Camping in Yosemite with Little Ones

So planning this trip, I had never been to Yosemite, but I'd been camping several times. I'd been backpacking in the mountains of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, in the woods of Michigan and Pennsylvania, in the deserts and canyons of Arizona, on the coast of California, and on a mountain side in Death Valley in the middle of a wind storm. I'd been camping as a child, a single, as a girl friend, as a wife, as a mom. I'd never been camping with BEARS!

Now I know that as long as I follow the rules BEARS are just as scared of me as I am of them... That isn't what my irrational mommy mind understands, though.

We recently got back from a trip to the Housekeeping Camp in Yosemite Valley. It cost us almost $90 a night to inhale campfire smoke in a three-cement walled, one-canvas sided cabin, covered in dust and sprinkled with rain that came through the holes in our canvas roof. (Reminiscent of the scene in Parent Trap where the twins get to know each other during a rainstorm when their cabin leaks like a sieve). Anyways, it was called a "camp", so I should have known better. I was fine dealing with the dust and rain, specially since the view of the Upper Yosemite Falls was spectacular (and spring is when it is gushing!) and our neighboring campers were all great fun. But I had trouble with 2 things: temperature and bears.

First temp: Why was this a problem? It wasn't that cold in Yosemite in May - never got below freezing - however, I was trying to keep my toddler warm, the one who refuses to wear gloves or keep a hat or coat on. I could at least get him to come cuddle with me periodically to warm up his frozen hands and cheeks. I kept the baby warm easy enough - just bundled him up and carried him around.

Then there was the issue of night. My older son slept in long johns under his footed-fleece pajamas in the bed with my husband. My younger son is now sleeping in his own room in a crib. There was no way we were going to get both boys to fall asleep in the same bed. We put the younger one down first and started him out in the tent-cabin in a pack-n-play. The first night we put him in this hilarious snow suit. He looked like the state puff marshmallow man. He couldn't move his arms or legs and he was miserable, but warm - perhaps too warm (it is designed for cold MidWest winters!) The next night I put him in a onesie, with a full-body jumper over it, socks on, in two fleece sleep sacks. He could kind-of move... Both nights I ended up taking him in bed with me (well, if you can call it bed - it was a cot, just big enough to fit me on it - but I can't complain, my mom took the top bunk and it was even skinnier). The last night we were there (and I was sleeping so poorly, there was almost no third night), I put him in one sleep sack and wrapped him in a small down comforter and had him sleep with his dad and brother. That was the best option. Third times a charm.

Second issue, though, was the fear of bears (and the required work to keep them out of your campsite). We had to put everything that had ever touched or been associated with food in a dusty, dirty, spider-filled bear bin. Supposedly there were tons of them around, we should have no problem. OK - they don't think about the 2 baby hikers we brought, two car seats (YES - car seats must be removed from the car and put in the open to prevent bears from breaking in to your car!), the backpacks, the baby wipes, the sippy cups, and on and on and on. My poor mom spent the majority of our trip picking up any trail mix or fish crackers my son dropped on the ground up so the bears wouldn't come after them. No bears visited our camp, though. YEAH, Mom!

First night I didn't fall asleep until hours after I started trying because I was freaked out by the bears. Somewhere around 2 in the morning, my mom heard someone shout "Bear!" and then I awoke to hear the ranger shoot off his gun to scare the bear off. Turns out the momma and cub were attempting to get into the dumpster nearby our bathroom. Yikes! Several of our neighboring campers got warnings about not locking their bear boxes properly. I was a little hopeful that they'd forget again so the bear would get their food and not my chubby little baby! (I know - paranoid!)

I got a little more relaxed the following night (and fell asleep pretty quickly - probably cause I didn't sleep the night before). Then for some reason, night #3 was crazy. Maybe it was because I finally got to sleep long enough to reach the dreaming phase? I haven't been getting to that point for a while - try 5 months at least... Ha! Anyways, I heard the rangers (or was it a bear, as I feared) trying to open every garbage can and bear bin all around the campground. No one was calling out "Bear" like they were supposed to. Why were they letting this bear roam our campsite and not DOING something about it!? Eventually I fell asleep amidst these troubling thoughts and soon I was experiencing this horrible dream that a bear's head was scrounging hungrily into our tent at our feet and I was kicking at it, trying to push it out. No one else was waking up and noticing it - not my mom, not my husband, not my boys... and I COULDN'T SAY A WORD! It was horrible. I just kept kicking and wrestling and praying that it wouldn't get to my babies. Finally, I must have gotten past the immobilized part of sleep and I was able to speak so I let out a "ARRRARRRH"! It scared my poor mom out of her sleep, but I was finally able to relax and fall back asleep, knowing that I could scream for help in case a bear snuck into our tent. Ha!

Another year gone...

So it has been awhile...

What's happened over the past year and a half:

• Lost that babysitter I mentioned in my previous post - sent me an email over the weekend that she wasn't coming back to her home and couldn't watch my son - family issues that sounded scary. OK - and I left my son over there? Yikes.
  
