Yosemite with a toddler

"Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy!" From the back seat, my daughter quickly yells out my title again and again, in a whiny, high-pitched voice that pierces my ears, sending shivers down my spine. The amazing speed at which she can sling together the "mommies" is purely astounding, yet stirs up the nastiest frustration known to woman. "WHAT?!!!" I angrily mutter in return at my bored daughter, who simply wants to get out of the car and the uncomfortable car seat restraints. From the driver seat, my husband looks at me as we both sigh and think to ourselves, this is going to be a looooooong trip.

I continue to envision that my daughter will follow in my and my husband's footsteps of being outdoorsy, and in love with nature, extreme sports, camping, and the peacefulness of it all. And at 19 months, with her fondness for wiggly creatures, climbing anything semi-vertical, love for dirt, and general ease with being in a backpack for miles upon miles, we decided to take her along on our 5th year wedding anniversary trip to Tuolomne Meadows in Yosemite National Park. Yet with two hours to go and miles from the park entrance, I was already willing to turn back. The repeated shouts of "mommy" and melt-downs were almost enough to abandon the trip altogether. However, somehow we placated her needs with unusual toys of straws, cups, and string while the thoughts of granite, the smell of pines, and clear blue skies somehow helped us through it.

As rock climbers, my husband and I had been to the climbing-mecca of Yosemite many times. In fact, it was where my husband proposed, where we got married, where we hiked with our daughter when she was 6 weeks old, and where we took her camping for the first time when she was 6 months old. Yet, ever since my pregnant baby belly grew beyond the safest point of my belt on my climbing harness, both my husband and I have not really climbed. It's one of the things we haven't yet figured out how to do safely with a toddler as well as without a babysitter. So this visit to Yosemite was more to be among the granite and to enjoy the scenery with our baby girl.

After finding a level camping spot for our truck where the three of us would sleep in a make-shift bed under the shelter of an average camper shell, we enjoyed some overly cheesy quesadillas followed by some decadent chocolate. We attempted our regular bathing and nighty-night routines with so-so substitutions of baby-wipes and reading the same few books over and over by headlamp. Cali slept next to me on a 3/4 length Thermarest in my old winter mountaineering sleeping bag rated to -10 degrees (I didn't want a repeat of our camping trip last year where her little hand sneaked its way out of her bunting in the 35 degree weather. All I could think about was frostbitten fingers on my little baby!). Luckily she fell fast asleep when she hit the sleeping bag (must have been all the whining!) and we soon followed. For the next few nights, we slept in this arrangement, I nestled between my hubbie and daughter cooed by the swooshing sound of restlessness in sleeping bags and the deep breathing of my daughter.

"Mommy?" Cali woke us up nice and early somewhere just before daybreak. Sooooo glad were not in a tent- there's no reason for the rest of the campground to wake just because Cali is hungry. After a morning nursing, I attempted to dress within my sleeping bag where it was 30 degrees warmer than outside. If you have never tried changing clothes within the confinement of a mummy bag and low ceiling of a back of a truck, you may not understand just how difficult this feat is. After 20 minutes of twisting, grunting, and gratefulness to my regular stretching routines, I finally managed to get on enough clothes to make the 45 degrees more bearable, let alone a few strained muscles from the contorting. I layered Cali to the point it looked like we were going to the Arctic. In our layers, we played with dirt, ate some breakfast and started on our hike for the day.

We hiked from our campsite past Lembert Dome with Rob carrying Cali in an old-school Kelty backpack and I with a full pack of snacks and drinks. Ohhhhhhh. Lembert Dome is so beautiful. It was somewhat painful to skirt by this gorgeous granitic dome knowing we weren't there to climb, simply to hike and admire. After I wiped the jealous drool from my mouth, we hiked towards our second destination of Young Lakes. The September weather was absolutely perfect and Cali was extremely well-behaved during the roughest of the trails' ascent. After a few miles, she dozed off and we could hoof past the streams and meadows to an overlook of Ragged Peak. When she woke and had enough, we stopped for lunch amid the sweet pines and beautiful boulders. It was beautiful! It was so fun watching her run around, dancing with the pin needles in hand, grabbing sticks, throwing rocks, and telling us everything she knew. Despite our attempts to discourage Cali from touching marmot droppings, and the need to turn back sooner than planned due to some pre-blisters forming, things were going smooth. That was until we started back.

When we would stop, we all had a blast. Cali especially loved the granite and would hop, skip and dance on it. At the Tuolomne River near Glen Aulin she splashed and played in the beautiful waters. It was fun. And then it was time for the long hike back. Any outdoorsy parent will know that when you are miles into a hike and your kids starts freaking out, you have two options: 1.) continue the hike in a quickened pace and try to distract her with songs, pointing out familiar objects, or feeding her snacks OR 2.) submit to the shrilling demands and let her down to walk at a ridiculously slow rate where 3 miles feels like 16. We opted for option one AND two on both of our 2 days of hiking and despite our hearing loss and the frustration of resident animals accustomed to silence, we were able to hike over 17 miles. To lessen the melt-downs, we stopped regularly to play in the pristine water, let Cali hike small portions of the heavily-used trails, and hiked at a cheetah's pace when she was asleep in the backpack.

At the end of the days, we visited Tenaya Lake for swimming, snacking, and playing in the sand. Then we'd brush off and scramble up these perfect granite slabs. Cali impressed us by throwing a tantrum so she COULD go climb some more. That's my girl! She climbed up a climber's descent, which was something like a class 3. Rob climbed hovered over her as she climbed, monitoring her moves and recommending easier paths. She stopped in a few huecos (or "holes") and would just stare out to the floor 150' below. It was magical.

