Before we left we debated about whether or not to go. I took Natalie to the pediatrician to make sure she didn’t have any infections as she’d been running a fever for two days. But she was eating, drinking, and sleeping fine, and pretty much acting normal. The doctor said it was just a virus, so we decided to chance it. Of course in retrospect, that was a big mistake. Almost as soon as we got to the campsite, Natalie became fragile, clingy, and cranky. Any little problem set her off. She wanted to be held all the time. She had trouble sleeping*. A few times, twice at 4:30 am, she had complete, utter meltdowns that took her a very long time to recover from. She started picking at her chapped lips so much that they cracked and bled, which incited more meltdowns. Whenever she cried, her nose ran, which made her cry even harder, which made her nose run more—you see the problem. She often melted down upon waking up, which we realized was because she had to pee, but felt too tired to walk to the bathrooms. We bought a potty for her to use in the tent, but she didn’t always want to do that.

At one point, after a particularly bad meltdown, Natalie wanted mommy-and-only-mommy, and Miranda needed to nurse. Since Miranda is very easy to soothe and hasn’t yet gotten into a bad cycle of continuing-to-be-upset-as-a-result-of-being-upset, Chris held Miranda off while I tried to calm Natalie down. At a certain point, I had to feed Miranda, and it broke my heart that I couldn’t meet both of their needs at once. Natalie was still upset when I got to Miranda, and at that point, Miranda was as upset as she’s ever gotten. She nursed, but stopped every minute or so to scream at me for making her wait so long. When both girls were finally calm I felt like sobbing. I felt like I could *almost* imagine what my friend Lindsay, who has a girl Natalie’s age and triplet 10-month-old boys, must face multiple times a day. At this age, and even in that situation, the girls’ needs are pretty simple. And yet at that moment mothering them felt like an overwhelming responsibility.

Another thing we learned (although we already knew!) is that we have amazing friends. If Jodi and Jay hadn’t been there to support us, we never would have attempted, or made it through the trip. And the girls are so comfortable with them that when they were having good moments, they were just as happy to sit on their laps, be carried by them, or fall asleep laying against them.

Finally, Chris and I affirmed that we are a good parenting team. Monday marked our 7th wedding anniversary, which was fitting since it was one of the more challenging experiences we’ve had since getting married. Even though the weekend was extremely stressful, we stuck together. Our parenting styles are complementary, which is a good thing since this weekend, we needed all our tricks to survive.

Here are the pictures, which as I said, reflect an entirely different experience than the one I just described.
Natalie’s funny face
Look who’s old enough for back carries!
All the comforts of home
Funny faces
Ducklings on the lake
Mad faces
Chubby legs I guess Miranda’s socks are too tight!
The burn on Miranda’s arm Apparently our kids are destined to be scarred by the time they are 4 months. A flaming piece of wood popped out of the campfire and landed on Miranda’s arm. She didn’t cry even though it blistered almost immediately. Chris and I have both camped our entire lives and never had anything like that happen before.
Natalie in the coal mine On a rainy day we went on a tour of the Lakawanna coal mine. A lot of the details went over Natalie’s head of course, but it was fun to go so far underground.
Natalie shows off her rocks She sorted them in order of sparkliness.
Miranda and Natalie bundled up Finally calm after they both had complete meltdowns. Thank goodness for episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba on my iPhone.
Miranda with Auntie Jodi in the hammock
Natalie smiling Funny that we got lots of pictures of Natalie smiling on the trip, even though she was pretty miserable overall!
Eating pancakes in the screen tent
Hikers
The hiking trail was surrounded by these pretty flowers
Jodi and Jay
Miranda asleep on my back
Tree on the trail
Natalie with Auntie Jodi
Chris wearing a tired Natalie
Hiking while wearing the kids On our 7th wedding anniversary!
Happy after a nursing break
Stopping for a snack
Miranda with Auntie Jodi
Miranda and Mama
Ganoga Falls
On the edge In more ways than one….Natalie started melting down right after this photo was taken.
Overlooking a 90-foot waterfall The map said the trail to these falls was 3 miles, but according to my Nike+, it was 5.5!!
The lake on our campsite One last photo before we headed home. We chose to start a 4-hour drive at 10 pm rather that suffer through another horrendous night and morning. Hopefully our next camping trip will be better!

*The first night we all had trouble sleeping since the couple camping in the site across from ours stayed up until 3 am arguing. Loudly. Every other word out of the woman’s mouth was f—ing. That combined with Natalie waking up crying, Miranda waking up to nurse and both girls wanting to be held by mommy at the same time made for very little sleep for all of us. Then Natalie started the day at 4:30 am with a long, terrible meltdown.

