Camping with Cranky Pants

(written by Meggan)

  Any of you who is bothering to follow this blog must know Rachel, so you already know a bit about her personality.  She's not an impulsive, crazy, always-sprinting-around-and-screaming 2 year old.  She's a smart, snuggly, thoughtful toddler who usually asks for permission before doing uncertain things.  She is a mamma's gal, and ALWAYS wants to be held by her mom.  When other toddlers are running away at the playground, Rachel is tugging at me to pick her up.  My neck, shoulders, elbows, arms and hands are really sore lately because I just cannot figure out how to reduce the amount of time that I hold her.  I still often make dinner with her in the carrier, and she's almost 2!

 So this past week or so, she has wanted her 'Mamma!  Mamma! Mamma!' a LOT.  It seems to be getting worse and worse.  Unfortunately, she wants less and less of Daddy these days and has been pushing him away.  Poor Jason is hurt because, although he is a really involved and great Dad, she wants very little of him these days.  It's always been like this some... but lately if Rachel is in the same vicinity as me, she's throwing a tantrum if I'm not hugging her.

We have several theories on this recent extra snuggle and hug neediness.  We've had a lot of transitions recently with moving house, Jason returning to teaching full time, and a new classroom at school with new teachers and older peers.  Rachel is teething.  She keeps biting her own tongue and has a canker sore on her tongue.  She has had an on-again-off-again diaper rash since July.  Also, I work quite a bit from Monday late morning until Thurs night and don't see Rachel much for these 4 days.  She has some long days at daycare.

Saturday morning it was my turn to sleep in, so Jason went to Rachel when she started crying.  Crying quickly turned to full-on-freak-out-screaming, and she refused to be consoled.  Both parents tried snuggling, making her laugh, offering her items, standing on their head, etc. and finally after a diaper change and water and snuggles she calmed down.  So much for a sleep in.

We went for a family stroller run on Saturday, in our newly repaired Chariot.  Did we mention in the Boston blog that it was damaged while flying home?  Disappointing.  Airlines are not liable for extra baby luggage like car seats and strollers, and we took our chances.  Anyway, Jason took it to the engineering lab at school and repaired it so we were able to run.  Too bad we got 2 flat tires while running because our neighborhood is full of strange little prickles that like to poke our tires.  We've had a LOT of flat tires this year.

Saturday after the run we packed up all our gear, drove to Silverthorne, and hit the outlet malls.  Rachel slept on and off all day, and wanted to snuggle and sleep.  I was worried she was sick with a possible fever, and wondered whether camping was the best idea.  But in between sleeps and snuggles she was giggling and playing normally, so we went with it.

After a major day of shopping, we drove from Breckenridge up and over Boreas Pass Road and down toward a little forest service campsite called Selkirk.  The fall colors in the mountains were awesome - aspen trees displaying various stages of green, yellow, and orange.  We set up the tent, had dinner, and then Rachel asked to go to bed (a rarity).  It took a long time to get her down, and finally I left her in the tent screaming to go enjoy the campfire with Jason.  She put herself to sleep after just a couple of minutes.  I was able to put her into her sleeping bag when we came into the tent.

12:38am Rachel woke up for the first time and said 'No sleeping bag!'  Did we mention it was cold?  I was not comfortable with Rachel sleeping only in her sleeper and one fleece sheet on top.  But that was the only way she would have it, so I snuck her back inside her sleeping bag after she dozed off.  A little while later, she woke up and wanted some variety of snuggle, water, or no sleeping bag.  Our night continued like this, until at 4am I was able to bring her into my sleeping bag since it felt quite cold outside.  She slept with me until after 7am, which was a really nice sleep in.

Jason holds ice at the creek in the morning

It was 36 degrees when we got out of the tent, and there was some frost and ice around.  It was pretty, but it also marked the end of our camping season.

We packed up, played by the creek, threw rocks at the ice, and drove home.  Rachel was miserable and screamed for the last 40 minutes for the 2.5 hour drive home.  Jason went for a run while we played at the park, and then we came home.  Jason played with Rachel for 30 minutes without me successfully, but then Rachel was attached to me for the rest of the day.

Wearing new snow boots

Anyway, we had a great camping season and we're cleaning up all our gear and putting it to bed...
...until hut trips start, that is!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles of New England

CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS
Friday Aug 31
- Birthday party in the morning
- Go to Apple store three times and finally succeed in buying a case for our new laptop
- Gymastics class
- pack while Rachel naps
- Jason works all day
- Furniture delivery truck arrives and two men set up our new bedroom set while Rachel sleeps
- Drive to airport and have to park far away in Mt. Elbert lot as the airport is very busy
- Decided to travel with the chariot stroller to test out how this would work and in hopes to run while we are away
- Takes Jason a few attempts to fit himself with bags and chariot stroller on parking lot shuttle
- successfully check in, check luggage, check car seat, check chariot stroller
- Rachel finally sleeps on flight for the last hour
- arrive in Boston at 12:20am, shuttle to rental car, pick up rental car, drive to hotel, all fall asleep

Sat Sept 1st:
- drive to wedding site near Andover New Hampshire.  This drive was mapped to take 2 hours and some how took us at least 4
- stop at Cracker Barrel for brunch = yummmmmmmyyy!
- arrive at wedding site about 2pm
- quick dip in lake, dress for wedding, short hike up the hill to the wedding ceremony site/outdoor chapel
- celebrate the beauty of Sarah and Josh's wedding (Sarah used to live with Jason in Breckenridge after they shared their internship summer together)
- dinner, dancing, ladder ball, corn hole games after dinner
- fun with Jaime B, Erin B, Katie
- Rachel finally fell asleep with music and fun all around in the Ergo carrier
- chilly night in the brisk air as we slept in our cabin right beside the wedding festivities