And that summed up how the vacation went. Things went smooth, and then there'd be a melt-down, some quiet time, then we'd be back at it, doing something amazing. In efforts to maintain authority and not succumb to a pre-two year-old's temper tantrums, we tried to calm her with distractions, changing up our activities, and mellow discipline. Though it was a bit stressful and was far from the "relaxing" vacation we planned, we found a way to all exercise outside together, enjoying the sights of Yosemite. (Though next time, I may beckon Baba and G-Pa for some babysitting so we can have a go on Lembert :).

A Mother's Love

Sometimes it blows my mind how much I love my daughter. I know, sounds cheesy. But really- people told me that I would love her like nothing else and I just blew them off thinking they were being overly dramatic (Mom, sound familiar?). And then, Cali was born with a calm expression on her face and I saw those little eyes, fingers, nose, and feet... I felt so much love for her that I could hardly contain it.

I thought I knew what love was love before. I mean, I love climbing, music, playing drums, painting, contemporary art, the colors orange and manganese blue, chocolate, my husband, good friends, my family... the list goes on and on. These things and people make me feel good and thinking about them makes me feel love. But then Cali came, and showed me an entirely new, almost alien love, that surpassed any ideas of what I thought a mother's love could be for a child.

Oh, there's times when the whining and temper tantrums make me want to put in earplugs and isolate myself behind shut doors. But the love never disappears: it's that intense. And then she does something adorable like blows me kisses, or says "Mommy's amazing," or inundates me with a slurry of hugs and my heart feels like it grows a few cubic feet during those seconds.

I am so grateful for that love- it makes me a better person and I get so excited thinking about being with her. And tantrums aside, she makes it easy, being such an incredible person at just 20 months of age. Thanks, Cali, for showing me how to love unconditionally like this.

Illustration: Babe in arms, by Sara Zimmerman Copyright 2009

Sleep... what's that?

When my baby belly protruded into the Earth's outer atmosphere, strangers felt secure enough to give me mothering and baby advice knowing I was very pregnant, not overweight. Tagging along with the unsolicited commentary was always something along the line as, "get your sleep now." What? This made no sense to me at 3 months pregnant when I got to sleep 8 hours a night like I always had, nor did it at 8 months when BabyZ kicked me religiously through the night preventing me from a sound slumber. Get my sleep now? Yeah right- it'll be better when this kid's out of me and not kickin' through the night.

I had these silly ideals that somehow my parenting experience would be remarkably different than everyone else. I thought this mainly because as artists/musicians, my husband and I were unlike many people we knew at that time and chose to do things more alternatively/ non-traditionally than many of my pregnant counterparts. So I figured the advice given from strangers with assumed non-similar traditions would not apply to me. Little did we know that infants don't know the difference. All they know is eat, sleep, poop, coo, play and repeat every few hours. They don't care if it's 2AM or 4AM and if you are trying things naturally or traditionally, or if you have to wake up early the next day to work or if you are sick, or have a horrible headache or just need some creative, alone time. All they know and care about are their needs. The rest is beyond their world or concern.

The first year challenged our sleep regimen, especially without relatives close by. We worked with attachment parenting and parent directed feeding practices in the first year trying to extend our baby's sleep (and ultimately ours). Cali did best co-sleeping with us. I, however, didn't sleep too well. I had the new mom's heightened awareness of movement and noise as well as a bright night light on so I could wake up and see her breathing throughout the night. We finally decided to move her into her own bed at 5 months when she started waking at 2 am and began singing. That's when we all started sleeping a bit better. Then my husband and I negotiated a schedule, switching off early morning wake-up calls with other bartered duties. And since we both had little work at that time, we often were able to "catch up" with a nap when she napped. But "catching up" never amounted to much because it only sewed 5 hours into 7 hours, or occasionally 7 hours into 9. And rarely would the 5 or 7 hours be 5 hours of straight sleep; they were more like patching a few hours here and there together.

The chance we'd get to indulge in anymore sleep aligned with weekend visits from Grandma. And since she took our shifts in the morning, we'd try to maintain our marriage by heading out after the last breastfeeding for late night rock shows. But since those nights started late and ended at 1 or 2AM, we would really only get a handful of sleepy hours before it was time for the morning nursing. And so it was until the first year came and went, and we looked at each other as if we had just emerged from a foggy haze of a different reality.

Now 18 months old, my daughter sleeps regularly from 8-ishpm to somewhere around 7am for her first morning breastfeeding. My husband and I still switch off on morning baby time so the other can get an extra hour or so of sleep. And though it doesn't sound like tons, due to white noise and ear plugs, we get more sleep than our neighbors with newborns. And now, I truly love and appreciate when my head hits the pillow and my body sinks into my Tempurpedic- it is like sleepy heaven! And though we get more sleep now, it still doesn't prevent us from reminiscing about when we used to sleep in together and when whether or not going to late night concerts was determined more or less if we had the cash and liked the band, not on who would be taking the morning shift and whether they would be able to do so on 4 hours of sleep. And it doesn't prevent us from contemplating whether or not to watch a movie, hang out, have "stay-at-home" date night, play music or go to sleep. Yet at least we now feel like functioning parents versus parental, zombie figure-heads weaving our way through a sleepless maze of weird baby-decisions with fluctuating lifestyle changes. That said, my advice for the preggo mommies out there reflects that of those outgoing strangers who gave it to me: Get your sleep NOW before baby comes.