Taking the path of least resistance is scary because it forces parents to hand over control to the child. Losing control, in my estimation, is what makes parenting so frustrating. But letting go and trusting that things will come together is a good life lesson, especially for control freaks like me. What we’ve found in making this our parenting style, is that an opportunity always presented itself for making changes when the child is ready. And our patience in waiting for those opportunities was always rewarded with smooth transitions.

Fitting with my trying to control things, before Miranda was born, I planned on doing things differently in terms of sleep. I planned to get her sleeping in her crib, in her own room from day one so she would be used to it, because part of me still thought that Natalie was a “bad” sleeper because we did something wrong. Luckily, when Miranda was born, I came to my senses and remembered some good advice about sleep and survival in the first 12 weeks: by any means necessary. In other words, follow your baby, not the “experts.”

I also discovered that when Miranda was born, I had absolutely no desire to put her down. Ever. Parenting an infant for the second time makes you realize how quickly it passes and how you have to treasure each moment. So I think for the first two weeks (at least) I parked myself on the couch and Miranda slept snuggled against me. Or Chris, on the occasion that I had to, you know, eat, use the bathroom, shower, and spend time with Natalie.

And so far, Miranda has been a great sleeper (knocking wood furiously!). With the exception of a couple of weeks where she was fussy and hard to settle in the evening, Miranda has been amazingly easy going. We figured out her sleep formula early on (swaddle, pacifier, vibrating bouncy seat, white noise) and as long as we stuck with that, she’s been sleeping fine. At night, she’s been starting out in the bouncy seat and when she woke up to eat, I brought her in bed with me, where she also slept well.

At her two month check-up, I let the doctor get in my head and it knocked me off my game. Dr. Stephen (who I LOVE as a pediatrician, by the way) asked how Miranda was sleeping and I told her everything was fine. Then I said (only half-seriously) that I was a bit worried about what would happen when Miranda outgrew the bouncy seat and that I was considering buying a vibrating crib mattress. Big mistake. Of course Dr. Stephen replied by telling me that Miranda shouldn’t have to rely on vibrations to sleep, and that it would be best to try and get her used to the crib as soon as possible. And I immediately panicked, thought about how I was doing it all wrong, and went home determined to get Miranda sleeping in her crib.

“Operation-get-Miranda-to-sleep-in-her-crib” actually started out okay. I think she slept for 3 hours or so in the crib at the start of the night. But when she woke up to nurse, I couldn’t get her to stay asleep in the crib for more than five minutes. Finally, at 2 am, after an hour of picking her up, rocking her, burping her, nursing her, walking her, re-swaddling her, etc, etc, every 5 minutes I came to my senses. I remembered that sleep is more important than doing it “right” (whatever the hell that means) and that if I was patient, ignored the “experts” and followed Miranda, an opportunity would present itself at the time when Miranda was ready to sleep in her crib.

This weekend, opportunity knocked—a lot sooner than I anticipated! First, Miranda took a nap in her bouncy seat, unswaddled. She had fallen asleep in the mei tai carrier while I was at the farmer’s market and I had already transferred her into the car, and then from the car into the house. Since she was already asleep, I didn’t want to disturb her by wrangling her into the swaddle blanket. We’ve done it before because she wouldn’t stay asleep otherwise, but I decided to risk it. Much to my delight, she slept for over an hour!

Later that afternoon, while we were working in the yard, Miranda was laying on a blanket. She became fussy, which I didn’t quite understand because she had recently woken up from a good nap, was fed, and had a clean, dry diaper. My hands were covered in dirt from gardening, so rather than pick her up, I just stuck the pacifier in her mouth whenever it fell out. That seemed to be all she needed to calm down. Then, despite the noise of Natalie dropping rocks into a metal bucket and numerous squawking birds, Miranda fell asleep. On her own. Unswaddled. And she slept like that, on a blanket in the shade, for over an hour. Given our history with sleep challenges, we were quite shocked. So astounded that we documented the milestone with pictures:

Lounging Miranda She hasn’t quite settled on which finger to suck on and goes back and forth between her thumb and other fingers.
Miranda fell asleep on her own!!
Conked out

That night, Miranda went to sleep in her crib without a problem. We did swaddle her, since we didn’t want to change more than one part of the routine at once. She slept for 4 hours, I got up to nurse her and she went back to sleep in her crib without a problem and slept for another 4 hours. Then she slept another 2 hours in bed with us. The next night, she woke up after 45 minutes to nurse (she was so tired when I initially put her down that she hadn’t really eaten a full “meal”). She was smiling at me when I put her back in the crib, as if she thought she was waking up from a nap. I decided to try and leave the room while she was still wide awake, just to see what would happen. She fell asleep by herself and stayed asleep for another 4 hour stretch. And at 6 am, I kid you not, Miranda woke up laughing. When I brought her into bed, she fell asleep again with a smile on her face.