Sun Sept 2nd:
- wake up, Jason goes for run, Rachel and Meggan eat breakfast #1
- Meggan swims in lake while Rachel and Jason paddle canoe beside her
- we all eat breakfast #2 and Rachel has breakfast #3 before we leave site
- drive to Atlantic ocean and throw shells in water
- go to Maine for 5 min
- drive down New Hampshire coast back to Boston.  Somehow, this seemed to take us all afternoon.
- arrive in hotel near Boston and fall asleep

Mon Sept 3rd:
- hotel shuttle to subway station.  Subway into downtown Boston.  Catch trolley bus tour.
- avoid parking anywhere near Boston since there's nowhere to "pak the cah"
- tour HSS Consitution ship and walk to Bunker Hill battle monument, and climb 294 steps to top
- trolley bus through town
- lunch in park near Swan Boats and Ducklings statue
- trolley bus tour through town some more, then boat tour around Boston Harbour.  (Ha-bah)
- go to IMAX movie (Rachel's first movie) on elephants and orangutans and then tour aquarium

- dinner in the Little Italy district for yummy pasta and seafood
- subway home to hotel, fall asleep

Tues Sept 4th;
- weather is yucky.
- pack up, check out, drive to Cambridge and get lost trying to find Harvard.
- in the pouring rain on the side of the road, lost, trying to put together Chariot, Rachel runs out into street for the first time in her life.  Meggan nearly dies of guilt as she was not watching Rachel closely enough.
- Meggan and Jason are grumpy and soaking wet and uncertain how to make the morning fun, but Rachel jumps in every puddle and makes the rain fun

- pack up wet and drive to airport, hoping for good traffic since we are a little lost
- successfully return the car, check in, check luggage, get through security, eat lunch, change clothes/diaper, board plane
- good flight home with some napping by Rachel
- retrieve luggage.  Sadly, the chariot got bent en route and is hopefully fixable.
- shuttle to parking lot.  Get in car.  Rachel faces forward in her car seat for the first time!

September Summary

Things have been hectic, and it's taking way longer than we thought it would to unpack and get settled in the house.  We miss the mountains and have not been outside to play nearly as much as we would like.

Rachel has been a real treat lately.  Her language continues to explode and following her thoughts and logic is really entertaining.

Examples:

1) Rachel is in bath.  Shampoo bottle falls over and makes a crashing noise.
Rachel: "Uh-oh.  Shampoo has an owie."
Meggan: "It's ok.  It will feel better."
Rachel: "It should sit there and do its exercises so it feels better."
(oops.  Can you tell her mother is a PT?!)

2) We bought a cheap old bike at a garage sale to try, and it's too big.  Really we should have one of the strider (no pedals) bikes but we don't.  Jason put training wheels on this one and Rachel likes to climb in and out of it, but gets mad at it because she can't get it to go.  On, push pedals so brakes go on, can't go forward, parent breaks back trying to help, Rachel gets mad and gets off.  10 seconds later, Rachel gets on again and tries again, gets mad and gets off... repeat.


Highlights of September include
- things slowly getting done in the new house, including unpacking and decorating, putting up curtains, putting together new furniture, but also including contractors finishing up sidewalk, plumbing fix ups, cabinet fix ups, landscape fix ups, etc.

- going to watch CU football game live.  Meggan's first ever live football game!  We scored tickets from friends and enjoyed the atmosphere and hype of the game, including the marching band, the cheerleaders and dancers, the live buffalo mascot, and the obnoxious fans.  It was fun, but it made me miss the Canucks.

- hiking up to 13,000 feet to Mt. Audubon with Rachel and our great friends Julie and Patch.

- Nana came to visit and helped us shop for the house, decorate and make decisions, kayak and paddle board on the lake, and care for us.  Rachel went paddle boarding!

- Sadly, Meggan's paternal grandfather passed away at 91 years of age last week.  He died quickly from a heart attack with no suffering.  The service was this week and, unfortunately, I could not go because my passport was getting renewed.  After all the immigration saga over the last year or so, I finally mailed it off for renewal as soon as I got my green card, because it was to expire next month.  I wanted to make sure I had it for our Christmas trip back to BC.  It came back in the mail today, good as new, but 3 days too late to make it home for my grandfather's service.  Thankfully, my Dad will be here to visit soon so I can hug him then.

- Jason and I are both busy with our respective jobs, and just trying to stay afloat with our weekly schedule of work and daycare.
- Rachel is doing swim classes Tues and Thurs evenings with her Daddy at the rec center, and gymnastics class every Friday with her Mommy.  She can blow bubbles underwater, do a forward roll, swing from a rope swing or bar, and jump off anything to launch herself and hope someone catches her.
- It's still been hot with average daily highs in the 80s.  We're all quite sick of the heat here, and get excited about any rain or cool weather.  The leaves are changing and the mountains look awesome.  We're hoping for one more night camping and hopefully one more 14er ascent before summer is really over.  The resorts have had their first sprinkling of the white stuff, and everyone is excited to break into the ski gear.

Tonight is a Friday night, and we have a sitter so that we can go watch a ski movie premiere.  We've been scheming about the best ways to get in lots of skiing this year, because we know it's going to be a sweet year with loads of snow.  After searching for cheap winter weekend rental options, we have opted to book a few hotel nights in the mountains throughout the season to make us go consistently and have Rachel have a place to play, nap, swim in the pool, etc. with whichever parent is not skiing for the day.