Helping Families Explore Outdoors
A few months ago I contacted Sundance Resort to ask if I could guest blog for them. Well I was finally able to make that happen. Check out the post here: http://www.sundanceresortblog.com and let me know what you think!
Enjoy!
The final day of our Island Park, Idaho vacation was our last attempt to salvage a weekend gone wrong. Mountain Dad’s broken ribs along with my and little g’s illnesses were shaping the trip into a negative experience. We had such high hopes at the outset of enjoying the plethora of snowmobiling trails but unfortunately we had not been able to enjoy much of anything. Because of this I decided that the last morning we would force some fun…at least for our kids.
Big E and his cousins had spent some time digging in the snow outside our condo. The result of their efforts was a cool snow fort, complete with tunnels and penguin slides. On our final morning the kids got all bundled up to enjoy some final sliding around.
After playing in the snow we tried snowshoeing. With the metal maws strapped on their feet they stomped around the field out back for about ten minutes before declaring that it was too cold and coming back inside.
By then it was time to pack things up so Heather and I loaded kids and stuff (including the puked on port-o-crib) into her car and started out. Mountain Dad had decided to tempt fate and go on a snowmobile ride with my brother-in-law Jonathan. After all, we drove the machines all the way out there and he didn’t want all that effort to be wasted. On one hand I appreciate that sentiment, especially since I did all of the loading for the trip. On the other hand his ribs were broken. He had broken them by snowmobiling…how wise was it to go again?
While Mountain Dad and Jonathan snowmobiled out to Big Spring, Heather and I drove back to her place and started unpacking and cleaning. One of the unfortunate truths of motherhood is that sometimes you have to handle disgusting things. This was one of those moments. Despite rinsing out little g’s soiled bedding the day before, the stench of vomit was quite strong. Being nauseated myself, smelling the fumes wasn’t the best, but I managed to plug my nose and get everything into the washing machine without puking. The real trick was how to wash the port-o-crib frame and mattress, since they were too large and bulky to wash by traditional means. Had it been summertime I would’ve hooked up the hose and sprayed everything down outside. It was winter, however, so we had to come up with something else. Thankfully, my sister inherited my mom’s MacGyver talents and using her jetted bathtub and overhead showerhead we created an oversized washing machine in her bathroom. I added some soap, let the jets run for 10 minutes and by the end there was no trace of little g’s mess from the night before.
Soon Mountain Dad and Jonathan joined us and reported that their trip had been successful. Apart from his ribs being excessively jostled by every bump on the trail, Mountain Dad survived the trip, enjoyed the scenery and was finally able to snowmobile. Success!
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We left my sisters and headed home, happy to have had some good times amidst the bad. At least Big E had a great weekend of playing with cousins, sliding on snow and swimming. For him it was probably his best vacation ever. For me…well, not so much.
Nobody likes being sick, but it’s especially annoying to get sick when there’s something important going on. That’s what happened on day three of our Island Park, Idaho snowmobiling adventure. I woke up with terrible nausea, diarrhea and a headache. Soon little g also showed her colors by puking twice by breakfast time.
Not only was Mountain Dad out of commission from the previously mentioned cracked ribs, now little g and I were out of commission due to an unfortunate gastrointestinal assault. This snowmobiling adventure was slowly plummeting down to the worst vacation ever. Mountain Dad was NOT snowmobiling on the hundreds of miles of trails nearby. I was sleeping not-so-soundly with a crying baby at my side, trying not to throw up on her. It sucked.
Luckily other adults were there, my sister and brother-in-law, to take care of Big E. The only silver lining I can think of for this day was that Big E was entertained by playing with his cousins and did not try to jump on me and Mountain Dad constantly.
At one point I forced little g and I to go outside for some fresh air. After extended baby wrestling we were both exhausted. This is how she felt about getting snow clothes on to go outside:
Once we got outside it wasn’t much better. She promptly flopped to the ground in the exact same position and cried long and loud for the whole two minutes my patience could stand. We went back in.
The culmination of the day was at 9:00 pm. Little g had been asleep for a few hours and we snuck into our shared room to go to sleep ourselves. All of a sudden little g lets loose with what sounded like a poo-xplosion.
Mountain Dad said, “It sounds like g blew an O ring.” Oh how I wish it had been poo, that would’ve stayed contained in a diaper and pj’s. Unfortunately, when I shone the light in little g’s direction she sat on the mattress of the port-o-crib with vomit completely surrounding her. She had laid in it, had it in her hair, got it all over her pj’s, the blanket, the mattress, and the frame of the crib.
The smell was disgusting, we were all tired and cranky but of course we had to clean her up. She screamed through a bath, we sprayed off the crib, rinsed out the blankets and moved everything into the bathroom so we could breathe. Despite all of the cleaning up there was still a lingering vomit smell. We settled everyone down, again, and when we finally fell asleep that night we all hoped for a little bit better day in the morning.
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Big E does not know how to swim on his own yet. Usually we have him in a life jacket at all times, but of course, I forgot to pack that. So instead I was on full time life guard duty. And let me tell you, that kid would’ve drown fifty times over had Heather or I not been right there the whole time. He is a wild child who can’t touch the bottom of the pool, yet jumps in with grand gusto at every turn. Whether an adult was in the pool to catch him or not he would jump in to the middle of the pool then flail and kick until someone who could touch the bottom helped him to the side.
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His favorite phrase of the day was, “I want to do it myself!” which was usually accompanied by him pushing my arm away from holding him up in the water. I thought of just letting him figure it out on his own but it caused me too much panic. At one point he stood on the side of the pool and fell straight backward without even looking behind him. He is fearless…I don’t know that it’s a good thing.
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