Our Trip to Maryland, pt.2

Saturday 11/10 – The windows in our basement room did not have coverings, so once Ina woke up at 7:00, he was up for the day. And so was everyone else, shortly after that, of course. The first order of business was helping him get comfortable with everyone and especially with having the birds making noise. He did all right and started having fun with the dogs right away. Heather has two little Yorkshire Terriers, which are just adorable. The one female was older and pretty much kept out of Ian’s way, but he had a lot of fun with the younger male dog once they got used to each other. Ian isn’t used to little, skittish dogs, and they certainly weren’t used to a boisterous toddler. But by the end of the weekend, Ian and Hunter had pretty well bonded. We got several super cute pictures of Ian and Hunter kissing each other. Ian learned to pet him (pat pat) very nicely and would lie down on the floor with him, imitating his behavior. By Sunday morning, Hunter had started barking at Heather if it seemed like she was playing too rough with Ian or pretending to attack and tickle him. He was protecting his boy. It was very cute, especially since Hunter is so tiny.

Since I had forgotten a couple of other things as well as Ian’s CD, we decided to take a quick trip out to see if we could find stuff. We ended up going to the Frederick Towne mall, in an older commercial district. The stores weren’t quite open when we got there, so we amused Ian by letting him go on the 25 cent rides they had in the center. I got some great pictures of him on a motorcycle. He was wearing his army-style bomber jacket and he looks like a little “Easy Rider.” We didn’t find the exact CD, but got one close enough. By the time we got home, Mother had already arrived. We both thought she looked, not that much dramatically changed from the last time we saw her, but she was definitely older and thinner. She and Heather had been shopping for Ian, so they had a bunch of birthday presents for him to open. They got him a “Color Wonders” marker set and coloring book, another coloring toy that paints with a water pen and lots of trains. They got a couple of Thomas trains (his favorite yellow ones), a figure eight track set and a set of really useful connector pieces. Ian was thrilled with it all, of course, and had a great time opening all the packages. They had everything all sitting on the dining room table. He didn’t notice them when we first came in, since he had to meet new people, see the doggies, etc., but pretty soon he wandered in there and saw them and then it was all over. “Pweses! Pweses!” After everything was open, Ian colored for a while (“Mark-eyes!”) and the grown-ups worked on getting the train track set up. Fortunately, Daddy is pretty good at figuring out how they go together (and also at looking at the diagrams).

By the time we chatted and played a while, it was time to go to lunch. Mother decided to go home and rest for a while instead, so we went into downtown Frederick to a Spanish restaurant that they like. Heather has celiac disease, which is an extreme sensitivity to wheat and wheat gluten, so she is limited as to the restaurants she can eat at. Unfortunately, this one was a fairly fancy one, and not really very child friendly. The food was great, but the service was slow and Ian was bored and antsy. David was great and walked him around while we were waiting. Ian really wanted soup (“Djoup!”) and watching him eat it was pretty funny (and messy). I also got him some chicken enchiladas, which were delicious. By the end of the meal, Ian was really done being there, so David took him out a couple of doors down to a really neat toy store while Heather and Pete and I waited for the check. Ian had a fit when David took him out of the store, so we all joined them there. They had tons of neat wooden toys, including a large wooden setup that you put marbles down through and they rolled around down the various tracks and spirals. Ian was fascinated by it. It was too expensive, but we ended up having to get him a set of nesting castle blocks to get him to leave the store without having a tantrum. I know that’s bad generally, but this was an exception. He had so much fun carrying the bag, it was adorable. It was awkward to manage, so I just took it out and let him carry the toy itself by its handle, which was even cuter.

Unfortunately, between Mother’s perfume, the smell of the birds, and the food, I ended up with a pounding migraine/sick headache. It got worse on the ride home, until I eventually had to have David pull over so I could throw up. I was still pretty miserable when we got home and tried to get Ian to nap so I could lie down, but he wouldn’t cooperate. He had slept for about ten minutes in the car on the way to the restaurant, and there was just too much going on at the house – new people, new toys, dogs, birds, etc. – for him to be willing to settle and nurse, even though it was 2:30 and he had slept so poorly the night before. I gave up and asked David and Heather if they would deal with him so I could sleep. I woke up around 4:00, when Mother came back. Apparently, they all had a great time playing in the afternoon. Heather in particular seems very taken with Ian. She pretty adamantly said she doesn’t want children herself, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to play with her nephew once in a while. And Ian is a fun kid to play with. We all played and talked for a good while and then it got to be dinner time. We ended up going to a local diner that Heather could eat at. That worked out much better than the Spanish place in terms of Ian. They served relatively fast and had kid-friendly food. Ian insisted on having soup again (“Lunch! Djoup!”) Heather chased him around at the end of the meal while we sat talking for a while. It was nice to see Mother and very nice for her to get a chance to see Ian and interact with him. Mother said she wasn’t planning on coming over in the morning, so we said our good-byes, and headed back to Heather’s to put the little guy to bed. He went to bed reasonably easily and definitely slept better than the first night. It also helped that we covered the windows. We stayed up a while talking and looking at pictures, which was nice.