ingrid

Which is why I have not been updating my blog.  It is hard to remember you see, when your view is this:

This last summer, my dear friend Lynn made the statement that made it all happen.  ”I don’t care when we go— it could be three years from now—we just need to make a plan so that I know that we will go.  I need it to look forward to.”  Lynn, Kristi and I all have three kids.  Devra lives “in a very cold country” (this became something of a joke in Mexico, reiterating that England is indeed “a very cold country”.  Why it is funny stating this fact, I don’t know, but it was.).  We needed things to look forward to.  And so we did it–we booked our Playa del Carmen, Mexico vacation.  Devra in England made all the arrangements.  I began worrying about leaving the kids about an hour after buying my ticket.  It seemed so far away back in September, but February came quickly.

A few things I’ve learned this week.  First of all, I really needed a vacation!  This time was so precious and freeing.  It is so rare for me to have a stretch of time not dominated by children and others’ needs.  It felt good to think of what I wanted versus what everyone else wants.  (Oh!  Woe is me!  Who are these children and why are they calling me mom?).  But really, I am a mother now and although I am not one of those crazy martyr-mothers trying to show the world how great I am by self-sacrificing, care-taking takes a toll.  It is tiring.  It is a bit thankless.  It involves a lot of menial labor and interruptions.  It was good for me, good for Brad to be the primary care giver, and the kids were FINE.

Second, people are lovely.  Mexicans are a special people.  I met some wonderful, kind people who live really interesting lives.  I felt a bit of a disconnect being in a touristy area though.  The people I talked to in the shops and restaurants worked 12 hour days, 6 days a week.  Often their children were with them late at night while they worked.  I am not sure what employment laws Mexico might have, but it appears woefully insufficient for families, and that made me sad.  I felt crappy that anyone would have to bring their tired little kids into a shop late at night just for my convenience.  That didn’t seem right.

I feel recommitted to my whole self after this week.  My friends are all dear to me in sort of different ways, but one thing that they tend to have in common is their interest in emotional and physical health.  We went to a yoga class together that was amazing!  I had never done yoga before and totally would not have gone without friends to bolster me.  I too often make excuses for not doing things because I fear not being good at them.  It is a dumb reason to not try stuff.  I could tell someone else this, but tend to make the same mistake over and over again.  The class was so good, even though I didn’t know sh*t about downward-facing dog and sun-salutes and such.  It was the perfect kick off to trying to achieve better health.  I went to a yoga class today actually.

It doesn’t hurt that my friends are all fit and beautiful either!  Just being around them is inspiring.

I’ve gotten a bit quieter of late.  I still love to socialize, but it felt great to do that and then hang out with a book.  I liked my plane flights— so much uninterrupted time!  No one bothered me at all!  It was great.  I knit a whole hat!  Most of all, it is so fantastic to sit around and talk with interesting, inspiring people who care about you.  This was very much a “bring the love” week, and I think we all need more of those.

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I don’t know what it is about me and death hikes.  I keep finding them.  I forget that many places that are beautiful to go are

• wet
• high up in the air
• made by scrabbling a barely flat surface into a cliff wall

I was pondering why we always end up like this, a white-knuckle death grip on each kid as we inch along a rock face, hissing at our dear children with each clumsy step.  (I swear that Zephyr starts tripping every third or fourth step when we are up 100 feet in the air clinging to a metal cable.  Swear.)  Why does this always happen to us?  Then it occurred to me… it is the terrain dummy.  We keep hiking to these waterfalls in the gorge.  Gorge + waterfalls = rock walls with just a cable to cling to.  If I were in Death Valley say, this wouldn’t be happening to me.

Anyway, we had a break in the rain this last weekend and we raced for the outdoors.  I feel like such a caged animal these days, eager to get out be RUN around.  I am coming to terms with my true nature.  The truth is that I like exercise.

So why not get it here?