• Went through a series of phone interviews at a major company, then one on-site the day after my son got sick and threw-up all over me. Didn't get the job, but learned a lot in the process. (I sent in my resume saying I wanted part-time. Wonder whether that had an effect, but who ever knows?)
  
• Found a part-time position working from home for a marketing research company (on craigslist), found out I was pregnant with baby #2, and found a local in-home daycare to watch my son all in the same week (after calling, visiting and interviewing several options). Guess those prayers worked. Thank you, God!
• Went on a trip with 6 adults and one toddler involving 600+ miles of driving, only 17 trips to REI, visiting 3 national parks (Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Zion), camping on the Pacific Coast and in the parks (in the snow at Grand Canyon, in a wind-storm that trashed our tent in Death Valley), and changing disgusting diapers all along the way since we found the best way to keep the baby happy was to provide food - oranges and broccoli particular favorites.
• Visited family and friends back home in August and September. Tried to work while I was home. Big mistake. Had fun, but more drama with family. My older sister was moving in with my parents with her three kids while her husband went to Korea for a year (military). We were visiting and my younger sister and her daughter came as well and it was her husband's last week at home (he was supposed to already be gone, so I was going to be helpful, keeping her company, giving her something to look forward to after her husband left, however, my family was in the way instead). Sad. Messy. Things were eventually resolved before we headed back West.
  
• My grandma visited at the age of 86. Never been out here before. We traveled down the coast, saw the Golden Gate, took a tour of Alcatraz with a former prison guard, took her to Big Basin, and hung out in the sun in my backyard. I was 7 months pregnant, so I wasn't moving too fast for most of her visit.
• Now I have two little boys. I'm thinking of starting a blog about dealing with the issues of having two children. I know it is nothing new and look how great I am at updating my blog, but perhaps people would find it useful...
• I'm still working - have a nanny now that comes to watch the boys while I work from home. That's about it.

What have you been up to this past year?

Professional Pursuits

So my previous employer contacted me about doing some programming for them and it got me started thinking I should get my act together and find some paying work again. I'm working on a contract for them, but in the meantime, I'm also putting together my resume, polishing my interviewing skills (my are they poor!), and determining exactly what direction I want to go. I'm going to try to write a little bit about this process here so that I can continue to focus on it and potentially get some feedback from others out there. (Yeah, like anyone really reads my blog...)

We moved out West for my husband's job, the tech-industry and because we wanted a bit of a change and a better local economy. It sure is expensive out here, though. It has taken me awhile to put my life together out here - especially with a trip back home, a couple trips to visit my sister, and the holidays - but now we have all of our furniture in place, a baby-sitter watching the baby so I can do some work uninterrupted, and no guests or trips on the horizon until the end of April.

Back in the Midwest I had a comfortable job working in the auto industry. I thought I would have it for a year, perhaps two at the most. Those PhDs do take much longer than initially anticipated and it was nearly 4.5 years when we finally were ready to move. I probably should have looked for another opportunity that would better utilize the skills I learned while getting my degrees, but I did have a lot of responsibility, periodic bursts of customer contact, project and people management experiences, and contributions to one major and several minor software development projects. The trouble is that I don't want to do what I did at my previous job, so I need to convince a potential new employer that they should give me a try at something new. In my next few posts, I'll outline what this "new" is about, how I propose to achieve it, and then my progress towards that goal. Wish me luck!

Baby's First Christmas - Should you give gifts to an infant?

Yeah, it'll be evident in the pictures. We had Santa re-wrap some toys and re-gift them on Christmas for our little one. There were plenty of gifts from grandparents, siblings, and friends that we figured it wasn't necessary to add more to our already stuffed house. The little one seemed quite pleased to find the favorite mirror hiding in a stocking and the rattle wrapped in tissue paper. That is what matters to me - the JOY of celebrating Jesus' birth with family.

The First Trip Home After Moving Away is Tough

It is highly anticipated, usually coincides with a major holiday (Thanksgiving), involves coordination with family, other out-of-town guests, and possibly friends that still live nearby the hometown, and never quite works out as well as you'd like it to. Add an infant to that equation and you get a whole other bag of beans to deal with - maintaining a nap schedule with a 3 hour timezone change, keeping a consistent schedule while trying to visit with as many people in multiple places as possible, and feeding sufficiently and timely enough to maintain a happy, dapper child.

It is always great to be back home and visit with family and friends; however, it can also be somewhat stressful trying to keep everyone content. In my case, my parents and sisters (who had also drove or flown from out of town) wanted to see as much of my husband and me and the little one as possible, but they had their own schedules and families to juggle as well. My in-laws and brother-in-law (who had flown in from out of town) also wanted to see as much of my husband and me and the little one as possible. Likewise, since we were going to shortly be back West where we had few friends and family, my husband and I wanted to squeeze in as many visits and socializing events as we could into our short visit home.

