We Went Tent Camping with a 2 Year Old... and Survived!

So after months of cajoling, I finally got (forced) my husband to agree to go camping with me and our two year old.  Unfortunately, the state park we wanted to go to was flooded out so we made a last minute call to the first close campground that Google found and they had a site available!  Actually - they had all their "sites" available since I'm pretty sure no one actually goes to this place to camp on purpose but we'll get to that in a moment.

The Brave Campers

We pulled all of our camping stuff out of the shed then ran around to a few stores including Dick's Sporting Goods with a disgruntled toddler who proclaimed "I don't want any Dicks!!!" while we carried him in.  Ahem.  Yeah, that's not at all embarrassing.  After letting him pull as many flashlights off the shelf as he wanted while we found a tarp and a grate for cooking over the fire, he calmed down, we checked out, and were all set for our trip.

We got on the road and after a quick hour and fifteen minutes we found ourselves at Lizard Creek Campground.  We were greeted by the owner, who we knew immediately was the "jolly old man with the white hair and potbelly" from the one review on Yelp I read before we headed out that way.  Usually I do a lot more research on these types of things but this was plan B and I didn't want to give my husband any excuse to back out so I made the executive decision to book the place without checking into it too much.  And it worked out..... mostly.

Jolly old, potbellied man took us over to our campsite, which was about 20 yards from the row of RV's parked ten across who would be our only neighbors that night.  It wasn't really roughing it given we were under the orange glow of the RV camp lights, but it was roughing it enough that it was filled with perils for a two year old.

Welcome to Toddler Death Island...  I mean - our campsite.  And really it wasn't a Death Island, as much as it was a Death Peninsula. 

Toddler Death Peninsula

We were surrounded on three sides by water - deep river water (bayou?) on two sides and a creepy creature filled swamp on the third.  And of course the RV's to our back.  We definitely had a moment where we questioned whether this was still a good idea.  Not to disparage, but the whole thing had a bit of a back woods feel that us city folk weren't quite ready for.  We were ready for nature and the woods but not like the BACK WOODS, ya know?

Honestly though, we had a blast with it being only psuedo-primitive camping.  It was probably a good first step into camping with our son without actually being too far from some sort of civilization.  We did a pretty good job of packing (we have a camping tupperware we created years ago that provides most of the basics) but we forgot beer for the adults so it was nice for my husband to be able to run down to the mini-mart and get a six pack for after FrenchFry went to sleep.  It was a good test run and we are going to try to get back out in the next couple of weeks for a full weekend a little farther away.  We definitely have a few lessons learned under our belt for the next trip.

A few things we will do a little differently next time:

1. Do more research!

Distracting FrenchFry while putting up the tent so he wouldn't jump into the body of water directly behind him.

Next time I will definitely ask if our camp site will be on Toddler Death Island or Peninsula or Isle... or any other setting that is dangerously close to waterways, nuclear waste dump sites or orange-glowing RV Parks.

2.  Inventory the camping gear before the day of the trip.

Bacon and eggs took a bit longer without any cookware so FrenchFry enjoyed some cereal while we worked through that.

We were definitely missing some of the essentials and even more of the extra conveniences we would have liked to have had.  We were missing cookware and utentsils though we made due with plastic cutlery and aluminum foil.  I meant to bring extra pants for FrenchFry but somehow they didn't make it into the bag.  He did of course make it into the big puddle of mud TWICE requiring us to scramble and find an emergency pair of pants in the bottom of the diaper bag (only one size too small).

I also thought of things we should have had with us like some Benadryl since we don't know what, if any, types of allergies FrenchFry may develop and wouldn't want to be out in the woods without it.

3. Bring more toys/activities.

FrenchFry giving us a reprieve from chasing him from dangers by reading Pout Pout Fish in the tent.

 FrenchFry was pretty entertained by running around (scaring the crap out of us) and helping us collect sticks for firewood, but there were a few moments where it would have been good to have a more reliable source of entertainment for him.  We were also only gone for less than 24 hours so next time on a longer trip we will likely need more than just a few books and his harmonica to get through.

And the thing that we did right:

1.  We made the best of it!

Woke up like this - in a tent.  Take that Beyonce!

In spite of the campground not being exactly what we expected or having all the right gear with us, we had a blast.  We remembered how to put up our tent with getting into an argument (marriage WIN), we taught FrenchFry how to swing on a big kid swing for the first time, we looked at the stars while we held hands with FrenchFry on my lap and we ate S'mores.  What more could you ask for?

FrenchFry and Momma by the campfire.

Have you taken your kids camping?  How young were they when they first stayed in a tent?

