car rides, chicken coops & cheese curds

It's fun to post random messages and pictures every now and then, but when there's a lot to say, I put it off. Now here it is over a week later and my update on our trip to Ottawa is long overdue.

Jake and I set out for our road trip last Saturday, with Gamma along for the ride. The weather was MISERABLE. It heaved buckets of rain from the moment we left the GTA until the moment we returned Monday evening. This didn't help Gram's aching knees, especially following the replacement surgery a month and a half ago.

The plan was to stay at Uncle Tom's, visit with Uncle Jack & Aunt Sharon on Sunday, head out to the rally on the Hill on Monday morning and drive back home afterwards. We had fun hanging out with Nathalie and Dylan, otherwise known as 'Do' and as Jake so aptly declared "I get it! It's because of your hair-DO!". Jake got to see Goonies for the first time (proud moment for Mom and Auntie Boom) and got to stay up too late. Sunday we brought Nat with us for a visit to Uncle Jack's and we got to meet the new man of the house, Hunter. He's 8 wks old. They were going to name him Baron, but it sounded too much like Sharon. U. Jack got into Jake's bad books right off the mark by telling him that his school picture was ugly. Jake wasn't feeling too comfortable, was a bit afraid of the dog and was acting shy. Jack's teasing didn't sit too well. It only got worse when Jake's treasured helium balloon that he brought along, drifted to U. Jack at which point he teased Jake by saying he was going to break it. Jake got upset (naturally) and U. Jack continued with the teasing (of course) by dangling the string of the balloon in front of puppy-Hunter, saying "he's going to break your balloon". Before he could finish his sentence, Hunter bit and popped the balloon. Jake's face crumpled into tears and U. Jack looked more sheepish than I've ever seen him and he knew he was going to hear it from A. Sharon. It was one of those classic moments where you knew it was going bad and you want to cover your eyes to avoid seeing the crash that's about to happen. It really was humourous (not according to Jake). This led to Jake quite plainly telling U. Jack that his teeth were really yellow (so embarrassing). It really was a fun visit, despite how it sounds.

Monday morning we woke up and one glance out the window sealed the deal. There was no way we were going to venture back into the city, to stand in the pouring rain at a rally, especially with Gram's bad knee. U. Tom called us to warn that the farmers were protesting at the same time and many of the streets were blocked off. Oh well. It sounds like the rally was a success without us (see previous posts). Our trip wasn't a complete failure. Gram and I thoroughly enjoyed our trips to the Maple Dale Cheese Factory; we stopped there on the trip to and from Ottawa -- gotta love fresh cheese curds mmmm. We also stopped at a place called the Chicken Coop. It was a cute little place that sold eggs and lots of crafty little gifts. We stocked up on our egg accessories. Gram couldn't help herself and got to talking with the woman who worked there. In the way that only a proud great grandmother can do it, by the end of the conversation she had managed to show off pictures and tell the woman all about her great grandsons who have autism. The woman tells Gram that her daughter works with a severely autism young woman and it turns out that it is the daughter of someone I met at a workshop several months ago. It was pretty ironic considering we were in a small town in the middle of Ontario and we managed, yet again, to make a friendly connection with someone because of autism.

All in all, it was a fun trip. We came home to HUGE smiles from The Brothers. They fared really well with Grandma and Daddy. On Sunday, Daddy took the boys over to Grandad and Grandma Enid's place for dinner. gag alert ahead. warning... As Dad says "they were golden all day, we got home, I put them to bed. Checked on them a half hour later to find Will buck naked and covered in sh**." Giggling and babbling, he had smeared it all about his crib, all over himself and had no qualms about eating it either. Straight to the tub and an hour of cleaning. I'm glad I wasn't home. In all seriousness though, this is one of the most frustrating things about dealing with the boys. They are three years old now. We dealt with this same scenario, ongoingly, about 8 months ago and previous. It phased out. Now it's back. Is this typical behaviour for a normally developing child if you consider that the boys are probably behind developmentally? Is it a behaviour? Is he seeking sensory stimulation? Are we over-analyzing? Is it wrong to want to beat our heads into the wall every time it happens????? AAARGH!!!! It's funny to talk about after the fact, but it truly is one of the most testing things that we seem to go through far too often in this life with our boys. I'm sure one day we'll look back on it and laugh...