thunder bay, jill (7.5 months pregnant) and joan (6.5 months pregnant) and their charming husbands dennis and arno. ava gave her the parents-to-be a nice little taste of what's in store for them soon by vomiting at dinner our first night together. it wasn't some little "spit up" either, it was a multi-act affair resulting in a sizeable puddle. in the 2 second intermissions john and i just sat there frozen, stupefied into believing that she couldn't possibly have anything left in that little stomach. of course, we were the waitress' first table, on her first night on the job.

one highlight of the trip was the wild pacific trail. we stopped to explore some tidepools along the way, initially drawn in by puzzling, sporadic jets of water emanating from the sand. after gazing in to the water for a few moments, joan put it best when she said "if you look close enough, everything in there is moving." after that we followed the trail around the southern tip of the ucluelet peninsula. as we passed multiple pretty view points, arno commented : "it's just like the toronto zoo.". we all looked at him a bit quizzically and he said, "well, after awhile, you've seen monkey, after monkey, after monkey, and you go around the next corner and you're like . . . ah whatever, it's just another monkey."

the one thing Ava did not do alot of on this trip was sleep. although she is a champion napper at home, when we perturb the little baby's environment, she's not very good at going with the flow. ava grabbed a little nap during the wild pacific trail walk though. i promise, it's only john's head has been photoshopped in this picture, ava really can sleep with her neck at this angle.