This was Eagle Creek Trail.  William Sullivan, Northwest hike guru has this to say about this particular trail:

The Eagle Creek Trail is one of Oregon’s most spectacular paths, passing half a dozen major waterfalls. The trail is also an engineering marvel. To maintain an easy grade through this rugged canyon, the builders blasted ledges out of sheer cliffs, bridged a colossal gorge and even chipped a tunnel through solid rock behind 120-foot Tunnel Falls.

Yes siree.  It was high up there.

We did this particular hike with our friends Jason and Angela and their two boys Soren and Anders.  It is fun to have a whole family of friends.  Everyone has someone to love!  That is definitely how we feel about these guys, so we were certainly open to risking our lives with them.

Brad is such a good sport.  I have yet to decide if he really likes hiking but pretends not to or if he really does not like hiking but thinks he should or if he just doesn’t like it and… you get the picture.  For him, the best thing about hiking in the gorge is that Edgefield is between us and Portland when we are done.  The kids, (all five of them), were so exhausted that they were really pretty mellow at dinner.  Who can resist?

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Kids are smarter than us.  Or at least, they tend to think about the world in a more productive way than we do sometimes.

Take a couple of  weekends ago for example.  We went up to Mt Hood with my bro-in-law and our two darling nephews.  The idea was to drive up there, park somewhere off to the side of the mountain and then hike in to a secret sledding hill attached to an outdoor club cabin.  All right!  Set!  We drove, we fully outfitted all children in their very fine ski gear including my son in his PINK snowsuit— hey, it was $7 at Fred Meyer out of season.  (The only other ones they had were camouflage and I don’t consider war costumes much of a fashion choice for my children).  ANYWAY, off we go to the snow.  The kids love the parking lot, but that isn’t good enough for us adults.

Oh no, now that we have made it to the snow, we have to hike in to MORE snow.

The problem is, when we get to more snow, there is really, really MORE snow.  There is actually so much snow that you can’t really move in it.  There is so much snow that the sleds don’t slide much.  There is so much snow that you sink in up to your hip— your adult hip, which is just worse when carrying a kid.

We try to pound the snow down so that we don’t completely sink, and eat a quick lunch in the snow.  It is cold.  The kiddos decide to play in this little downhill area, but I have my eye on a huge hill.  Wouldn’t it be great to make a really long sled run?  The problem is that it is nearly impossible to move through there.  It is exhausting to try, but off I go.

I work and work and work.  I hum that song about John Henry, and that is how I feel as I pound with my arms and try not to fall in.  I am exhausted, but I keep pounding and clearing.  This’ll be fun!  They’ll love it, I think.  My arms ache, but finally I make a 30 yard run.  And then… no one wants to go down it.  The kids are cold.  They don’t want to go through the snow to get to my run.  They don’t want to fall off the side of the pounded down snow and get buried to their necks.  It is too hard to get up the hill.  Zephyr starts crying, “I don’t like this place!  I want to go home!”.  The other kids are happily playing on a 15 ft slick area just yards away from the cabin.

Sigh…. I hope someone comes along and uses my great run.  I really broke ground for them, ground that some other kids will surely appreciate.  It wasn’t entirely fruitless, right?

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I know that everyone is eager to hear how the fashion consult came out.  I ended up wearing the pink dress, because as Angella and my mom pointed out, it was my big chance.  Thank you all for the ego boost of compliments about rocking the flapper dress.  I do appreciate those comments, believe you me!  But I did figure that I could sort of wear that dress any time, whereas the pink dress, while lovely, is not something that I will whip out for the next big event.  I made it work by altering a better undergarment that would leave me feeling more comfortable (although I did need to hold in my stomach, damn it, and I still needed to leave the wedding to disrobe completely and nurse Inez.  Such is life.)  I got a lot of comments about my dress and the old ladies at the wedding all agreed that it is most likely actually from the 1920s.  Awesome.

Oh yes, and I did cut off much of my hair.  Not just for this event.  That was a happy coincidence.

Here is how cute we were:

kids on the hotel bed before the wedding

My gloves are glowing... something is wrong with our flash here

Oh this sweet girl in her dress that Grandma Sue made

The ribbon actually stayed in, but the kid broke my pearls and I had to pull my earrings off midway through dinner.

