Hello Canada

Just a very quick post to tell you that the only thing better than having a yummy, snuggly baby who is now sitting up with help, grabs onto toys, and loves to kick is having said baby on vacation with you. There's just nothing more wonderful than waking up late (well, obviously not for the first time baby is reliably eating very three hours around the clock) in a king-sized bed with no laundry or dishes or deadlines to meet and a baby lying next to you. It's delicious.

JD is so relaxed on vacation (despite carrying his blackberry and doing work for a few hours both Saturday and Sunday nights, and while we're on the topic I'm obviously only up at 6 am to send a few e-mails ...). And I don't think we've eaten a meal together this many times total since having a baby. Having the fusspot with us actually makes us much more relaxed - there's no point in calling ahead for dinner reservations or setting a tight schedule.

JD is most impressed with my ability to change a wriggling baby on my lap, which is quite necessary both here and NYC. There is sadly an inverse relationship between the small, quirky, vegetarian-friendly nature of the restaurants we like and the chance that they will have a changing table. (Large, American chain like Applebees: definitely a changing table. Cute candle-light pasta place we ate at yesterday night: not a chance). And since I'm breastfeeding, we really don't need to carry anything besides diapers (our first jaunt into disposables has not been so very pleasant - lots of suspicious brown stains on the back of her outfits, but we won't leap to conclusions about the substance) and layer upon layer upon layer for the baby (which reminds me of Tobacco Brunette's description of babies sweltering under baby beer koozie's ... maybe she wasn't thinking of the irresponsible parents who take their baby out for a long evening jaunt post-dinner on a cold, windy night in Montreal because their particularly choice of beverage has made them feel invincibly warm (bet you didn't know they celebrate St. Patrick's day the weekend after the actual day up here - giving us the opportunity to treat last weekend as merely a practice run) ... anyway, I am very glad for our endless variety of layers for the fusspot: we have the mini-fake fur hat with ear flaps, the beer koozie for the stroller, the warmest fleece/coat combination straightjacket ever, a separate fleece onesie ...

And the fusspot has had a number of firsts this trip:
- First passport stamp (At the border when the guards asked if we had anything to declare JD and I chimed at the same time "Just a baby in the back." Sometimes it is so incredible that we have a baby).
- First swim in a pool (she was most puzzled and not altogether pleased)
- First time we've noticed she can now hold a spoon and bang it on the table. This is an important milestone in my opinion, and much ignored by some families (possibly the ones who carry toys for their kids to play with).
- First time she vomited in a museum such that maintenance had to be called to clean up. I wouldn't admit that her parents were busy posing her for a hysterical photo on a museum bench and that's why she had no burp cloth near her, even though she had just finished a large meal in the very same museum gallery ...