First movie theater experience

Today, we took Tristan to his very first movie in the theater! He is 3 years and 2 months old.

We watched The Adventures of Tintin, a popular comic story brought to animation. It's one of the comics Jean-Louis grew up to in France. It's less popular in North America but I imagine it will become popular soon here due to the movie :)

Tristan liked the movie and kept mostly quiet throughout. At home he usually asks questions after every scene so before we went to the movies, we talked to him about what it would be like and that he should be as quiet as possible. We tried to prepare him for the big movie experience by letting him know we were going days in advance. We planned on bringing my earmuffs so that it would be too loud for him but we were in a rush to leave that it was left at home:( We had to improvise with kleenex, hat, and scarf and it more or less did the trick :) We made sure he went to the bathroom before the show as well so that that was out of the way.

Yes, we are very protective of him.

We actually thought Tintin would be too complex of a story for him to follow. We watched one of the old episodes of the TV show Tintin Friday night so that he would get to know the characters before going to see the movie. I watched it for the first time myself too! Up until now, Tristan is only used to watching things like Curious George, Thomas the Train, and Winnie the Pooh. Tintin is also a long movie compared to what he is used to. We arrived early too so that meant he had to sit even longer! He did great though and he seemed to enjoy being in the company of others watching :)

For those of you thinking of bringing your little ones to watch Tintin, it's a great little adventure animation and it's directed by Steven Spielberg so you can't go wrong there! The fast action scene through the market was insane. I couldn't help but think it must have taken forever to create. I couldn't even follow it all but it was sure exciting. For someone who never read a thing about Tintin before, I thought it was a good movie but Jean-Louis thought it was super good :) He hopes all the other Tintin stories makes it to the big screen as well. He says it was very well done. He's a Tintin fan so if he says it's great, it must be!

Vacationing in Whistler with a 2 year old

There aren't many tours to take or activities to join when traveling with a 2 year old. Whistler is no exception. When I researched and planned our trip there for the end of May, I discovered that a lot of cool tours like zip-lining, adventure zone for the kids, river rafting, and bear safaris had an age limit of least 4 years old. It turns out because we were going near the end of May, a lot of the summer activities like the mountaintop barbecue was not even opened yet. In fact, there are stores in the village that are closed until June. It's slow season right now in Whistler!

We went to Whistler with Tristan for a week, from Sunday to Sunday. We made the best of it and ended up having a good and relaxing time. As I mentioned in my last post, there were lots of dining specials so that was great. Especially because we ate out A LOT. I saved ourselves a few meals going up since I cooked a huge batch of fried rice shortly before we left for Whistler. I made us what I call, mountain retreat granola for snacks and brought along a couple containers of frozen food. We went grocery shopping beforehand as well so we had fresh bread, milk, and fruit. We were only able to do this because Whistler was a 2 hour drive away from Vancouver. In fact, I think it took us more like 1 1/2 hours. Our room did not have a kitchen but there was a small fridge, microwave, and dishwasher. The dishwasher was just a waste of space, in my opinion.

Over the course of the week, we did a lot of things. We were never bored. Our resort was just minutes away from the village so we walked a lot. We took pictures and stopped by many coffee shops. Tristan played in the nice park in the village. We cruised around and got more activity information and then planned our week day by day while we sipped on coffee. We ended up taking part in two paid activities: 1) TreeTrek Canopy Walk and 2) Peak 2 Peak sightseeing.

We observed the weather like a hawk and chose a nice morning for the TreeTrek tour. ZipTrek, the company that offered this tour, was very accommodating and lent us a hiking backpack to carry Tristan in. We also had a car seat for him inside their shuttle bus. There was no charge for the backpack and because we could carry Tristan, there was no charge for him for the tour :) For those who are too big to carry, kids need to be at least 6 years old to participate in this tour. We had a good time and Tristan was well behaved. The tour lasted around 2 hours.

The Peak 2 Peak opened for the summer season on May 28th. Since we were leaving on the 29th, we had to go on the 28th. I feel a bit foolish because I noted down all the great hikes on the top but there is no hiking at all this time of year. The top is covered in tons of snow and there is skiing until August. I thought maybe some of the popular trails might have been shoveled. No chance! We enjoyed the 20 minute private gondola ride up to Whistler Mountain from Whistler Village and then the 11 minutes Peak 2 Peak gondola ride across to Blackcomb Mountain. We ended up going back and forth a couple of times since we wanted to ride the silver gondola with the glass viewing floor. Tristan really enjoyed riding in the gondolas too. The views from above the mountain was amazing. It wasn't that cold up there but then again, I was wearing a ski jacket. I realized during our trip that I under packed and would freeze up there. Luckily, there were tons of sales for snow gear and apparel right now :) Not all the restaurants on the mountain were opened either. Again, it was slow season. We bought some mushroom soup and fed Tristan inside one of the eating areas while we watched the snowboarders and skiers go down the mountain. It was winter wonderland up there and it snowed too!