We spent the first week of our trip trying to enjoy our family and friends and bickering with each other about where we'd be this day or this evening. We had done some pre-planning with a schedule before getting on the plane, but then other family plans changed and caused schedule conflicts. My family got the actual holiday, so his family should get three more days to make up for it, etc. I thought these kinds of debates had been settled our first year of marriage, but that was back when we lived near our family. Moving West had re-awakened the beast of holiday family time fights. And the three-hour time change and sleep deprivation of new parents didn't help things.


So in the end, we got to see a lot of our friends and family. We are still married. :)

We've decided that we can do better next time by communicating our original family plan early and often, and not trying to accommodate others as readily without considering the best interests of our family unit first. Easier said than done, I think.

Renting a House - Good "Trial Period" for Home Ownership

I just bought my husband a parks pass for his birthday. I had no idea what to get him - the guy that basically buys anything he wants as soon as he wants it. Well, that isn't entirely fair, but he does tend to buy things quite easily and then he wants me to "surprise" him on his birthday by getting him something he wants, but that he hasn't directly told me he wants anytime recently. How impossible is that? I can barely remember what it is I was supposed to pick up at the store for dinner that evening even with it written on the list in my hand, let alone remember some thing he mentioned months ago that he would be interested in having, but didn't actually already buy by the time his birthday comes around. I think I did OK this time. We'll see. It is going to arrive a couple weeks late.

So on to the main topic of this post: renting a house. Our heat didn't work since Sunday, but we got it fixed yesterday. A spider web had busted the ignitor. I guess that is a common problem. Seems like they could make spider-proof furnaces, but maybe not. When I'm bored, I'll look into that problem and see if I can't get myself a patent. Anyways, with the heat in full working order, I tried to make some pumpkin muffins for my husband's birthday and to have around when his brother and girlfriend come by tonight. The oven wouldn't heat up past 165 F. Now I have some gross gooey muffins sitting on my counter. Ugh. At least I have the toaster oven in case I really need to bake or broil anything. I'm going to make our landlord eat one as punishment. Just kidding. :) I like our landlord.

So after the fun with the oven, I had an appointment this morning to take my car into the Ford dealership to get a free battery check and my front license plate installed. I've been driving around illegally with only the back plate on my car - shhhh! Don't tell! I went out to the car, had my little guy all nice and cozy in his car seat, and then it wouldn't start. I think it is the battery. Ha! We'll see. My husband is going to pick one up at Costco tonight and see if replacing it fixes the problem. It hasn't been starting very well ever since we had it shipped out here. I guess I was a little slow in getting it to the shop, huh?

After I noticed that my car wouldn't start, I tried to open the garage door and the chain would move, the light would turn on, but the door didn't budge. The bolt holding the chain to the door had come loose. Handy-woman that I am, I was able to fix that myself. This renting a house thing is a good way to let us know all that can go wrong when you own one yourself, right? :)

I tried feeding my little guy some butternut squash today. He ate the first few bites just fine and then he started making this face, shaking his head "no", and refusing to open his mouth. I think it tasted just fine, but it was cold. Perhaps next time I should heat it up. I CAN'T have him not like squash like his dad. I'll be ruined. The doc says to just try it again because he is probably just not used to it. It is rather ORANGE. Maybe he just isn't into orange things.

Baby + Moving + Traveling + Sleep-deprivation = Unhappiness

Yeah, so I can't wait to get moved into our final destination home next week. I am so very sick and tired of moving from place to place, getting baby onto some semblance of a sleep schedule just to pick up and move again. Don't get me wrong, I loved visiting with everyone we got to see over the course of the last few months, but it can get pretty harry when you don't have a permanent home to come back to and you have a 6-month-old in tow. We ended up going to the urgent care today because the little one just wouldn't get happy. No doubt nothing was wrong except that he has crazy parents - one that didn't do well with the time-zone change from China (doesn't speed jet-lag recovery to have baby wake-up to feed right around the time you'd normally be having lunch) and the other who fully dreaded the return to the single-room hotel for another week and a half. The good ol' Doc said just to stick it out - grin and bear it - basically: "what'd you think would happen when you move across country and throw in a trip to Europe in there?"

In the meantime, anyone have tips on how to sleep in one room when one of your roommates likes to cry a lot? Perhaps some of you have had experiences like this while in college when there was a particularly harsh break-up occurring with one of your roommates? My son's break-up is with his cousins and his aunt, whom he got to meet for the first time last week. He enjoyed his time with them immensily, besides a high fever that knocked him out for a couple of days. For the majority of the visit, he would sit there calmly and watch his cousin color or play hunting on the computer, or giggle and smile when all three cousins came to greet him in the morning, or pat him on the head as a greeting when they came home from school. He was on his best behavior when we all went out hiking in the mountains and he got to see the changing leaves from his mommy's shoulders. His cousins seemed to like him, too, as one said that I could go home the next day, but not the baby, because he was "just too cute". Ha!

This mommy needs to get to bed now since I have another night and early morning to tackle with my little one. I would like to do it with a few minutes of sleep under my belt, perhaps accummulating into hours, if I'm lucky. :)