Happy Birthday Kate

Dear Kathleen Carol Ann,

          Katie.  Kate.

          You're ONE today!

          Everyone comments on how observantly you take in the world. Your wondrously wide, blue eyes are instinctively drawn to people.  You stare at others, quiet and still.  If a stranger approaches, you cast your blue eyes downward, your dark eyelashes flutter, and you tuck your head into my arm.  Your bashfulness is endearing-- but for your sake, I hope you outgrow it.  I know how painful it feels to be shy.

I'm trying not to use the word "shy".  I prefer to describe you as "discriminating".  You are especially discriminating of beards--you don't like them.  You make your discomfort known by wailing loudly.  I whisk you away from those scary, bearded men.  But now your Pop is growing a beard, so I wonder if you might begin to tolerate them?

Dad says this expression is when "Anger Flows Through You"

          One area in which you are not as discriminating is with food flavors and textures.  Shepherd's Pie and cheddar cheese are two of your favorites, but you will happily eat any number of foods we place before you:  mango salsa, tuna salad, spaghetti sauce, clams, yogurt.   Yes!  I think, I'm doing something right!  Then I watch as you rake the floor for a tuft of Garfunkel's fur, stuff it in your mouth, grimace slightly, and start to chew.  You will put anything into your mouth!  At any rate, I hope your willingness to try new flavors continues, because I don't worry one bit about your weight gain.  The days when I obsessed about every ounce you gained as a newborn are a distant memory.

            Katie, those thighs!  Those glorious, chubby, roly-poly, cottage cheese thighs!  I could write epic poems to them, they fill me with such pride.  Why on earth we celebrate chubbiness in babies and vilify it in adults is beyond me. I just want to squeeze them.  And you.  You're very squeezable and precious.

          As timid as you are around people, you are BOLD with the family cat, Garfunkel.  He has scratched and clawed you many times, but still, you  reach out for more.  More of his soft, long-haired, black and white fur.  You gesture animatedly and twirl your hands and feet excitedly when he enters the room.  (We call this "twinkling" your toes.)  You make little high-pitched squeals.  And you are pretty gentle when you pet him.  That old cantankerous, spoiled and adored cat. (My first baby).

           Katie, how will you feel about sharing your birthday with me?  I didn't like sharing mine with my Dad and brother, who were born the day before, July 31st.  Always lumped together for family celebrations, the three of us.  (And friend parties only once in FIVE years!  Which, as it turned out, only happened for me once, as a five year old. Such deprivation, I realize, can only be registered on a first-world scale. )  I hope to do many things differently for you, and your brother.  Not sure how to go about celebrating our mutual birthday, and I imagine it will change over time.  Right now, it's a fantastic excuse for me to have a few local friends over, put a tiara on your head, bake some mini-cupcakes, and serve Sangria.  Babies' first birthdays have always been more about the parents: celebrating the baby's survival of that first year (seriously--how many falls have you lived through?), and honoring the parents' transition to motherhood and fatherhood.

Brother and Sister in Yosemite

           Yes, we've traveled this road before.  But in many ways we've started all over again.  It was almost seven years between you and Andy, for one.  And also, you're a GIRL.  As much as gender shouldn't matter, it does.  Raising a daughter is terrifying, exhilarating, and a total blessing.  It's an opportunity to hold a mirror to myself, and to set an example for you in all the ways that matter.  Body image.  Confidence. Career and family life balance.  Curiosity.  Optimism.  Resilience.  Determination.  Courage.  Making a difference in this troubled, lovely world.

           Kate, I have a long way to go to become the woman I want to be.  I am grateful to you for the motivation to pursue my own dreams.  I think it took me this long to have you because I wasn't ready before.

            In honor of your 1st and my 37th birthdays, here's part of a poem by Patricia Lynn Reilly, author of Imagine a Woman in Love with Herself:

"Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is woman.
A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories.
Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.

Imagine a woman who has acknowledged the past's influence
                                  on the present.
A woman who has walked through her past.
Who has healed into the present.

Imagine a woman in love with her own body.
A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is.
Who celebrates her body's rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource."

          Thank you for being you, Katie.  I can't wait to see how you grow and change, and I'm thrilled to share the journey with you.

          Love,

          Barbara, Barb, Mom



         

         

                   

Camping With Kids in Yosemite's Tuolumne Meadows: A Cautionary Tale

One of the many fallouts of parenting a baby happened to us while camping. Katie’s diaper wedged and leaked; Mike and I were both peed on. Not even the blow-up mattress was spared. We didn’t have the luxury of a wardrobe change. We wore our pee stained jeans for the next few days, reveling in our ruggedness, our ability to endure, like our pioneer ancestors before us.

Katie at Tenaya Lake, where we heard the fishing might be good. (Nope.  Too windy.)

At least we thought we smelled better than the backpackers who we mingled with at the Tuolumne store and grill the next morning. The young men with their wild hair and five day stubble, the hairy-legged women, their overstuffed backpacks towering over their heads like El Capitan itself. Walking sticks in hand, they were first in line for coffee--COFFEE-- as the grill opened, casually, a little after 8:00 am.

