Day 3 at cottage

It was a bright morning again.  Yesterday, Jude said there was a big zoo in the city called Peterborough nearby and they were planning to go there. 

Ron finished his coffee on the deck and went in, told me that the other two families were going to the pool.  (Actually he was saying “going to the zoo.”)  I didn’t respond since I was thinking it was too early in the day for the pool. 

After quite a while, I realized that they had gone to the zoo (Ron was blamed of course.)  Most of the morning was gone and Danny should be having a nap soon.  But I decided we should go anyway.  Hopefully Danny would catch some sleep during the drive there.

My good thought didn’t come true.  Danny just wouldn’t close his eyes during the drive.  I once read that if a child falls asleep easily in the car, that means the child is sleep deprived.  So maybe Danny actually does not need that much sleep?  There is also a saying that a baby under one year should get to sleep every 2-3 hours.  Danny can last a lot longer than 3 hours without closing his eyes!  I know sleeping is very important to baby’s development, I try hard to keep his naps on time, but it is not always easy.

It was actually a pretty long drive, much longer than I thought.  On the way to Peterborogh, we passed a tiny town called Keene.  They have their own bar and grocery store but they all looked quite old.  It must be very interesting to live in such a tiny town, do people know each other very well?

We arrived at the zoo.  It was quite big, but I would rather call it a park instead of a zoo.  There weren’t many interesting animals for exhibition (free admission might be related ).  There was a water splash park near the entrance, looked like a lot of fun!  We walked into the park on a major road.  Danny would not sit in his stroller anymore.  So mom and I took turns to carry him.  I have a baby sling but I am never good at carrying Danny in it, so most time I bear Danny’s weight simply on my arms and shoulder.  The boy is growing and so are my muscles.  We stopped to see a fox or dog and some underwater animals — I realized that my vocabulary on animals is extremely poor.  Well GRE does not cover much on the animal topics.  My English is severely exams-oriented, one day I will have to learn new English words from Danny, that is for sure!  I just hope he will be patient enough to teach mommy.

Apparently there was a little train ride further ahead.   After we had a short rest on a grassland, we headed to the train ride.  Ron said John and Paul’s families were done with the train ride and heading back to the entrance for lunch.  On the way there we were hoping to meet them, but we didn’t.  Maybe there was another road they took.   When we arrived at the train station, the little train was just gone for a journey.  We had to wait.  During the waiting, there were more and more people came.  I asked Ron to stay in the line for the tickets and asked mom and dad to find a seat to sit while we were waiting.  People started to form a line behind Ron for the tickets.  Ron was talking to me excitedly:”Do you see?  People here just know to form a line!  Not like in China…..”  He was quite loud and I told him to shut up.  I think he got hurt mentally by the crowds when we visited China last time.  Though you would think he should have already recovered for such a long time, apparently not!

The train came back.  People went into the train from all directions, without tickets.  Soon the cars were filled.  Ron got the tickets and we found two rows in the back of the first car still empty.  So we took them.  “What lines?  Those people even don’t care about getting tickets!” I talked to myself quietly.  Ron was confused as well and said the tickets might not be mandatory but as a donation to the park.  Before the train started, the driver came and asked for tickets.  So tickets are required after all.  There was only one person running the business so that she couldn’t handle selling tickets beforehand while there was a large volume of people.

The little train started moving.  How long haven’t I been on this kind of thing?  Years? Decades? This is fun!  And I am looking forward to the day Danny will enjoy the rides too.  That would be even more fun, wouldn’t it?  The train went through jungles, it was hilarious to see those wooden gorilla, elephant, zebra in the trees.  There were also some models of the typical buildings of Peterbrough along the way.  The train ran across a river on a dam, then we were back to the start.  Danny clearly showed the signs that he wanted to sleep.  Mom took him and walked very fast in the front, she seemed to have trouble holding both Danny and the umbrella at the same time.  But she just wouldn’t stop… Frustrating!

I caught up with her and asked to take over Danny.  I layed Danny in my arm hoping he can fall asleep that way but he wouldn’t.   He was moaning miserably now.   We found John and Paul’s family at the snack bar having lunch.   I sat down and nursed Danny immediately with a hooterhider on my neck.  Danny fell asleep almost instantly.  I did not want to move him so he was sleeping on my lap for quite a while.  With a hooterhider on my neck, I must have looked very funny.  Jude asked if I could move Danny to the stroller, but I told her that Danny would wake up if I moved him.  Now I think it might work if I really tried to move him, when he is really tired.

Danny woke up with a red face.  It was hot to sleep on the nursing pillow.  He wasn’t happy that his nap was disturbed.  He might sleep better in the stroller after all.  Oh well, mommy is still learning, all the time. 

Ron was wondering what we should do afterwards.  He wanted to see a special water lock in the town.  He became fascinated by boating for a while and he has taken two boating courses seriously.   Jude said they would continue to explore the rest of the park if we wanted to join them.  I just want to go home with all the stress I had with mom and Danny.  The lock sounded fun and it was on the way home.  On the way out we stopped at the water splash park.  Mom and dad needed to go to the bathroom.  There were many kids playing the water.  Danny looked at whole thing with no expression.  I guess he was too tired and he was dozing.  Back to the mini van.  Inside the van it was unbearably hot.  Danny’s car seat was scorchingly hot due to its thick pads and the color.  I held him standing under the trees while Ron started the engine to run the air conditioning.  When I put Danny into his car seat, it was still feeling hot, so I took off Danny’s pants and he was only with his diaper.  It is fun to look at his chubby legs.  These two chubby legs can give you quite a kick these days.

The lock wasn’t far.  The first lock I have seen is in Ottawa, on the Rideau Canal.  It was a much easier system to understand compared to this one in Peterborough.  We walked through an administration building.  There was a display of huge map showing the Trent-Severn waterway in Ontario.  We found Rice Lake and the Peterborough lock.  It was amazing to see how small they are in the whole map.   Walked out of the building,  and the lock appeared.  It actually took me quite a while to find the lock.  The water level difference on two sides of the river was huge, so the lock looked like a bridge to me at first.  The way it works is quite a feat of engineering!  In fact, not until it started to move did I fully understand it.  The lock has two huge tanks side-by-side.  Each side holds boats from its side of the river and stay level with the water on its side.  When it works, two sides switch position slowly to bring the boats to the other side of the river.  The difference of the water level on two sides is very big and Ron said that the whole lock works on the gravity of the water instead of  electricity.   This is indeed a very neat design!  I am glad we saw it but too bad we didn’t get any photos of it.   While we were waiting to see the lock to operate, I managed to put Danny to sleep in my arms.   I just bounced him along the river side,  he was desperate for rest.

Danny slept all the way back to the cottage.   Now that I felt the drive wasn’t long at all.  Maybe I just hoped Danny’s sleep wouldn’t get interrupted.

Back at the cottage, Ron barbecued the steak for dinner.  He complained that there was no lavarock in the barbecue but the steak turned out very well.  We had a bottle of Shiraz with it.

It was a busy day.  With Danny, every day is a busy day.  I guess that is called parenting.