Not All Ideas are Good Ideas

This is an interesting week to be hanging around the Baby House. There are many new families arriving and we, along with the other family who are staying through are the “old guard”. We are the families the new families look to as proof that someone has made it to the next level. At the same time, we have had the opportunity to meet a few returning families who have come back on their second trip to pick up their children and return home to be a forever family. They are the ones we look to as proof of the next level. Congratulations to those families who are on their way home with their little ones. We can’t wait to walk that ever important walk down those Baby House steps. We know it will be as amazing for us as it was for you.

Yesterday was a pretty quiet day for us. We thought it would be a good day to catch up on some needed rest and recharge our batteries for the next little while. We stayed in and watched a movie on our laptop, did laundry, tidied up our apartment, and other everyday stuff that we’d been putting off for a few days.

Today, we decided to tour across the river and check out a few other landmarks we’ve seen on our map. The cooler weather has given way to another wave of heat. Today it is about 33 degrees, but it also seems that we are starting to get a little more used to it. Plus, we’ve learned to plan our routes according to the shaded sides of the streets and the breeze. We didn’t find much, we thought we were headed to a large park, but it ended up just being a statue and some flowers in the middle of a traffic roundabout. We couldn’t even get a good picture, because it was in one of the busiest roundabouts we’ve seen, so we decided against risking our lives for a photo-op. We’re pretty sure our travel insurance won’t cover us for acts of stupidity!

Max continues to be ever entertaining during our visits. We hope we are as entertaining for him. We took a larger blanket today to sit on so he had a lot more room to move around, which he enjoyed and took advantage of. Here they frown on kids crawling on the ground, and so some days it has been tough for him because he just wants to cruise, but he doesn’t quite know what to make of the sand or pavement, so he is limited to the blanket and where we carry him. He will be so excited to be in an area he can cruise in, we’re sure he’ll wear out the knees in his pants just checking this place out. He’ll probably wear his parents out a little too, but that’s okay, we’re looking forward to it. Anything to help us sleep better!
Here are a few pictures from the last couple of days (if you don’t mind, that is)

Here’s Max modelling his Canada shirt (the only one we could find in the Toronto airport).


Airplane, one of Max’s favourite activities with Dad, especially because Dad makes the best sound effects.

Max making the most of his lounging time. He spends a little time each day like this with either Dad or Mom. We’d love to say he was holding the book for Dad to read to him, but really he was just planning which page to chew on next.

Now, on to the title of our blog. We don’t know if it was the heat, but today when we went grocery shopping, this bottle caught our attention.

Part of this trip included us being open to trying new things, especially if we can at least get a little information about what we are about to try through some English or pictures. This bottle of “ELMO Springtime Elixir” intrigued us, including the description “carbonated dairy drink”. Yes, bubbly milk. We like milk, bubbles are okay too, so what could go wrong? Well let me tell you… there is nothing good about fizzy milk! I don’t know why we were surprised by this, but if you want to recreate the experience for yourself, take some milk, add some water and a whole bunch of Alka-Seltzer tablets, and you too can have ELMO Springtime Elixir! I don’t know what springtime brings to this part of the world that makes this a good idea, but it must be pretty bad. It also didn’t help that Rod somehow forgot the effects of shaking a bottle of carbonated liquid, so we also got to enjoy an ELMO Springtime Elixir fountain in our kitchen! Like we said, not all ideas are good ideas. We managed one sip of about a teaspoon each and the rest went down the drain.

Hope your day is filled with good ideas!