Tubes?

I decided to take Nico to the doctor again today (last visit was a couple weeks ago) because he was showing a few of the same symptoms he had with the severe ear infection a couple weeks ago. Turns out that he has an ear infection in each ear. It's not as bad as the first one, but because both ears are infected 2 weeks after being off of antibiotics isn't a very good sign. If things keep going on the path that they are he will probably need tubes in his ears. Hopefully it's just a one-time thing, but if more ear infections show up fairly soon, it could be that the ears can't drain like they need to. We'll see, but for now I just have to hug and cuddle with my little boy until he gets better.

"dudegetyourgunshelookedatme!"

Another fantastic hike filled with beautiful scenery, amazing wildlife, and too slow shutter speeds. I can at least now finally check black bear off on my list of animals I want to see in the wild. Next time, I'd like to be a little farther away with a lens that will compensate for my shaking in fear. By the way, the hike started at Jenny Lake north of Jackson Hole and looped around Lake Solitude to the west and over Paintbrush Divide and back to the lake. If you can, do that hike before any other in this area. It. Was. Amazing!

2009-09-13 Paintbrush Divide

Some Thoughts on Family and Motherhood (this is a long post)

I’ve been thinking a little bit about what it means to be a mother and seeking that joy in motherhood that some women seem to always have day in and day out. Don’t get me wrong, I always have and always will love my little boy more than I ever thought possible, and probably will always think he is the coolest little guy ever. I guess I never dreamed or imagined how hard everything would be! From the physical strain of waking up when I’m not necessarily ready and constant bending down, picking up, changing diapers, etc to the emotional strain of “Do I know what the heck I’m doing?”, “Is everything ok with him? Is he getting enough food? Too little? What about sleep? Is he sleeping enough? Why does he need so much constant attention? Can’t he just figure it out that plastic bags are not edible and TV’s and computer cords are not toys?” or “I have such a huge responsibility to teach this child things that he needs to know, and what if I can’t do it?”, I sometimes find myself discouraged, irritable, and struggle to find joy and importance in the menial daily tasks I do. Glenn just started a new semester which means he will be gone a lot more and home a lot less. I was dealing with a few feelings of jealousy that he gets to go somewhere everyday and interact with a lot of people and do fun things, while Nico and I spend the day doing boring chores that need to get done and trying to come up with things that are interesting and somewhat stimulating in the small town that we live in. (This normally ends up being a couple trips to the store and/or a walk.) So, in a moment of self pity I started thinking and realizing that for several reasons, for several months we haven’t become friends with a couple wherein we hang out several times a week doing something. This is kinda weird to me because for most of my life I have relied heavily on friends. However, I was lucky enough to make a connection today. I’m at the point in my life (as well as most of my friends) where it doesn’t really work out too well to have friends where you hang out together several times a week. While it is sad, and I hope to still get together with people occasionally, why can’t my immediate family be those friends to me that I have relied so heavily on in the past? Glenn is everything I ever hoped for in a companion and so much more. Hanging out with him is awesome! While I do feel it is important to have other friends than your family, I think I have been focusing too much on that lately, and the fact that things are different than they used to be. I’m totally fine having Glenn and Nico as my friends that I see the most. Heck, I chose them, didn’t I? That brought me to think about my daily situation with Nico. I’m afraid I’ve looked at him a little too much as something that is dependent on me for survival. Period. Instead, he’s the guy that I get to hang out with all the time, therefore fulfilling that role of “friend to constantly hang out with” that I was used to. Who cares if he’s 24 years younger than me? As I have started to remember that he’s a person with a personality, and part of our family, I appreciate him much more. He’s that friend that makes me laugh and laughs with me when I do silly stuff. Instead of getting annoyed that he has a silly routine of playing peek-a-boo with his blanket before going to sleep, I’ve been able to notice how much he’s perfected that game to holding me in suspense with what he is going to do, and then startles me when he uncovers his face, making me laugh. Instead of getting irritated that he crawls everywhere and gets into everything, I’ve been able to get down and crawl around with him, and we’ve had a blast. So I guess the conclusion I have come to is that I am going to be spending the rest of eternity with my family, so why not enjoy it? Instead of focusing on everything that I have to get done, and what a hard job it is, I should focus on the fun times I get to have with my son, and be grateful that he is the friend I’ve been looking for!

Sick of moose yet?

A couple of weeks ago Christy, Nico, and I went for another trip to Harriman State Park. Beautiful.

