We just got back from our annual trip to Ohana.pecosh, and I am exhausted! We’ve been going every year for several years now. We missed only one year – the year I was pregnant and miserable. Anyway, L definitely adds variety to the mix. First, B and I used to pack generously even before we had a baby. Now that we have a third member of the family, we pack as if we were setting out on an Everest expedition. The entire Focus is pretty much filled with either people or luggage. I guess we’d have to cut down if we every add a fourth family member. We’ll jump off that bridge if we come to it, I guess.
Driving with L is definitely a bit of a challenge. She does fine for short distances, but naturally she finds a two hour drive a bit tough. She is starting to often take only one nap a day these days, and we thought we’d try to time it with our drive, but it didn’t quite work out. Nevertheless, the trip there could have been much worse. We sang a few dozen rounds of “The Wheels on the Bus” and made it in one piece, relatively unscathed. It was a MUCH easier trip than last year when she was quite unhappy during the drive.
Ohana.pecosh is a beautiful glacial river. We stay at a National Park campsite. In order to get a riverside site, you literally must reserve 6 months in advance – the day the reservations open. I was not organized enough to do that, so we didn’t have a riverside site, but we were only a very short walk from a bridge that offers spectacular views of the river.
I loved seeing L check out the river. When we were here last year, she was only about six months old, and honestly, didn’t take that much in. This time, she seemed to notice everything. B and I both love the outdoors (in our own way), and we really want to pass that on to L.
Tent sleeping was a challenge. I would say L woke up 6 or more times both nights, so I’m a bit tired today. The first night I often found her burrowing down to the bottom of her sleeping bag and crying because she couldn’t get out. I’m sure she must have been scared, poor thing. Then last night, back home, she fell off the bed. I don’t think she’s ever done that while we were all sleeping together. I think she must have been confused with all the bed changes. It was pretty awful, but it is really helpful that we’re able to communicate with her more these days. She was wailing, and we were worried she might have hurt something, and we were able to ask her, “Does it hurt? What hurts? Where do you hurt?”
We went on a couple of hikes. The first day, we checked out Sunrise. Sunrise is where I went with several people in the days before my wedding, up the Burroughs Mountains. I’ve been there probably a dozen times, and I just love it. Unfortunately, it’s early in the season, so we weren’t really able to get that far (not even to Fro.zen Lake) but we still had a great time. Once she got used to it, L did really well in the backpack. This is a good thing because she definitely prefers being carried to walking.
L has added two words to her previously two-word vocabulary. Her first word was arguably “Da.” Da means “that” or “what’s that?” I hadn’t considered it a word initially, but I have noticed over the last few weeks that she says it in a very specific manner meaning something very specific – she wants to know the word for the object she’s pointing to. She has many other intonations and pronunciations for “da” and “ga” which may have meanings I don’t understand, but this one is rather clear. Then, her second word is “ba” or “baba” for berry. Basically, she knows that “ba” means berry and that I will only give her a berry if she says “ba.” After initial reluctance, she is ready and willing to say “ba” in order to get a strawberry or raspberry. Then, recently, she started saying “mama” with meaning and intent. I’d say music to my ears, except she rarely says it when I’m around. She apparently says it when she sees my car pull into the driveway, or when B has her and she wants me instead. Then, over the weekend, she saw B coming up the road, and said “dada” and pointed vigorously a couple times. To my ear, she uses a slightly different inflection or intonation when she’s trying out a word to mean something as opposed to babbling. She says it more cautiously, I guess. Anyway, I’m going to say she has four words now. This is still definitely a very low number for 17 months, but I’m very happy that we’re making progress.