How To Take A Baby Rafting

1. Check your hesitation and/or common sense at the boat ramp.

2. Buy a small fortune in baby rafting gear, life vest, sun hat, sun screen, neoprene swim shoes, UPF clothing that doubles as swim clothes and a warm base layer.

3. Recruit tons of your friends to help out.

4. Launch.

5. Try to enjoy yourself.

In all seriousness, we are committed to hauling that Jr. man along with us wherever we go and that includes rafting. No, we won't be taking him whitewater rafting any time soon, but we did have plans to take him down the Smith River for a week this summer, that was why we decided to beta test him on the Blackfoot this last weekend.

Ed went down without baby and me the day before to ensure that the river was free of hazards and the float was not too long. One hour of screaming if all went to shit was enough, can you imagine three hours? The float was perfect 1 hour at max and pretty mellow and sweet water.

I spent days online searching for baby rafting gear before the weekend, or maybe even a smidgen of advice. As it turns out, there isn't much out there. The former owner of Outdoor Kidfitters helped me out with some brand names of some essential items. Outside Baby, Mountain Sprouts, Sunday Afternoon and Salus Marine. Here is the challenge, find this stuff on-line. This still leaves what to do with those little feet. We ended up slapping some Robeez on him and letting him get his feet wet, it was warm and after a while, we let him go barefoot and dry those little puppies in the sun. I did find some neoprene swim shoes from Imse Vimse. With any luck we will be able to pick up some more baby smartwool socks to keep his feet warm.

As for the advice, my cousin's family sent us an article about rafting the Green River with and 11 week old. Doug Fine in the article says "As we glided past 200-million-year-old sandstone cliffs, newspaper headlines popped into our heads: "Irresponsible Hippie Parents Haul Helpless Infant Into Wilderness in Triple-Digit Heat, Bring No Antibiotics."" I said the same thing as we launched on the 1 hour Blackfoot, but my headline was "Irresponsible Hippie Parents Launch on the Blackfoot During Spring Runoff. . ."

We should have rafted with him when he was 11 weeks, when he couldn't move around too much. Rafting with a 13 month old (or for you non parents, 1 year and change) includes constant entertainment to distract him from trying to climb out of the boat. We have a very busy boy. He is not to be contained, especially NOT in a small confined space of the bow of a raft. He was happy for some of the time, I would say about 1/3 of the float. The rest of the float he was irritated or just down right pissed off. Like everything new, there was a lot of crying. Next time, I am positive he will like it more. We have a plan to attach toys to the boat so he has something to play with and when he tosses it over the edge, they don't float away.

Other lessons, more sunscreen. We coated him, but it wasn't enough. Look at these cheeks!

Even though rafting wasn't 100% awesome our first time out, I am happy to report that Jr. is made for camping. He loves every second of it. We pulled the frame off the boat and pulled the boat off of the trailer, it was the best play pen ever.

*** Oh and we pulled the plug on our Smith trip it is four solid days of rafting, plus camping at night. I know that we COULD do it. I want to be that parent that takes their kids on amazing adventures, but I don't think we would have fun and that is just not worth it. Maybe next year. Maybe in two years. Who knows. Maybe Ed and I can go without him next year too.

I wish I would have thought of this

Jr. and Carter

These two are going to be best buds forever. They are going to have to share all of the pretty girls, Adrienne, Frannie, Allie, Zola. . .

Please ignore the hair it was super windy.

Happy To Be A Mom!

I LOVE being a mom. I love that baby boy so much it hurts. Just being his mom is greatly rewarding, but the sweet gifts don't hurt. I scored a great necklace and earrings. Sleep in two days in a row. Walked in the Don't Fence Me in 5K Dog Walk on Saturday, and today the Moogs had us over for lunch - yummo.

I wish every mother a wonderful and happy mothers day.

Carbella

The EVIL night waking is back and I am too tired to write eloquently about our amazing camping/rafting/Chicoing weekend. We were there to celebrate my cousin Phil's 30th birthday and the end of winter. There was still snow on the ground in Helena, but it was nice and dry down by Yellowstone (yes you read that right). It was warm, sunny and windy as all get out.

Jr. proved to be quite the little camper despite his massive incoming tooth. All of that fresh air did all of us some good.

We hit Chico on the way home and we were so preoccupied with greasing up the baby with sunscreen, we completely forgot to do ourselves. Both Ed and I have little sunburned noses and shoulders. While I know this is a bad bad thing, I am not going to lie to you, after the long winter, it feels kind of good. . . There is nothing like soaking in that hot pool, the sun beating down on you and sipping a vodka tonic to make you say "See Ya Winter!" It is going to be one hell of a summer - bring it on!

Birthday Party

Long story short, the party was a blast. The link to all of the photos are here. Thank god Auntie Liesel brought her camera, she took some fabulous photos. Here are some of my favs.

Thank you everyone for coming to the party. Thank you for all of the sweet loot. Thank you for supporting us over the last year.

XOXO

Happy 30th Birthday Bro

Saturday was Ian's 30th birthday. It was a fabulous time.

We ate cake.

We had pork verde, black beans, and rice burritos. We drank beers. We played at the park. Oh and there were dogs, 7 in all. All of them piled on top of eachother didn't equal a Selma.

One Year - Can You Believe It?

One year ago to the hour (as I type this) I was pushing with all of my heart and soul to birth that bambino. At 10:23 PM he will be exactally 1 year old, and probabally awake and wanting to come to bed with us. In the last year we have experienced the most intense and exhausting love.

Today is his first birthday.

We spent his first birthday at his grandpa and grandma's house eating hamburgers from RB Drive-In and cake. Jr. fed most of his hamburger to Cindy and Rocky. He did not drop a crumb of his cake.

The big party is on Sunday.