A lot of friends have season passes to Six Flags Great Adventure and I wanted to go with them once before I return to work next week. Since I get motion sick, other moms (and dad) were gracious enough to take Natalie on the rides that she couldn’t go on by herself. Although amusement parks are not my favorite, Natalie and I had such a great time with our friends that I’m sad that my work schedule will prevent us from joining in on the weekly great adventure outings!
Natalie and Mama Ready for fun!
Amy & Jen Jen was nice enough to give me her "bring a friend free" coupons so I didn’t have to pay admission!!
Natalie and MacKenzie
Miranda and Mama Luckily, Chad had this extra hat in his diaper bag to lend us….I pulled Miranda’s hat out of our diaper bag and it was covered in mysterious brown spots.
Big Red Car Maya, Robert, Nick, and Natalie
Bouncy ride
Balloon Ride
Chad, Laurel, and Natalie ride the airplanes
Peyton, Maya, Heather, Jill, and Cameron
Caryn and Gabe
Brenda and Liam
Jenn & Ben
Jill and Natlie Getting their groove on the wiggles show
Joanne, Alex, Jill, and Cameron
Amy & Jenn
With the wiggles guys Natalie, Robert, Olivia, Ryan, and MacKenzie
Natalie and Olivia
Friends Nick, Natalie, Olivia, Laurel
Andrea rockin’ out! She says, "how can anyone not dance to the shimmy-shake??"
Cooling off
Charlie
Natalie and Olivia

* We’ve named the group Marvelous Moms, and a Dad named Chad. Cause we’re cheesy like that!

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.

U-Pick at Terhunes

In the strawberry fields

Flower picker with her dad

Jodi and the girl in the yellow hat

Natalie and Jay

Showing off her loot

Yummy

Meema helped us make strawberry jam with our harvest. I would highly recommend freezer jam. Since the berries aren’t cooked, the flavor of the strawberry is preserved. Like summer in a jar.
Making jam with Meema
Crushed strawberries
Freezer Jam!

Luckily, we had enough strawberries left over to make my other summer favorite: strawberry shortcake!
Berry Shortcake Nothing else says summer better!

Group shot It is chaos trying to get all these kids to stay in one place to take a photo–forget trying to get them all to smile at once!
Nick, Nathan, Grace, Robert, Ethan, Olivia, Maya, Natalie (and Alex in the front)

Bug eyes!
Happy Miranda What a tropper she was today! No crying in the car, napped well in the mei tai, happy to ride in the stroller! This photo captures her latest thing–chewing on her hands constantly!

Babywearing My failed attempt of a picture of me and Liz wearing our babies.
Happy girl on the train There was a model railroad running next to the train….Natalie was so excited, she kept saying, "look, mommy, I see a little train next to our train!!"
Jill and Cameron
Maya on the train
Olivia on the cat
Grace on the bunny Nathan on the dragon
Bunny ride
All by herself! Natalie very proudly yelled, "hi mommy!!" every time she passed me.
Little pigs, little pigs, let me in! Natalie, Olivia, Nick
In the giant’s chair Natalie and Olivia
Natalie and Maya Natalie had just fallen off this giant chair and wasn’t too happy about me taking her picture.
Natalie the butterfly
Natalie and Iris

Showing off Chris and Mark Natalie and Josie made corn cob sheep!

Lambs Much bigger than the last time we saw them!

Reeeeeach!!! Josie petting a freshly shorn lamb.

Sheep shearing No electric shears at Howell Living History Farm!

Good arm
Happy The thrill of throwing rocks into the stream apparently never gets old.
Josie-jo
Testing the waters
Oopsies! Miranda did NOT like having her feet dipped in cold water, despite the fact that it was 90 degrees and she was literally dripping with sweat.
Flying high
Goose Eggs
Balancing girls
Jump!
Jumping Josie
Oy, it’s so hot!

Now that Miranda is old enough to spend the day at Melissa’s, I wanted to have a day to spend with just Natalie. As luck would have it, our friend Elaine invited us to come with her and Sophie (who’s just 1 month older than Natalie) to the the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, where they have a membership. When I spent all evening the night before packing the diaper bag, frozen milk, bottles, and my breast pump, I thought it might just be simpler to take Miranda with us! But of course that would defeat the whole purpose of “Natalie/Mommy Day.”

We had such a lovely time! Natalie and Sophie played together like old friends, despite the fact that we haven’t seen them in over a year, and it felt so nice to be able to give Natalie my undivided attention. And Miranda did absolutely fine at her first day with Melissa. I am grateful to Elaine for taking these pictures—the one thing I forgot to pack was the camera!
Natalie and Mommy I actually rode the carousel and didn’t get sick!
Jockies
Joy riders
What a cute couple!
Natalie in the hampster wheel
Check-out
At the super market

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