It was hard to get everyone looking one way, especially while the band was playing

Some looks are just too devine. There's my Nez-nez in a dress made for Francis (also by Grandma Sue)

Wedding was great and we loved staying out at Edgefield.  Super, super fun!

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Yes, it is that dreamy time of year.  We are going to Ashland for the week.  Or as the kids call it, Ash-Land, as in “the land of ash”.  They can’t seem to say it any other way.

More than anything, I love watching plays.  Wait.  Is that true?  I do love plays.  But I love to sing too.  Plus I love to roller-blade even though it is not cool.  And I love to dance to salsa music.  And I love petting goats, and doing clay, and taking naps, and, and…

But I do love a play.  I think the worst play is better than the best movie any day.  And that is especially true for Ash Land.  We’re seeing “Don Quixote”, “A Servant of Two Masters”, and “Macbeth”.  Only one Shakespeare, but that is okay.  Brad doesn’t have a ton of patience for the Shakespeare.  We are off for 4 days down south, staying with my mom and dad in a little house and being tourists.  Maybe I will bring back some ash as a souvenir.

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Our one-and-only photo before the battery died on the camera

I’m not an expert on these things, so don’t think that I have professional wisdom to offer on back-packing with children.  I don’t.  Brad and I are totally “Outdoor Adventure Moochers”.  We know this about ourselves.  We don’t have quite the right supplies: we don’t own a camp stove, water filter, or even have very good hiking shoes.  We don’t have any actual skills or knowledge: don’t know where to go, can’t tie a decent knot, are not sure when mosquitoes are born or how to scare bears away.  What we do have is enthusiasm.  Or at least, I do.  I love to get out in the woods, so when someone is good enough to plan a trip, we are game to join up.

This last week after Bible Camp, I was stinking exhausted.  I was so tired that I was downright unpleasant.  That’s when you know you are really tired; when you are a b*—-downright unpleasant person.  That was me.  When Brad told me he was going backpacking with Keith on Mt Hood on Saturday, my first thought was, “And I have to stay home to do laundry?!”  There was too much chaos around our house, too much unfinished work and mess as I had been giving my all at Bible Camp all week and letting the house take care of itself, (which if you ever noticed, it doesn’t seem to do so well at.  One would think a 103 year old house would learn how to clean itself already!).  Anyway, I decided to chuck it all and take off for the woods too.  Why not?

It was so fabulous up there on the mountain.  Our camera gave up just 10 minutes into our trip, so I don’t have photos for this experience, but let me make you some pictures:

The snow was melting in most spots and has left little islands of snow and ice.  Rivulets of runoff were tumbling down the mountain, filling the air with sound.  It was sunny and warm, perfect weather in t-shirts and shorts.  The breeze was blowing gently across the mountain meadows and everything was deeply, deeply peaceful.  All around little flowers were poking up, unique alpine varieties that I didn’t quite recognize.  No mosquitoes (or few at least) and a pretty deserted mountain made for one of those exquisite moments where you feel like you know what it means to be a human creature— you feel united with this long line of people in time who have been overcome by the beauty of the mountain.

The kids had a ball.  Francis and Zephyr both carried their sleeping bags and clothing.  Inez loved being outside.  She sat and played in the dirt with pine cones and sticks for a LOOOONG time.  We found a sweet little campsite big enough for two tents and had a gorgeous evening watching the sun go down over the wide valley below us.  Best of all was waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, stumbling downhill off balance with the black dome of stars wheeling all around.  Ahh the mountain!