Mike and I breathed in the piney, high altitude air and the smell of backpackers’ sweat, knowing that our pee-scented clothing was about as close as we were going to get to their hiking and climbing machismo. With two kids, there was no way we were going to get a serious hike in. We could pretend to be hardcore in the backpackers’ midst, and we were, in the way only parents-- who’ve tossed and turned all night in a tent with a baby in 30 degree weather-- can be.

Do we look cold?  We were.

95% of visitors don’t leave Yosemite Valley, so why did we choose to be among the 5% who ventured to explore, and shiver, in the higher altitudes beyond? Campsites in the valley fill up fast  (no spaces left!) Tuolumne’s roads had only recently opened up for the season, leaving many of its campsites up for grabs. Tuolumne is wild, spacious and uncrowded. We thought we’d brave it. (“Brave”, I’ve noticed, is a euphemism for “crazy”).

First arriving at area C, mosquitoes dove and danced on Katie’s ripe, baby plump skin. Mike drove back to check-in, and rangers suggested moving to Area A, where the river breezes deter some of the blood-thirsty bugs. Since Tuolumne’s reservations aren’t tied to a particular site, the move to “A-59” ended up being a welcome reprieve. Our campsite backed into a forest, with a short trail to the bathrooms, and a water spigot at the spot next door. We didn’t get a single mosquito bite. Best of all, Mike and Andy could walk to the granite boulder strewn Tuolumne River for some fishing while Katie peed on napped with me in the tent.

The grounds were quiet during the day and also at night; we didn’t hear a thing after 9 pm. We were warned about and expected to hear bears rummaging through the campsite--goodness knows I was awake enough at night to hear them--but the only noises I heard were from Katie herself, who cried and whimpered throughout the bitterly cold night. We woke the next morning to frost on our car windshield, the honey frozen solid in the bear locker. Andy fared the warmest as the only member of the family who could bury himself in his mummy bag.

As beautiful and uncrowded as Tuolumne is, I recommend leaving it for the serious backpackers and the RV-set with heaters. It’s just too damn cold!

During those two freezing nights, I was reminded of the Buddhist monk Pema Chodron’s statement: “There is no cure for hot or cold”. I could devise a million ways to make myself more comfortable (and I had those fantasies, frequently, such as jumping in the car and turning the heater on.) Or I could accept-- and actually live in-- the moment. Andy said as much to me when I was scheming about what we’d do differently on our next Yosemite adventure. I was talking of camping in the lower elevations of Yosemite Valley, renting bikes, and actually staying warm at night (imagine!).

“MOM, stop talking about things that aren’t here yet!” He sighed.

My kids are fantastic at bringing me back to the present moment.

 “Oh, OK. What should we talk about, then?”

 “FISHING!”

Tenaya Lake

Seven year olds are a delightful age to take camping. There’s the obsession interest in fishing, as well as fascination for wildlife. There’s the newfound ability to hike several miles without complaining. This is huge. They can also alert their parents when their baby sister is about to choke on a rock or some pine needles.  Really handy!

10 month old babies, while generally a delight, are not a delightful age to take camping. They have no problem eating fistfuls of dirt. They are not potty trained, as mentioned above. And as much as you try to explain to them, babies have no concept of what you mean by “roughing it”. They need to be held, often, leaving no free hands for setting up the tent, making the fire, or cooking. (Mike and I divided our labor along traditional gender lines: mostly I held Katie while he did everything else.)

Seven year olds, on the other hand, can entertain themselves for several hours with Yosemite’s Junior Ranger program! We recommend purchasing the workbook for a few dollars from any of the park stores. With a little help from us, Andy completed five of the activities needed to earn a Junior Ranger Badge. He learned about wildlife conservation and was encouraged to pick up litter, which is actually one of his favored school recess activities. The rangers made such a big, ceremonious deal when Andy turned in his workbook for completion, that visitors in the Tuolumne Visitors Center applauded. An older man later came up to Andy, asking to “shake the hand of the newest Junior Ranger”! I don’t think Andy would have received this VIP treatment in the more crowded Valley Visitors’ Center.

Although crowded, our trip to Yosemite wouldn’t have felt complete without a visit to the Valley. We endured the masses of humanity from all over the planet in order to wander for an afternoon in the valley that Ansel Adams described as “ always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space. “

After stuck in stop and go traffic, we parked on the road. I strapped on the Ergo, and we walked several miles with the kids to Yosemite Falls. The walk is an easy, paved stroll. The reward for adults is a close up view--and roar-- of the falls. The reward for kids is a scramble on rocks big and small with hordes of other children. Katie and I parked ourselves on a bench and looked at the waterfall, but mostly at the dogs and other babies.

I expect and enjoy a humming, diverse chorus of people in a busy city. In nature, I resent the sight of recently pedicured women applying foundational powder with their compacts on the walk up to the falls. If I'm looking like Grisly Adams,  I don't want to see you primping for a "Miss Yosemite Falls" contest.  A visit to Yosemite is a chance to leave the trappings of civilization behind!  I’d rather see a hairy armpit than a lipsticked mouth.  I’d much rather smell sweat than perfume.

I’d rather smell baby pee.

Maybe I prefer camping in the wilds of Tuolumne Meadows to the crowds of Yosemite Valley, after all.

We had to strap a few things to the roof...