Any other advice for our next trip to the woods?  Share your comments below.

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Happy International Women's Day - Five (+1) To Recognize Today

Today is International Women's Day and a good time to reflect on our own accomplishments as women (and for many of us mothers) as well as the women who inspire us. For myself, it's hard not to get caught up in the day to day feeling of being "not enough" so frequently.  That feeling that many of us have that we aren't enough for our children, our partners, our jobs, our contributions to housework, our (lack of) contributions to women and children causes across the globe... the list goes on.

But today I will be proud of my accomplishments - as well as recognizing the accomplishments of all women - specifically a few of the amazing women who are either out there today making a difference for women across the world, have made a difference in my life or who helped get us where we are today. 

It was of course incredibly hard to choose just a few of the millions of amazing women that accomplished so much and advanced women's rights but here are my 5 (+1) Amazing Women to Recognize today:


1.  Malala Yousafzai - Yousafzai is an international voice and symbol of strength and determination. Born in Pakistan, she started advocating at a young age for education for girls and paid for it by being the target of a brutal attack in which she was shot in the face in 2012 as she walked home from school.  She survived the attack and continues to speak out for her cause and in 2014 she became the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.





2.  Maya Angelou - The world lost this amazing woman last year at the age of 86 when she passed away on May 28th 2014.  She was a prolific writer who gave voice to women, particularly women of color.  Her first autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) was a coming of age story that brought her international acclaim.  RIP, Miss Angelou



3.  Frances Perkins - As all the women from my generation in America know from the movie Dirty Dancing - Frances was the first woman to become a member of the Presidential Cabinet in 1933.  She served as Secretary of Labor under FDR and as Secretary helped to establish the Social Security Act,  many child labor laws, the minimum wage and countless other rights that have helped workers in American for the past 80 years.  (We actually share the name Frances as it is my middle name - though technically she was born Fannie and changed it later.)

 

4.  Emma Watson - Watson is an amazing role model for young people across the globe and uses her fame as an actress to push for equality for women across the world.  Her speech for the #HeForShe campaign was inspired, and she continues to clear up the misconceptions about what it means to be a Feminist.

 

5.  My Mother - My mother has overcome obstacles and challenges that - because of her - I have never had to face.  She was fiercely protective of her children and a strong advocate for us - especially my sister and me as girls and women.  She taught us to work hard and love even harder.  It is because of her that I never gave up on getting my degrees or set limits on myself in my career.  And it is because of her that I always knew that I would be a good mom who loved my kids with all my heart.  It's also a very high bar to live up to sometimes but having that bar as a model pushes me to work harder and love even harder every day.

Me and my Mom after seeing Hillary Clinton speak in 2014.

+1  Me - Yes, I need to take a moment to recognize my own accomplishments and you should too.  Take a moment to take stock in what you've done up to this point in your life - whether it has been in your schooling, your career, your family and children, your activism or your perseverance in the face of challenges you are presented. 

I am proud of who I am and of being a woman.... now a mother as well.  I have worked hard to earn my two degrees, much of it I did over 8 years of working full time as well.  I started as a temp at my company over 12 years ago and have advanced through 7 different positions climbing through the ranks to being a Manager of Analytics where I am valued for my mind and intelligence in a male dominated field.  I worked hard to establish myself as an independent woman buying my own house as a single woman 5 years ago.  I work to be a good partner and while I am not much of a homemaker I don't think that I need to be in order to be a good wife.  I am now the mother of a 2 year old and that makes me one of the millions of working mothers that work to balance the demands of a job outside the home and raising a family.  I am also a breastfeeding mother who pumped at work until my son was 14 months old, which is no small feat!  And now I've ventured into the world of blogging about my life as an imperfect mother who is trying her best to balance all of these things.

 

We still have a long way to go as we all know that true equality is still far away.  The theme of this year's International Women's Day is "Make It Happen."  To the women who have come before us and those of you out there right now working to Make It Happen, THANK YOU.

#InternationalWomensDay
#MakeItHappen

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How much do moms actually have to give? Or: Why I'm a terrible mom.

Today is my birthday, and I have planned a luxurious and relaxing day for myself.  I booked three hours (THREE HOURS!) at the spa and plan to go to the movies by myself afterwards.  I've been walking around telling everyone that for the first time since becoming a mom, I'm taking a day off just for me!  This is the first vacation day I've taken since FrencyFry was born where we weren't going out of town or daycare wasn't closed.  This really is a first for me to just take the day for myself, and I can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to this.

