Lack of sleep while traveling wasn't as dreadful as I thought it would be.  We stayed one night in a cabin on a campsite with H's scout group, and the rest of the nights in downtown Sechelt. Not to say it wasn't stressful at all, because there was that moment at 4AM that first night, when S kept rolling around, crawling all over my face, and I thought we should hop on the ferry to go back home immediately. 

At both locations that we stayed at, I slept with S, while H kept an eye on baby P in his bassinet that we brought from home.  Whenever baby P woke up for a feeding, H would come to get me. This was S's first time sleeping in a big bed, so she was naturally over excited to have the freedom to crawl out of bed whenever she desired, which was ALL NIGHT LONG. We skipped all of her naps, and she woke up at 4AM every morning. 

We slept so poorly over this entire week in Sechelt, it felt like we had about the same amount of sleep as the newborn days with S, but I still woke up more energized than sleeping at home. Must be that fresh coastal air. 

A few highlights:

•  S made friends with the other kids at the scout camp, while baby P enjoyed all of the attention that little babies get wherever they go. Her language seems to have exploded out of nowhere after camp, and she's stringing together 5 to 6 words now. 

• S figured out her own boredom while we stayed at the AirBNB. Because we didn't bring many toys for her to play with, she entertained herself with "working" and doing laundry. Once she got home, she was so excited to play with all of her toys and put together all of her puzzles. 

• PKLS Burgers

It's hard to make a half eaten burger look good. I ordered the beyond meat burger, with added fried onions and cheese. Of course, gotta get a strawberry milkshake to cut the grease. If they can make a vegetarian burger taste this good, I can only imagine their burgers with real meat... 

Why did I get the vegetarian option? Because H doesn't eat beef and I didn't want chicken.

I came back to Vancouver ready to get back into our regular routine. S has been sleeping 12 hours at night and taking her usual afternoon nap. Being away gave me a new perspective to our reliable routines, and being home with the kids didn't seem so mundane anymore. 

Haven't been eating out as much because we are saving up for house projects, which means less motivation to blog. It also means cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner for me and the baby when H has shift work, and I have very little energy left after cleaning up.  Long days are long.

Another thing this means is that it's a real treat to get take out! We had Earl's the other day, and I'm not sure if it's actually that good or if it's because I haven't had that dirty restaurant food in a while. 

Which burger has the vegetarian patty? 

I couldn't tell just from looking at them, and when I took a bite, I actually preferred the vegetarian! This was the Impossible burger from Earls. 

It smelled like real meat, it felt like real meat, it tasted better than real meat... Somebody said that maybe it's because they grill it on the same surface as regular burgers, so the vegetarian patties soak up all the delicious grease from beef patties. That might matter to the strict vegans and vegetarians, but for me, I'm taking one small step to a smaller carbon footprint. 

We also ordered truffle fries and yam fries to go with the burgers. Don't bother with truffle fries, not enough truffle flavour, might as well save the $2.50 and get regular fries.

Despite having to cook all my own meals (definitely was spoiled by office lunches pre-COVID), I am infinitely grateful to be able to work from home. In place of commuting to the office, I've used that time to cook lunch, and can have all my meals with my baby, but I wish I could have even more time with her. Ideally, I'd spend all my time going on walks around the neighborhood with her or banging toys together, instead of having to do adult things that will keep us alive, like cook food and make money to purchase said food. 

To maximize on a 24 hour day, so that I can spend time with her, finish all my work, and play Pokémon Snap, I'm going to try to wake up at 5AM, drink lots of coffee and generate more mom energy to keep going.

I'm currently craving a burger from The Hive Eatery. Food from hole in the wall places tend to be the most delicious... 

The Hive Eatery is just an order window on one side, and a pick up window around the corner, not more than 300 sq ft inside, so it definitely qualifies for hole in the wall status. Their menu is full of creative burgers, using fresh local ingredients. The Sweet and Sour Pork had a crunchy coleslaw that provided the texture to balance the pork patty, and sweet and sour sauce was just oozing out of the whole burger. The Cornflake Chicken burger was super crispy, just like cornflakes, and super juicy. No dry chicken here! Neither of them gave me that heavy feeling after eating a big greasy burger. 

Definitely pick up a few of these next time.  

Baby S has been sleeping a bit better these days, and her sleep cues are becoming more noticeable (or I'm just more familiar with them now?) She's never fallen asleep when she's around people or while she's playing on her play mat... How come other babies can fall asleep anywhere?!

The other night, as we were leaving the grandparents' home, she was getting fussy from being overtired and not getting her usual naps in. I was holding the car seat in one hand, and baby S in the other arm, because we wanted to reduce the amount of time she would be spending in the carseat, which she currently despises. H was busy packing away other things into the car. I'm trying to lift the heavy carseat into H's raised truck, while baby S is clinging to me, and Grandma tells me to "let the man do it". 

That's an old school thought I haven't heard in a while. Didn't bother me too much because Grandma is a cool progressive dog usually. I wonder what things I'll say to baby S that will make her ears perk up. 

H and I will be heading back to Vancouver soon, and I've been making a list of food around Victoria that I want to have before we leave. Would be nice to get burgers and shakes from Big Wheel Burger again: 

They use fresh local ingredients, which makes for a beautiful burger. Even the brioche buns were fresh from the oven. 

H had the chicken burger, because he doesn't do beef. I had the single patty, with a strawberry milkshake. 

Best burger and shake combo since Shake Shack, and it's unlikely we'll be gorging ourselves on that anytime soon, since the US/Canada border is still closed. 