My thoughts on taking to the hills with kids?  Here are my unsolicited opinions:

• Even if you are not going on a trip now, start your kids walking everywhere.  Make them walk.  Don’t carry them unless they are under 2; don’t stroller them unless you are in a hurry or going further than is reasonable for a kid to walk.  They won’t become better walkers unless they are accustomed to walking.
• When you are ready to backpack, don’t go too far.  If you are taking kids, it means you are carrying things for everyone.  A mile to two miles is really far enough to go, both for the kids and the people carrying 40 pounds on their backs.  It isn’t a death march, and you want your kids to like it.  Just go far enough so that you feel that you are in “the real woods” (Francis’ term for camping away from other people).
• Get the kids to carry something, anything, and help them get excited about doing their part.  Don’t cave and carry their stuff if they whine.  You need to set a precedent that they will walk on their own and they will carry stuff…. or you will be miserable and they won’t learn the skills necessary for the future trips you want to take.
• Let them get crazy dirty.  Why not?  You can get clean tomorrow.
• Don’t stress the schedule too much.  It is fun to be in the woods.  Try to keep a general nap-time if that is what you do, but don’t stress out if it doesn’t work out.  Everyone will get back on schedule eventually.
• Expect kids to be flexible and they will eventually be flexible.  If you expect inflexibility, that is probably what you will find.
• Don’t quit doing fun stuff just because you have children.

I am thinking ahead to a chunk of the Pacific Crest Trail with kids, or maybe just with Francis and my mother.  We are in training for 2012 when I think I could leave the younger kids and take off for a week for a wilderness adventure.  Keep on ‘packin’!

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Francis had quite a day today.  It was good; apparently so good that she had to close the day in tears saying, “I just never want it to end!”.  Brad was sort of disgusted.  ”It’s just never enough with that kid!”, which is true of course, but I sort of relate to what she is going through.  And I am pleased that this day was just SO good that it would be excellent to continue forever.

What did we do?  We started the day going out to breakfast at a place Francis identified.  She didn’t remember the name, but she remembered that she had a particularly sugary dutch baby there a couple months ago.  Then we went to church, arriving early enough to spend a bit of time on the playground.  It was Pentecost today, so there was a lot of flag waving and ribbon shaking in the service… sort of fancy.  After that, there was cake at coffee and donuts.  It was something about Pentecost being the birthday of the church.  Then we jetted for Mt Hood.

We didn’t quite know what we were going to do once we got there, but we knew there would be some sort of fun.  This spring in Portland the sky is clear and the mountains that ring our city stand out boldly.  On a sunny day they are bright, vivid and shockingly close.  The grey winter made us forget about them.  OH!  Hello mountain! The kids have been obsessed with spotting the mountains (St Helens and Hood) and making observations about their snow, shininess, closeness, largeness, etc.  To them, they are Mt Helen and Saint Hood, and at the point where they began building topographic models of them in the sandbox, we thought it might be fun to take them there. (Helen is next!)

We packed snow pants, coats, boots and a sled, but only really needed boots as it was 83 degrees up on that mountain!  The snow was still there and there were some snowboarders making their way slowly down the mushy mountain, but it was balmy and beautiful up there.  The sky was so bright that it was blinding.  Can you guess what we did?

I think it is called the Miracle Mile lift?

We rode this.  Yes!  It had a sign at the base that said, “Riding with toddlers and infants not recommended” so we did it of course.  That was what the baby jogger said about rollerblading with babies and that is a staple of our life!  And really, if you want to keep young and beautiful, I’m not sure it is recommended to even HAVE kids, so why not take them 60 feet up in the air on a mile long ski lift ride?  Makes perfect sense to me!  (And the baby was strapped to Brad’s chest.)

It is really bright up there so we are squinting hardcore.

Once at the top we discovered we had forgotten most of the best parts of our picnic, so we ate bread and oranges and sat in on some rare dry rocks poking through the snow.

Highest elevation baby

Six year old ascends

You can see everything up there, but much like any nature photography, you take the picture breathless in wonder at the beauty before you, and then you promptly wonder why you bother to take the picture.  It is never quite as good as what is there.

The rest of the day paled in comparison (at least for me).  We headed back to town, ate at a sort of unimpressive southern food restaurant, the kids rented “Lady and the Tramp” from the local video store and watched it cracking up at the doggie antics throughout.  All of this was well and good until bedtime and then, “I never, ever, ever want it to end!”.  Well, me too kid.  This was a great day.  How could we make it go on forever?  I suggested just not getting off the lift, but Brad thought that was a bad idea.

Happy Birthday Francis.

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