September 8th, 2010 by Busy Mommy

I’ll be honest and admit it.  Our first family vacation was…well it was fun, but it was also tiring and required a bit of mental adjustment.  I so enjoyed watching Nolan in a new environment.  He loved the frigid stream water!  What gives?  Well, Ben and I liked it too, so I guess that’s why.  He came from us didn’t he?  Nolan was literally sitting in the freezing water without a stitch on, playing with, I mean, trying to eat, rocks.

There was a set of stairs on this trip and he got extremely good at climbing them.  Then he figured out how to climb back down.  Then he climbed up and down, up and down, up and down.  He climbs stairs with gusto by the way.  None of this weak plodding upwards.  It was hearty.  Hands smacking the dusty carpet of the stairs as he plowed upwards, excited to be climbing.  It never seemed to get less interesting.

You’re probably still wondering, what does she mean mental adjustments?

Concerning my husband: I am married to a man I call my John Muir.  To quote something mentioned in Wikipedia about him, “In September 1867, Muir undertook a walk of about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from Indiana to Florida, which he recounted in his book A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf. He had no specific route chosen, except to go by the “wildest, leafiest, and least trodden way I could find.”“  Further appropriate reference is this: “Experiencing Yosemite: Arriving in San Francisco in March 1868, Muir immediately left for a week-long visit to Yosemite, a place he had only read about. Seeing it for the first time, Marquis notes that “he was overwhelmed by the landscape, scrambling down steep cliff faces to get a closer look at the waterfalls, whooping and howling at the vistas, jumping tirelessly from flower to flower.”^[7] “We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us,” Muir later wrote. . . . “No temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite… The grandest of all special temples of Nature.”^[14] He later returned to Yosemite and worked as a shepherd for a season. He climbed a number of mountains, including Cathedral Peak, Mount Dana and hiked the old Indian trail down Bloody Canyon to Mono Lake.”

(yes that’s a baby on his back- my baby)

Those phrases I bolded are very much my husband.  So when we go to the mountains, Ben yearns to do the types of stuff John Muir did.  He loves to study topo maps and books on Hiking and Backpacking in Yosemite before bed at night and pick out the best hikes and routes he wants to try.  Just one he had chosen (out of 4) for this vacation involved driving 2 hours one way from our cabin, hiking about 18 miles, at 9,000 feet elevation (read: no oxygen).

I love to hike.  You know that from all the blog posts I’ve done about my hikes with Nolan. But I am not in shape like my husband, my Hashimoto’s Thyroid garbage has been acting up, and hiking at sea level is COMPLETELY different than hiking at higher elevations, especially when you haven’t acclimated.  So we did 2 family hikes the first two days.  One short but steep where my legs literally felt like anvils the whole time (and we were only at 3,500 feet elevation), and one 4.5 mile hike along a river that was quite beautiful with huge pools of water at various points that people were swimming in.  It felt great, but by the end I definitely felt like I had gotten a really good workout.  The 4.5 miles was just right for Nolan in the pack- after that he was ready to crawl around, play, and explore.

By Saturday night Ben was talking about this advanced hike mentioned above and I had a sinking feeling- there was no way that either I or Nolan could handle such an excursion.  Nolan wasn’t capable of sitting in a backpack that long, and I wasn’t capable of being on my feet hiking that long at such an elevation.  Also I don’t like to be in the car, and neither does Nolan- so 2 hours each way was a definite turn off.  Ben wanted to go so badly that he was probably a little blind to these facts at first.  As he realized them, he felt pretty bummed.  I felt bummed for him, and for myself.  I really would love to go do that hike, if I could manage it in a way that was refreshing to me.

So there we were, at this really cool Cabin in Oakhurst with a nifty loft for a bedroom, a deck, bbq, and stream right outside, feeling bummed.  Nolan went to sleep.  I told Ben he should take the day Sunday and just go do it- get up early, do the hike, and be back to enjoy the evening as family.  He said maybe.  Morning comes and we all sleep in.  Sort of.  Nolan gets up at the crack of dawn almost remember? (Oh yes, and on vacation, 2-4 times each night as well- that’s the tiring part I described.)  Ben is doing his best to do what he thinks is “best” and be that “family man” he thinks he supposed to be, which somehow involves giving up everything you ever liked to do.  He doesn’t feel right about leaving me with Nolan alone all day without a car at the cabin.  It’s a sweet thought for sure, but he is still really bummed and sad.  This day isn’t going to be fun if you stay here feeling sad right?  I basically force him to leave by my good convincing skills.  In the end, every person needs to feed their soul with something they need.  He needed to go do this so he didn’t feel trapped, then he could come back and be happy with his family and have something to give back.  So off he went.  Yes, staying in the cabin all day with my 10 month old son and no where to go wasn’t the funnest day we’ve ever had- but it was a lot funner than with a sad husband around too! lol.  He came back content, which was the goal.  Now for me……

Quilt shops of course!!!  So on Monday Ben spent the day playing with Nolan and entertaining him, while I hit a couple of quilt shops on our drive back to home.