This morning, after the husband left for daycare drop off and work, I started the day by watching some House of Cards, Interneting and general lazy-bumness on the couch while drinking my coffee.  Off to a great start!

And then the phone rang...

FrenchFry threw up on the way to school.

Sigh...

<tears>

Yes - I actually cried.  Not tears for my toddler but tears for ME.  (See: terrible mom.)

I just can't believe it.  My day, my spa treatment, going to the movies, my ME time... it's all slipping away from me with one simple phone call.  My husband is actually on the way home right now with him and he's volunteered to take the day off from work to take care of our son so I can still have my day, but I feel so conflicted.  If FrenchFry is not feeling well then I do want to be there to comfort him.  Ugh.  <whimper>  But it was supposed to be MY DAY!!

And now the question is - can I leave a sick kid and even enjoy a spa experience?   Will I hate myself if I stick with the plan?  Moms are bombarded with messages that tell us to take care of ourselves while simultaneously living up to these incredibly high standards we are given. When we do try to take time for ourselves it's hard not to feel that familiar mom guilt. 

Coincidentally, last night Tim was reading FrenchFry the Giving Tree, and I was telling him that I really don't like the book.  I think it's because it feels like it's about the martyrdom of motherhood - and that's really not my favorite part of being a mom.  It seems like we are expected to be happy giving all of ourselves over to our kids, but how can we be?  Don't we have to preserve ourselves somehow through this thing called motherhood?  Can we give all of our love without chopping off our limbs too?

Is the little boy an ungrateful little jerk or is it just me?

Live Tweeting Your Childhood

"Mommy turn that OFF!"

This is something my two year old has started to say to me about my cell phone or laptop. (And right when I decided to start a momblog - thanks kid.)

I've struggled with this since FrenchFry was born as I think most parents do. I remember reading these articles stating that mothers shouldn't be using smartphones while nursing their babies. We are supposed to lovingly stare into their eyes and connect with them or something. 

Um.... Do these people realize how BORING breastfeeding can be?

The little buggers are latched onto you for like 18 hours a day at first. And I'm supposed to just stare into their little haven't-learned-to-make-eye-contact-yet baby eyes all of that time? Okay...

Need to get Google Glass before the next kid!

Actually, when FrenchFry was a baby my preferred medium was Netflix on the iPad. I watched all 6 seasons of West Wing and countless other shows. What else are you going to do to keep yourself from falling asleep at three am?  Plus FrenchFry was always a long nurser.  Straight up until he was one he would nurse for at least 45 minutes every session.  That's the exact time it takes to watch an hour show minus the commercials. That can't be a coincidence. He knew what was up. 

Sometimes though I really worry about being the distracted mom. Or what I'm teaching FrenchFry by spending so much time on these devices in his presence.  Sometimes it's reading Facebook or more recently spending mindless time on Twitter.  Other times it's that I have my phone out to take pictures and video because I want to capture all of these awesome moments with him.  And then feel compelled to live tweet it or post it on Instagram and Facebook immediately.

Sometimes I just wish I had a device where I could take pictures that wasn't connected to the Internet. Hrm....

Oh right.... that thing.

This also goes back to the struggle to be truly present in the moment.   By taking photos and video of all of the amazing moments with him, am I pulling myself out of just being there and being present with him?  It's really hard to say because it doesn't feel that way most of the time. 

This study got some traction last year citing "photo-taking-impairment" which means that people who take photos (in this case of objects in a museum) were less likely to remember what they saw than those that did not take photos.  But even the authors of the study found that if you interacted with the object and added some focus like zooming in on specific details of the object while taking the picture you could counteract the photo-taking-impairment effect.  And I know that when I'm with FrenchFry, even if I'm taking photos or swinging by my Facebook feed when posting them briefly, I'm honed into the details of how hard he laughs when I push the swing higher or how he pronounces "My see a pretty duck."  And I enjoy all of the little details that make him so amazing to me every day.

Lately I've been trying to pay more attention to my usage of all of these devices around FrenchFry, especially since he's clearly been picking up on it and asking me to turn my phone off.  Sometimes I try to force myself to wait until we get home to post the photos I take when we are out doing fun stuff,  and sometimes I still live tweet every moment of the day.  It's a challenge, and I'll keep working at it to make sure that I'm not missing any moments of what is going on right in front of me.

But I'm not going to take less photos... I just can't.  And if I did, I wouldn't have pictures like this to hang up in my cube at work to help get me through the work day until I can come back home to my little family.

In Defense of Night Weaning My 2 Year Old

This past week I started night weaning my two year old. Yeah - I'll give you a second to pull your jaw up from the floor on that one.

