Wilderness (ish)

We went camping. It was awesome. I could just end this post there, but then what would I do with myself for the next 20 minutes while Little J is sleeping? Clean? Yeah, right.

We went up Provo Canyon a bit to Big Springs Park and then walked up the trail a little ways to a nice little camp spot. We went with some friends which made it even more fun. We made a fire, set up camp and made some s'mores. Little J loved it. He really likes being outside and he got to spend all evening on a nice blanket outside, looking at a fire. He got absolutely filthy though! We need to get that boy some shoes, because his white socks were (and still are, after a trip through the laundry) a nice sooty black.

He grabbed the camera about 1.3 seconds
after I took this photo. Phew!

He did great at night. We zipped our two sleeping bags together and Little J and I slept in there while Big J roughed it with a down comforter. It got into the mid-30s but I was nice and toasty. It was like sleeping next to a space heater. Big J was a bit cold all night long. Poor guy. Luckily we have a great tent that kept the chill away pretty well. Little J romped around the tent and thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. We played lots of peek-a-boo, and he was giggling a LOT. He got pretty tired at the end of the night and only woke up once. Boo-yah!

We made some french toast for breakfast and Little J had yogurt with a nice smoky flavor. In fact, I think all of us were a little smoky flavored by the time we left. We packed up camp and put all our gear in the back of the Subie Tetris-style and it was back to the real world. It was great to be out in the fresh air, with hummingbirds zooming around while we ate breakfast, and a nice little brook bubbling by all night long.

He's wearing two pairs of pants, socks, his
long-sleeved pajama shirt, and a hoodie.
At least he wasn't cold, right??

Man, some day we're going to live in a tree house in the wilderness and cook all our food over an open flame. Food just tastes better that way. Also, food always tastes better when you eat it outside. Don't believe me? Try it with watermelon. I guarantee you it tastes waaaay better and is waaaay juicier if you eat it outside.

The only thing I missed about not being in our apartment was access to a bath. Little J has an innate ability to get dirt EVERYWHERE (in between his fingers, up his nose, in his ears, etc.), and sometimes no amount of wipes can render him presentable. Next time we'll rig a little sun shower so we can get him clean before bed time. I have a feeling that once we get him naked (his favorite state of being) in the wilderness (his favorite place) there'll be no clothing him again, and he'll run off to become a wild baby raised by coyotes. Ah well, maybe we'll join him.

Dr. No

Well, guess what. Little J learned his first word. Wanna know what it is? Of course you do! It's, "NO!"

Since he's been crawling all over the house, he's been getting into things that he shouldn't be (potted plants, kitchen cabinets, craft supply boxes, potted plants again, the TOILET! Yuck.) we've been telling him, "No thank you!" and removing him from the situation. I think that he thinks that we're just providing a narrative to his adventure and not actually disciplining him, because now he'll do those same things and say "no" while shaking his head. It's SO adorable, yet SO frustrating. Wait, I think that sums up all of my feelings about parenting up to this point.

But, if I'm trying to give him another bite, and he's done eating, he'll also say "no", so that's what makes me think that he's grasping what the word means. I tried to capture this phenomenon on camera, but alas, Little J is not a performing baby. He does shake his head a few times though!

Aaaaaand we're back!

Hi friends! It's been a while, so I figured you would like to know what our wee little family's been up to. Here it is in a nutshell:

Well, first of all, none of us are employed at the moment. We're tried farming out Little J to day labour stuff, but so far, no one's hired him. It's probably because instead of harvesting strawberries, he'd just eat them all. Big J was laid off a while back and we've been looking for a job ever since. No such luck so far. The silver lining is that Big J can stay home all day with the rest of us, and we're having a blast. We spend a lot of time at the park, in the woods and in the car.

What a good snoozer.

We took a super awesome trip to the Northwest to visit some family and look for some jobs. Although the jobs portion of the trip was pretty much kaput, we LOVED spending time with the family. We went to the zoo, Pike's Place, the beach, and spent a lot of time playing pass-the-baby. Little J did great in the car (ish).
He got really wiggly and drives that usually took us 6 hours ended up taking us 8. But it was ok with us.

He also learned how to be mobile while we were away, and that has been wreaking a little bit of havoc with our diaper-changing routine. Now he thinks it's hilarious to flip over while I'm changing his diaper and crawl away as fast as he can. Only once has he peed while doing this; as much of a surprise to him as it was to me. It has taken me holding down his legs with my forearms and Big J making silly faces at him for me to even dream about getting a new diaper on him. I've also gotten pretty good at putting diapers on him while he's standing.

It's moments like this where I expect him to suddenly
start speaking in full sentences.

Now we're back home and doing some adventuring. We got a baby backpack (not one for the baby to carry, one to carry the baby in) and Little J loves going for walks. We got an Osprey Poco Plus, and it's AWESOME! For those of you looking to get a backpack, make sure to include this one in your line-up. Check it out here. Although he has a tendency to snooze while in it.

Since Little J is mobile now, we've started baby-proofing our home. We moved our knife set from ground level to the countertop and we're having to vacuum a lot more often. It's incredible that after you sweep, vacuum and then mop, your child still finds that one piece of icky stuff on the ground and puts it in their mouth. I've been following Little J around the house, making sure he doesn't ingest anything dangerous. Speaking of that, I found one of my little pearl earrings in his diaper the other day. Apparently he ate it and it passed through his system just fine. Oops. I'm a little reticent to wear it again, even after thoroughly cleaning it.

We're making some big life decisions right now. We want to live in one place for a long time to raise our children, and we're deciding where that's going to be. That's kind of a big deal. If you know where that's supposed to be, please clue us in. Thanks.

"Wait, Mr. Brown moos? I thought only cows mooed."