It's funny to think we walked and played in the snow on top of the mountain because in the valley below, we were hiking and swimming. In fact, one of Tristan's favorite activities in Whistler was swimming. We took advantage of the heated outdoor pool at our resort and on the day it rained, we went to the Meadows Park Sports Centre to swim indoors. We bought a inflatable life saver for Tristan and he was able to float and move all on his own in the pool. It was the best $1.50 purchase we made at the dollar store :)

Here are some of the other things that we did:

1. Running while pushing Tristan in the jogging stroller (11.4KM, more on this later)
2. Hiking to Nairns Falls (1.5KM one way, highly recommended for toddlers!)
3. Whistler library story time
4. Dine out event at Edgewater Lodge Restaurant
5. Watched DVDS together in our room (free to borrow from the resort)
6. Shopping in the village
7. Drove south looking for hiking trails (ones we wanted to do were closed:()
8. Visited Lost Lake Park, Rainbow Park (flew a kite)
9. Drove to Pemberton and had coffee
10. Took advantage of many daily dining specials (e.g. $10 pasta Thursdays at Quattro)
11. Sleep! Lots of sleep!

Whistler was fun. Jean-Louis and I have only been there once for a weekend and it was during the winter season. This was our first trip in the Spring. We had never gone up the mountain either so that was new. The lakes and parks in the valley and in the nearby area are stunning. The food was delicious and luckily for us, didn't cost us an arm and a leg. Tristan more or less ate well. He was really okay to dine with. Surprising.



Since we shared a room, it was hard to do other things when Tristan fell asleep. It was hard for him to sleep while we were still up. The simplest solution was for all of us to sleep at the same time. That meant keeping Tristan up a bit later every night and we had to sleep earlier every night at around 10:30PM. No matter when we slept, Tristan would still get up at 7 or 6:30AM. After a week of all of us together, I'm ready to give it up. Tristan was still a handful here and there so I'm glad this was just a vacation. We're so glad to be back home in Vancouver and back to our routine! You never know how much you miss home until you leave it for awhile :)

Our approach to TV watching

Aside from occasional exposure to small home video clips once in awhile, Tristan was not allowed to watch any TV or movies for two years. It wasn't that hard since we don't own a TV and I wasn't a big youtube user. We read many articles on how TV wasn't good for babies and that they shouldn't watch any until they are at least 2 years old. Interacting with toys are much better for baby development. We are definitely not short on toys and interaction gadgets and we read a lot to him. Also, when I say TV, I mean dvd shows and movies, youtube clips etc. In terms of cable TV, we haven't had that for 10 years and probably won't ever get it. If Tristan ever watches cable TV, it would probably be from a friend's house but our feeling is that he would hate the commercials :)

Yes, we consider ourselves strict parents but I'm no "Chinese Mother" either. After Tristan turned 2, we were less strict on him. It wasn't just TV watching, it was also what he could eat etc. We first started him off on small youtube clips such as a music video of Frosty the Snowman. We watched youtube videos for 5 minutes maybe once or twice a week. Then one night, we brought out Toy Story and we watched half of it together on our computer. I observed his reaction to it and it was so weird. He was in passive mode and he didn't even move or blink for awhile. The weekend before Christmas, we watched The Polar Express with him from start to end. He only shifted his position once. Every time he watched something, either a youtube clip or a movie, at least one of us would be watching it with him.

For our next family movie night, we will likely watch Dr. Seuss Horton Hears a Who. It's hard to find animation movies that are suitable for a 25 month old. Even Finding Nemo has scary scenes! Maybe we will watch that this coming weekend or the next. We don't watch movies regularly nor do we plan to. If we feel like it, we will. If for some reason, Tristan misbehaves more one day, we won't.

Our approach to TV viewing seems to be working for us. Tristan doesn't ask to watch TV. When it's over, he doesn't ask for more. When he sees animation of any sort though, he is drawn to it out of curiosity. It ends up being the distraction from whatever he is doing. He is quite easily distracted too.