Natalie too has been working on staying in her room all night until morning (we implemented a sticker chart that has led to a 100% improvement). Since waking up to two smiling, happy girls in the morning is too precious to miss, we’re sticking with co-sleeping for those last couple of hours of the night. We often are rewarded on the weekends not only with waking up to happy smiles, but with kids who sleep until 10 am. I don’t want to jinx it, but at least for now, we’ve got the best of both worlds. And we got there by following the babies, not the experts.

Blooming

Meema, Pop Pop and I took the girls to Brooklyn to meet Uncle David to see the cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. The weather was perfect, the trees were in full bloom, and we had a lovely time. Natalie bonded very sweetly with Uncle David, who indulged her with lots of fun physical play. I think she must have said, “do it again, Uncle David!” about a hundred times throughout the day. After leaving the Garden, we met Chris for dinner and had a delicious meal at The Farm on Adderley.

The only part of the day that wasn’t wonderful was the drive to Brooklyn. It took four hours to reach our destination! There was horrible traffic at least 50% of the time and I think Miranda screamed about 70% of the time. We cannot figure out what about the car upsets her so much, but she hates it. We stopped once in Staten Island to take a break and she as soon as she saw Meema’s face, she was all smiles. While we were stopped, I left the car on too long and the battery died and we had to get a jump. But our time with David at the Gardens was well worth the hellacious trip.
Family trip To the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens!
Sleeping babe
Upside-down
“They smell like strawberry ice cream!”

Running with joy
Mulch shower
Spinning
Blossom
DSC_0053.jpg
Ahhhhh!
Yay!
Meema & Pop Pop
Mei Tai Miranda
Flying!
Good catch, Uncle David
Yellow Magnolia
Miranda’s awake!
Magnolia
Tulips!
Hitching a ride

We went into her room to choose an outfit. Natalie rejected a few things we suggested, then told us that she wanted to wear her “blue tank top with the flower on it.”

I said, “Sorry, honey, but that shirt is dirty. You wore it the other day and it’s in the laundry basket.”

“You mean my tank top is dirty?” Natalie hates it when we (or anyone) uses a general word to refer to something for which there is a more specific term. Heaven forbid you call her flip-flops “sandals.”

“Yes, your blue tank top with the flower on it is dirty. You’ll have to choose something else to wear.”

Natalie buried her face in my lap. Then she stood up, looking forlorn. “I really, really, really wanted to wear that tank top!”

I could empathize completely with having a specific, perfect thing in mind to wear, only to find that it’s dirty, or otherwise unavailable. “I know honey, it’s very disappointing when the thing you want to wear is dirty.” I really didn’t think that Natalie would be so emotional about clothes this young.

Natalie said again, “I really, really, really wanted to wear that tank top!” She looked like she might cry.

Chris also expressed his condolences about the tank top and promised to wash the it that night so that Natalie could wear it the next day.

Then I spotted a suitable replacement dress in Natalie’s drawer. “Look, Natalie! What about this dark blue dress with light blue flowers? It’s soooooo pretty!!”

Chris exclaimed, “Oh yeah, that dress perfectly matches your blue eyes!!”

Oh how we miss the days of pulling any old outfit out of the drawer and dressing Natalie without protest or hassle. Luckily, Natalie caught on to our enthusiasm for the blue dress and happily put it on.

As I looked at the dress more closely, I noticed there were some spots on it. I wondered why the spots didn’t come out in the wash, then touched one. Ew. I realized that the dress must have gotten back into the drawer instead of in the hamper after Natalie wore it last, because it had splotches of crusted yogurt on it. At this point, getting Natalie dressed had already taken 20 minutes. I knew that telling her that the dress was dirty would likely incite a tantrum and make both Chris and I late to work. As much as it pained me, I didn’t say a word. So, after all that fuss, Natalie ended up wearing something that was probably dirtier than the blue tank top that she wanted to wear in the first place. Oh, the irony.

But then she went through a stage when she would half-heartedly try to fall asleep for about 30 seconds before appearing at the gate at the top of the stairs and demanding that one of us come rub her back or lay down with her. We would oblige, but it really didn’t help her get to sleep any faster. She would often get really fidgety or would come back to the gate again as soon as we left. After about a week of this, we started telling her (from downstairs) that she needed to go back to sleep and then ignoring her. She would stand at the gate and whine, or sometimes we’d hear her going back and forth between her bed and our bed. Eventually, there would be silence.

