This comes after a long weekend of changes. Sure, I realize that her patterns are going to change, seemingly constantly, for quite a while. But I hardly expect dramatic shifts over the course of a day, even if there is some random event that messes up her pattern.
The event in question this time was an attempted camping trip. Some hiking buddies invited me out to the North Cascades to a luxurious* base camp. (*Luxurious is relative here. We usually go backpacking. So having tent sites, a fire ring, potable water from a faucet, and flush toilets in a drive in site… That’s total luxury!) It was a two hour drive away, and would be the first camping trip for Neo and Daphne, with Jason staying home since he’s not much of a camping person. I deliberately overpacked, so that the Subaru hatch was filled up with tent and chair and clothing and food and diapers and virtually everything I thought I would need that I could bring. Even a bouncer. The one thing that I thought would be good to have, but I had no where to make use of it, was the exercise ball we bounce her to sleep on. And that was the one thing I really wish I had. Well, that and a big car camping tent.
She slept most of the trip there, but demanded we stop and nurse about 15 miles from the campsite. On a nice, cool, bright day, with ample turnouts in the country highway, there was no reason not to. Heck, we even got a river view (and whatever the aural equivalent of view is) to go with her meal. My friends did most of the work getting me unpacked and set up – and had a great time passing Daphne around to meet and play with her. But eventually we had dinner, and then she had dinner, and she was clearly getting overtired. So I tried putting her to sleep. Swaddling her went alright, but putting her in the bouncer was a bust – she just wanted to try sitting up. I tried bouncing her on my leg, but there was light in the tent, and she had no interest in sleeping. After about an hour, I called it quits. Perhaps it would have worked if I spent longer, but my gut feeling was that it would have been a LONG night of trying a lot of things cramped uncomfortably in the tent (or trying to get back into the backpacking tent with a sleeping baby, which is just precariously risky). I’ve learned to go with my gut over the past four months. So they helped me back into the car, and I got underway. Again, she demanded to nurse on the way home, but this time being pulled over on the side of an almost deserted country road in the pitch dark to nurse was FAR less fun.
Still, I’m glad we got out there and gave it a try. I know now that I want a humongous car camping tent and to bring an exercise ball along next time. But she greatly enjoyed it, as did my hiking buddies. Even Neo had fun, though it was all a bit new to him.