2009-09-02 Harriman

Yellowstone pictures

2009-09-09 Yellowstone

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Yesterday we went to Yellowstone with high hopes and tons of enthusiasm, but ended up greatly disappointed and I'm putting it down in the books as the worst trip I've ever gone on. I don't know why, but for some reason everything seemed to be against us (a slight exaggeration, there were a few fun parts). Maybe it was the fact that we were so prepared before we left! Seriously, it was awesome. The car was washed, fluids were checked, tire pressure was checked, and topped off with gas. I had everything and anything you could imagine Nico needing, plus extra food and clothes in case something happend, and I even packed both lunch and dinner so that we wouldn't have to spend an arm and a leg on food inside the park. We went to bed the night before excited with our trip planned out, with the route to take due to a little bit of road construction. No big deal, while the construction would add on a bit more mileage to the day, it was do-able.
Well, we entered the park through West Yellowstone and the first 20 miles should have been a hint enough for us to just turn around and go home. Last year when we went to Yellowstone within the first 5 minutes after entering the park we saw tons of animals. I don't think we saw one animal until we had passed Old Faithful! Then, as we pulled into the parking lot of Old Faithful, everyone was walking back to their cars meaning we had just barely missed the eruption. (We didn't care too much since we'd already seen it erupt, so we just checked out the nearby geysers.) But by this time it was time to give the kid a bottle. Well, we had packed plenty of bottles, and this trip went with the Playtex Vent-air bottles I got at my baby shower. (We normally go with the Nursers, but Nico seems to like the flow of the others right now.) The concept of the Vent-air is that you screw on a top and bottom lid, with the bottom having several tiny holes in the bottom (I think for air to escape or something like that) and there's a little plastic sealer thing that you put over the holes to prevent the liquid to leak out of the holes in the bottom. That probably doesn't make sense, but the point of the story is that normally we don't have a problem with the bottles leaking everywhere, but this time, I couldn't get it to stop leaking! And this happened again with the next bottle a few hours later! It was so frustrating! Luckily I brought 1 "Nurser" and that one didn't have any problems.
Well, so far we were doing fine! A few disappointments, but not a big deal. We had a nice picnic lunch, and continued on our course. Well, because of the road construction there is only one road in order to get in/out of the park from the West or South entrances (the closest ones to us). So, we are driving on this road, and all of a sudden everyone is completely stopped! I guess somehow some yellow paint that is used to paint the lines on the road was spilled and traffic was completely stopped until a crew could come in and clean it up. Remember, this is the main highway of the park, so it's fairly crowded and everyone is stopped! Well, an hour later we finally are able to go again. Now, that may not be too bad, but remember we have a 9 month old little boy who doesn't enjoy spending a ton of time in his car seat, and we were near a bunch of flying ants that seemed to attack us the second we stepped out of the car.
Things weren't too bad after that. We had some fun moments (which I'll talk about later, in order to end on a positive note) and then planned to stop by "Artist Point" at the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone" so Glenn could try some sunset photography. We got to the point, and G got all set up as we waited in anticipation for what seemed like an awesome sunset. We waited, and became disappointed because the sunset seemed like a big flop. Glenn packed up all his equipment and we walked back to the car, and then for a couple minutes the clouds turned a beautiful color, and he missed a beautiful opportunity for some landscape photography. Bummer!
We then started the journey out of the park and home. Well, about 20 miles later (remember, on the only road that could take us to an exit) almost in exactly the same spot as before, we came to completely stopped traffic. AGGGHHH! This time, apparently there was an accident and we didn't move for 2 1/2 hours!!! By this time, there was a grumpy, tired, baby who couldn't fall asleep in his car seat if the car wasn't moving. He was a trooper though, and didn't complain as long as he was out of the car seat, but we had to try and entertain him while we just waited. (The whole trip home should have only taken 2 1/2 hours max from that point in the park.) Then, when we finally started moving again, we decided to take the South exit out of the Park and drive home via Jackson, WY, hoping to take some sweet night full-moon shots of the Tetons on the way. Well, the South entrance to Yellowstone is at the border of Grand Teton National Park, and 5 miles after we left Yellowstone we came to completely stopped traffic again! This time there was road construction in Grand Teton Park. That was the worst wait, because by this time it was past midnight, and Nico woke up as soon as the car stopped, and wouldn't stop crying. Then, it took us twice as long as we expected to finally get to Jackson because of all of the construction. They had to actually guide us through the road work. So by now, it's 2 am and we are starting to wonder if we can make it the final 1 3/4 hour drive home, with Nico crying one of the saddest cries I've ever heard. I start trying to look up hotels on Glenn's phone while he attempts a night shot of the Tetons, but of course it's all hazy so you can barely see them, and the picture didn't turn out. The internet on the phone kept freezing because the service wasn't very good, and the only hotel I was able to get a hold of had their cheapest room starting at $150. We were like, forget that! I finally got Nico calmed down by loosening his diaper and letting him chill for a while, and then we finally made it home at 4:30 this morning. Luckily the little guy slept in a bit this morning and then took 2 nice long naps so I could catch up on some sleep. All I can say is that we are glad to be done with that trip!
Even though I've already written a novel, I'll end on a few of the positive parts of our day: Coming withing a couple feet of a bison (he walked right next to the car), Glenn finally being able to see the petrified tree, Lamar Valley where we got to see Antelope, and the fact that at least Nico didn't puke up any of his food! Hopefully if you go to Yellowstone you will have a better experience than we did!