Tonight (well, last night by the time anyone reads this) Natalie refused to go to bed. She just sat, and sat, and sat in front of the gate until finally she passed out:

The other night Natalie was adamant about not taking a bath. After a 45-minute screaming tantrum, she finally agreed to a dry bath*. We can’t really figure out why Natalie is freaked out about taking a bath. It wasn’t that long ago that we could entice her into the tub. The night after the dry bath, she actually seemed excited about taking a bath and even ran to the bathroom when it was time. As soon as the last article of clothing came off, she started crying and saying she didn’t want to get in the tub. We feel really torn…on one hand we don’t want to traumatize her, on the other hand, we don’t want to reinforce her tantrums by giving in to them. It took two of us to get her in the tub that night because Natalie’s abs are so unbelievably strong! I was holding her shoulders and Chris was holding her legs and she would not bend. She was stiff as a board—I swear it was like trying to get a cat into a cage. We finally did get her in the bath for a quick wash up. She screamed the whole time.

We can’t figure out the right course of action…We’re not sure if we give her a bath every night she will get more used to the routine, or if by insisting on a nightly bath is setting us up for a nightly power struggle and torture session. Should we back off for a while and hope that she gets over whatever has suddenly made her totally adverse to bathing? Or will waiting mean that her fear will just grow and be make bathing more traumatizing for all of us?

Today I had the idea of taking Natalie to Toys r Us** to get her a doll that she could take in the tub. We decided on this one, with the green bunny outfit. When we got home, Natalie was very excited about taking her new doll out of the box and giving her a bath.

She said, “I have to wash the baby’s armpits. Then I have to show her how to lean her head waaaaay back and shut her eyes tight, just like I do!”

I whispered to Chris, “I’m a genius!!”

But, of course, it wasn’t that easy. All was well until we took off her diaper and then she refused to get in the tub. We thought she looked conflicted, like she really wanted to get in and have fun, but was afraid or uncomfortable for some reason she can’t articulate. Since the diaper coming off seemed to be the impetus to her becoming distressed, I offered her a swim diaper. She happily put it on and got right in the tub. But she wouldn’t sit down, just stood and splashed for a while. We decided not to push it, so that she would have a positive memory of being in the bath.

Our theory is that she has some sort of infection or irritation that makes sitting in the water uncomfortable or painful. I’ll be calling the doctor first thing Monday morning.

*As frustrating as this issue has been this week, I think the photo of Natalie and Chris in the tub with no water is one of the funniest we’ve taken in a long time.

**We’ve never been to Toys r Us before. It’s a terrible place. Natalie was so overwhelmed by all the toys and lights that she wondered from aisle to aisle like a zombie. We did, too.

Our latest trick to get her to wash her face is giving her a bubble beard. She gets a kick out of having a beard like Daddy and looking like Santa Claus. And when she wipes the beard off, her face gets clean!!

I know from these pictures, it looks like Natalie is having a great old time in the bath. As soon as the hair washing starts, she looks like this:

Lucky for us, when the horrible, horrible rinsing is over, she looks like this again:

“Natalie, let’s go to the toy store!”

“Because….I am shy.”

After I promised to hold her hand or pick her up if she felt shy, I finally convinced Natalie that going to the toy store would be fun. We met up with one of her friends, who is a boy. As soon as she saw him she boldly said, “Look, I have a red coat!” They played together very nicely and Natalie didn’t appear to be shy at all. And it was fun, just like I promised her.

The most difficult part of our decision to euthanize him was wondering how Natalie would take it. When I left for the vet’s office, I wasn’t thinking we would be at that point yet, so I told Natalie that Tillman was sick and I was taking him to the doctor. So when I came home without Tillman, we felt completely unprepared to talk to her about it yet. She didn’t seem to notice that he wasn’t with me until I slipped and mentioned his name. When she asked “where’s Tillman?” I distracted her easily by pointing out some Christmas lights we were driving by. The next day, Meema and Pop Pop were watching Natalie when she said “I miss Tillman” when a cat appeared on her Barney video.

A few days went by before we figured out what we wanted to say (after getting lots of great advice from friends). The plan was to sit down with Natalie together, look at pictures of Tillman and talk honestly about what happened. But before we got a chance, I was home with Natalie because she was sick. All she wanted to do was watch videos of herself and I unknowingly played one that had Tillman in it. So I took the opportunity to have a talk with her about death. Since she was sick at the time, I didn’t tell her that Tillman died because he was sick. I told her that he was very old, his body stopped working and he died. Then I explained that dying meant that he wouldn’t be living with us anymore, and we wouldn’t see him again. And I told her that it was okay to be sad, and if she missed Tillman or felt sad, that we could look at his picture and remember him.

I waited for questions, confused looks, or some reaction, but she didn’t really have any. Today we were looking at the pictures of Tillman on the blog, and she recognized him, but didn’t ask where he was or anything. As much as we miss Tillman, we are sort of glad for the timing. If he had died a year or two from now, I think it would have been a lot tougher on Natalie.