Concerning Nolan: The other thing we got a little freaked out about was how likely it was that Nolan could get Giardia from playing in the stream.  He tried to eat rocks from the stream a few times and we weren’t sure if he being a little guy could get giardia just from that, even though he wasn’t drinking the water or anything.  We had no idea but Ben got uneasy about it so then we couldn’t freely have fun with him in the stream until we did more research.  Nolan’s just fine by the way!  I figure I made it through my whole life playing in streams such as those and people were probably not as “green” minded in the 80’s and I never had a bout myself, so I felt Nolan would probably be ok too.

Concerning me: I was a little disappointed in myself that I couldn’t do as much as I wanted to physically, felt guilty that I even had to think about balancing what I wanted to do with what was best for Nolan and what he wants (just live for my son and my son only right?), and guilt that I didn’t play with and engage Nolan every single second of the trip (ahhhh- eating pretzels and reading a novel in a lounge chair on the deck with a soft breeze and the sound of it in the trees while Nolan napped was wonderful), but I’m trying to learn not to make my expectations too high.    Mommies are great but they aren’t perfect, and they have needs too.

So- that’s all really.  We had fun, we felt bummed part of it, Nolan had a great time in general, and all three of us got to do something we really enjoyed that wasn’t difficult for us (for Nolan I’d have to say it was the stairs.)

But after this trip what we parents are really looking forward to is….the extended family vacation!  We want grandma, grammy, grandpa, papou, uncle, bibi, and paman there to play with Nolan so this daddy and mommy can get a little respite folks!

September 6th, 2010 by Busy Mommy

I think I already said this last month.  Nolan’s abilities are growing exponentially now.  He’s currently 10 1/2 months old.

Has has this hilarious fake laugh now that he started doing a couple weeks ago- he watched us adults laughing and one day he broke out with this loud-pushing-air-out-of-his-lungs-forcefully-staccato-style-to-mimic-our-laugh-thing.  Now he does it all the time and if he finds a captive audience of one or more persons who laughs everytime he does it, he will do it for you over and over. He has started shaking his head no or crying or putting out a mini-fit when I take him away from something that he wanted.  He isn’t too interested in eating- he is so busy exploring right now that he eats two bites and then slides out of his high chair to go investigate something.  He is understanding us much more now- we have started laying down some rules for him- do not touch Daddy’s computer, do not touch and turn the water lever in the shower (he tends to move it towards scalding- very unsafe).  We have a firm voice with our warning and he looks at us and hesitates.  Sometimes he still pursues what he wanted to do but that brings repercussions and he’s learning to listen to us when we speak in “that tone”.

He has started making little sounds while he plays- like if he plays a little with these plastic boats Ben got him, he’ll make these little “sssccchhh…..” sounds.  He is “talking” a lot more in general- and in all different audible tones- whispers, regular talking, and loud exclamations.  He climbed up and down an 8 foot ladder all by himself (me behind him of course to catch) on the first try without any problems.  Video on that later.  He has just started kind of pointing to things the last few days when he wants us to take him to something or show us something.  He eats big chunks of food with no problem- he always chews and never tries to swallow anything unless he can actually successfully swallow it- he seems to be naturally smart in this area as apparently other babies easily choke on things- not Nolan.  Except water- he chokes and sputters on water fairly often which I’m told is genetic because Ben apparently did the same thing as a youngster and still does to this day.

He still wakes up once each night at around 2a.m. and then he’s an early riser at like 6a.m., at which point I bring him in our bed, nurse him, and hope he falls back asleep till 8 at least- which often he finishes nurses and is then ready to play at 6:30 or 7a.m. which is pretty early for this Lam household.  But I do get him in bed every night at 9pm so I guess he feels pretty refreshed by 7.

He has started taking more of an interest in walking the last few days- at our Kingdom Hall the other night he got a hold of a manual push vacuum with wheels- he held on to the pole with one hand, and I had his other hand and he was actually walking all around the Kingdom Hall like that, pushing the vaccuum as he went.  He slept pretty good that night- must have tuckered the little guy out!

He still has 8 teeth- he constantly drools but he hasn’t gotten any more in for at least a couple of months now- but the teeth he does have are growing in more and more and becoming a larger part of his smile.

He is still nursing pretty frequently, but is much more fidgety that he used to be and often will nurse for just a minute or two before he feels “done” and then takes off with a smile to explore.

September 6th, 2010 by Busy Mommy

Wow- I’ve really been remiss in posting lately.  Hopefully I can catch up a bit today.  Here’s a cute shot of Daddy and a little sleepy son in the garden, and a few flower shots.