After two months living on Vancouver Island, I've gotten into the routine of not having a routine. I still have my habits of caffeine every morning, and brushing my teeth twice a day, but we've been travelling so much that there hasn't been time to settle into a schedule. It's hectic, and I'm sure it doesn't help with baby S's erratic sleep patterns.   

The other day, it was rough. 

The morning started off okay and then as I succumbed to what my husband and child wanted to do rather than what I had planned for, I felt more and more drained. H wanted to make waffles at the buffet station, downstairs in the hotel. I didn't want to wait in line for waffles and carry my baby with me to get breakfast. I wanted to be in and out. Black coffee. Toast. Done. I let him convince me that it would be quick, and delicious. We stood for at least 10 minutes that I could have spent doing something else more enjoyable (like sleep). The waffles were bomb though. 

Then, I wanted to spend some time working on this blog, and was expecting my child to be taking her usual morning nap or at least have my husband take care of her so I could have 90 minutes to myself. 90 minutes. Some moms are lucky to have 10 minutes to use the bathroom and to maintain a certain level of personal hygiene. And here I was, having the audacity to expect more than an hour of free time. Of course, baby refused to nap and whined right through the time I had planned for, eventually progressing into a full-blown tantrum. H did not know how to soothe her and put her to sleep, adding fuel on top of this awful four month leap and sleep regression that she's going through. I ended up being too distracted to do anything, and had to nurse her to sleep. Then, I scolded my husband for not paying more attention to baby's needs, because he was just on his phone the whole time as she whined for her soother. 

We went out for a drive after she woke up to see Niagara Falls (not that one... the one in Langford), about 40 minutes away by car. Baby hates the car seat and cries every time we try to put her in the car. No surprise this time that she started screaming right away. Just as we arrived at the park, she fell asleep... great timing! We woke her up, and I was hoping she could be rocked to sleep in the Ergobaby during our walk (she didn't). As we pulled her out of the carseat to transition her to the carrier, we discovered that her back was covered in poo. Got her cleaned up and we were ready to go. The walk was great, the fall foliage was on full display, waterfall was so majestic despite it being a bit dried up. Then we had to put her in the car seat again (nightmare).

 

Along the way home, we wanted to stop by Costco. We always do this, push ourselves to the tired tank limit and I really should have said no, because I knew baby was tired. I was drained, let alone the little four month old baby, who was up all night, had skipped a nap, and now would be skipping another. She had just stopped crying from being placed in the carseat earlier, and started whining again, right as we made it inside. H loves Costco and would usually have wandered all the aisles to look for all the deals. This time, even he understood that we should focus only on what we needed, in and out, but it was not fast enough. Baby S was in meltdown mode by the time we were at the checkout. I ended up nursing her in the car, and she ended up falling asleep in the carseat again. Of course, we were just 10 minutes away from "home", so she only had a few minutes of shut eye, and she was furious from having her nap disturbed once again.

Bedtime was only 2 to 3 hours away anyways and the nap schedule was already thrown off, so we decided to let her stay awake if that's what she wanted. Usually, I can just go with the flow, but this meant hours of her whining about being tired and needing to be held. I finally just gave in and nursed her to sleep around 7PM.

I had also decided to call it a night, around 830pm, and had just fallen asleep next to her, when 20 minutes later, she's hungry. So hungry that she spends 40 minutes sucking me dry. I am a human pacifier. 

It'll all be worth it right? We'll get into a more regular pattern soon, right? I'll start feeling a sense of accomplishment soon, RIGHT?!

The  more hours you put in at the airport, the better you are as a sales person… That’s what R and I concluded, as we sat down with our meals at Ike’s at the Minneapolis Airport:


This was the Hipster Turkey Burger, supposedly with avocado. I didn’t taste any avocado, although I did see a bit of green… The pattie was made of ground turkey. It came with an abundance of fries, and a bit of coleslaw. Overall, I enjoyed the burger, but it was not like I would come back just to eat it again.



I really wish we could've spent more time... NAH WHO AM I KIDDING? I was ready to keep going... Onwards to Kansas, for flying monkeys and witches!

PMA and I hit up Cannibal Cafe after a 5 hour hike to Kennedy Falls in North Vancouver:

No complaints about my turkey burger (The Farmhouse) - cranberry + turkey genius. M’s American Classic with yam fries in the background.

P got the American Classic as well, with a side of poutine, and the poutine could’ve been a full entrée by itself. Maybe he got this because he’s from Montreal?

A ordered yam fries, and sorry no picture, but she basically had 5 yams and enough fiber for a week.

To complete my meal, I had the chocolate Bourbon shake. I thought it was boozy enough, but everybody else thought the alcohol was strong. It wasn’t as thick as I would’ve liked.

I used to come here all the time! I was reminded of why I ate here so often today, and I will be back for more…

There’s something about a good meal after a long hike that brings people together.

We got lost a bit on the way here, but basically, just park at the Mt. Fromme parking lot and take the bike/hike trails from there. It’s intermediate, mainly because it’s slippery and rocky. By the end of it, I didn’t even care about being ankle deep in mud and I just wanted to take the fastest route down the mountain.

Here’s more info on the hike:

https://www.outdoorvancouver.ca/hiking-big-cedar-trail-kennedy-creek-falls/
https://www.vancouvertrails.com/trails/big-cedar-and-kennedy-falls-trail/
https://www.yelp.ca/biz/kennedy-falls-north-vancouver