I'm tempted to say "in my defense" but why do I feel the need to defend myself? I am always feeling like I have to defend my choices as a parent. I feel the need to defend nursing my son past two and then turn right around and feel like I need to defend any effort to wean him before he's ready on his own. Just depends on the audience.  

Instead of defending myself, I'll just say that really this has worked for us up until this point.  FrenchFry was a pretty typical sleeper for a newborn and then from 4 to 8 months he gave us fairly consistent full nights of sleep and then well... it's been up and down since.  Mostly though it's been manageable and while I haven't strung more than 6 or 7 nights together uninterrupted, the past year or so has usually meant him waking up once overnight, nursing back to sleep and then getting up early to nurse and doze back off until the alarm goes off. 

I never really considered a cry it out method - it just wasn't ever going to be for me and I knew that from that start.  I've read a lot about gentle sleep training or night weaning over the past two years and it always sounds good in theory but again, wasn't for me in practice.  I've also read plenty that says that by nursing him to sleep (we've only gotten away from that in the past couple of weeks), nursing him overnight, and letting him sleep in our bed we are making grave mistakes and apparently will have him sleeping in our bed unable to fall asleep without us when he's 15.

 
But even though the jury is still out on him falling asleep on his own and staying in his own bed all night consistently, it seems like we are (mostly) naturally moving in that direction.  I've waited until I have felt FrenchFry was truly ready for a step before taking it and (aside from that one week that I tried to push not nursing him to sleep against my own instincts and almost got myself a divorce in the process) the transitions have gone well.  I think in most cases FrenchFry has been ready for each of these well before I was.

Like the night weaning.  It's actually been going surprisingly well. He comes into our bed and says "momma milk" and I tell him that mommy milk is not for night time anymore and then he'll say "Nooo.... I want momma milk! Mommy milk...."  <yawn... zonked> 

For our next sleep evolution I ordered him a "toddler clock" to help him learn to sleep in his own bedroom all night.  It's a choo choo train (do I say "choo choo train" now instead of just saying train??) that has a red, yellow and green light to teach him to stay in his bed until the light turns green at an appropriate wake up time.  Once I'm comfortable that he's fully transitioned from nursing overnight we'll try out the clock and see how it goes.  I'm sure I've ruined him already by letting him come into our bed on his own (I think I read that somewhere) but who knows, maybe things will continue to progress as they have been and uninterrupted sleep is in my future.

All aboard!  To sleeping in your own dang bed.

Now that we are moving away from nursing overnight we are just down to nursing first thing in the morning, before bed and at nap-time on the weekends.  I'm feeling some internal pressure to start the full weaning process but I'm not sure exactly why.   Before I was even pregnant my worry was always that I wouldn't be able to breastfeed or that I wouldn't be able to nurse long enough to meet my goals - aloud I would say six months, to myself I would say a year, and truly I wanted to make it until he was two to meet the WHO recommendations but was afraid to admit that to myself.  Now 2 has come and gone and I wonder when and how this breastfeeding journey will end.

Hopefully once we are BOTH ready.

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My Language of Love is Ice Cream

My Language of Love is Ice Cream

Okay... It's actually Quality Time, Words of Affirmation, and Physical Touch. Yes I have 3 and noooo... That does not make me hard to please and high maintenance. Ahem. I rank pretty high on all three (out of 5 Love Languages) and guess which are the Languages of The Husband?  You guessed it- the other two. His are Acts of Service and Receiving Gifts. Actually I'm probably pretty high on that last one too. I love presents. Lots and lots of presents in shiny wrapping paper.

But I digress... 

We have an interesting situation in our house and marriage where the ways that I express and show love pretty much don't even register for The Husband and vice versa.

I'm really glad we took the quiz though because it really helps us recognize the differences and understand the small ways that we can reach out to each other  that means a lot more to the other person. For my husband the act of unloading and loading the dishwasher is an expression of love (Acts of Service).  And by being the one who does the bulk of the housework I see that is his way of showing his love. (Plus I don't think he wants to live in filth and if he didn't do the housework.....)  So on Valentine's Day (and at least a handful of other days throughout the year- ahem) I make a point to do the dishes and clean the kitchen and it really does mean a lot to him. 

I've recently seen that they have a quiz for kids and a book to help you recognize the love language of your child. I want to explore that with FrenchFry to see what are they ways that he might better respond to or feel our love. What are your Love Languages? Do they line up with your partner? What about childrens' Love Languages?

Dogs in Carseats

You know you've been spending too much time on the carseat blogs when you watch the Subaru Dog commercial and your first thought is "that puppy really should be rearfacing."