Monday Musings

→ Happy long weekend to those of you (Americans) who are still enjoying one!  I hope you get to spend quality time with your loved ones.

→ Although I had to work all Canada Day weekend (by choice, we need the money) we were able to take Spud out to see fireworks on Friday night.  I worked until 6:30pm and, after getting home and getting Spud fed, we eventually left our house just after 9pm.  We decided to walk to the site rather than try to street park with everyone else.  The weather was perfect and Spud ended up falling asleep about 10 minutes before we got there, which was great.  We found some friends to sit with and let Spud get a bit of a rest until it was time to start.  Since we haven't been to the local fireworks before we were pleasantly surprised how good it was.  It's put on by the local fire department and for a community event it was pretty big.  I'd definitely come back.  The only issue we had was that Spud found it a little loud and we had left his "ear puffs" at home since he said he didn't want them.  

Not my picture, but it is from our fireworks display.

By the time we got home Spud was out like a light and all 3 of us went straight to bed.  All the fresh air and exercise had gotten to us.  I had thought that the walk there and back was about 5km/3mi.  Turns out it was just under 9km/5½mi and the elevation looked like this:

Yup, that's in feet.

No wonder we were tired!

→ Knock on wood, but it seems like summer may have finally decided to show up and stick around in Vancouver!  

→ The only problem with getting a lot of sun here is, like Vancouverites forgetting how to drive when there's snow, we forget how to deal with it.  Colin took Spud to the beach on Friday and did a great job of getting him sunscreened and protected.  He took the same precautions with his own skin.  Unfortunately he forget to get his upper arms when he rolled up his sleeves.  Result?  A wicked red burn that looks super-painful.  Thank goodness we have a huge bottle of aloe, but it looks like it might be time to stock up on Solarcaine too.

→ How do you explain to a 4 year old that he can't scratch his bug bite?  Spud was bitten by something - he thinks mosquito, Colin suspects an insect with eight legs - while sticking his fingers under the door jamb playing on the patio.  It is right between his thumb and index finger so I get that it is uncomfortable, but it's not bad and he doesn't seem to get that if he continually touches it it won't get better.  Calamine lotion will just rub off (and he might freak if we do it because he doesn't even like band-aids).  I don't dare try After Bite because if he popped the top off of the bite it'll sting like crazy.  Any suggestions?  Other than duct taping a mitten to his hand?