Baby steps

We’ve made it home, I’m not sure why it is that I’m still vertical, particularly after all those gins with my sis the night before the flight.

We bracketed our trip to see my gran with a visit with Uncle Hoto and Auntie Shelley at their perfecto Vancouver flat complete with sea views and half the organic produce of British Columbia stacked on their doorstep, not to mention personal shopping trips guided by Auntie S and long martini evenings governed by Uncle H. The spud needless to say turned his nose up at all that loveliness preferring instead to chow down on their last remaining sausages and gorge his way through pots of yoghurt. In fact, the little thing barely ate the entire time we were away, preferring instead a serious course of constant snacking interspersed with boxes of apple juice and bottles of milk. Anything else was clearly foreign and inferior, except perhaps for the tasty pasta cooked by the lovely Diane on our last night which rendered my siblings’ pied a terre nearly uninhabitable when it made it’s exit via the spud the next morning, just before we left. Well, you know, one has to leave one’s mark.

We have survived and like true survivors we have our war stories. Yesterday, for example, finding out that our flight was delayed, necessitating a 7 hour wait in Vancouver airport. This was ok however because one afternoon while spending a lovely, lazy day with my sis, the spud chose to take his first steps. In a White Spot.

For you non-Canucks out there, this is like your precious bundle of joy taking their first tentative steps in one of those restaurants that only seem to exist in motorway services, 20 years past their last paint job and filled with people eating meat out of baskets. Why were we there? Because we had driven miles out of our way just to get the spud to a park where he could, you know, stretch his legs and practice his walking and there was nothing else within reach. We didn’t think he would actually walk in the place. If you’d asked me, I would have thought he would walk during the Kodak moment we’d had fifteen minutes earlier where he was sitting on the path surrounded by fallen leaves looking all cute in his new jumper and smiling at us. Perhaps he was just waiting for carpet.

Either way, there he was, toddling across the floor looking ridiculously pleased with himself. As he had first crawled to the other side of the restaurant and I had hared after him, we were surrounded by total strangers engrossed in their wickerwork and so I stood up and yelled ‘Shell! He’s Walking!’. Possibly several times. I think he may have even gotten applause.

So, anyway, there we were in Vancouver airport, the picture of the perfect Mother and Baby, the spud grimly walking three steps and falling over while I walked backwards in front of him brandishing biscuits and trying to tire him out. Most of the time we, meaning the spud, pushed the baggage trolley. This was rather a theme during our time in Vancouver as I made the spud push anything with wheels in a bid to tire him out enough to get a night of sleep. As he was sleeping in my bed (or rather, H and S’s bed while they scrumpled themselves up on their futon under the mistaken impression perhaps that letting him lie in luxury in the master bedroom would gain them a sleep-in) I thought that tiring him out was important, but the spud just walked in his sleep, wind-milling his body so that I was alternately woken up by his feet, his butt, his arms, his head, his arms again, his butt again and then back to the feet. Oh wot larks.

We had more than just walking in Vancouver. We had another tooth. We had eating with forks (yes I know). We had swings and slides and kids in Halloween costumes. We had family and friends and shopping and even a view into a whorehouse.

It’s good to be home, although I do love Vancouver. Possibly because I always get spoiled to bits while I’m there and chauffeured from lingerie to shoes, via baby clothes and back again. Possibly because of the martinis. Possibly because Vancouver is where I was born and something in me seems to wake up a little when I’m there. Possibly because of the company. Either way, here we are. Me and the Frog. And Spud. In London. Pinch me. Now put me to bed.