Creepy Crawlies

Ok, guys, Ms. Drama is back.  Bear with me, please.  So just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it did.  I told myself I would stop harping on the bathrooms, but then after the experience I just had, I wouldn't feel right if I didn't share it with those of you out there kind enough to read this blog.  Lemme explain to you a little something I have discovered after staying in at least 6 consecutive campgrounds.  You always enter the bathroom with a sense of hopeful trepidation.  It's a hope that maybe, just maybe this one might be better than the last.  More often than not, you enter the bathroom, only to declare that this is the worst, most disgusting one yet.  But then, as the week goes on, and the bathroom isn't cleaned, your disgust turns into a sense of recognition.  Like, "I recognize that clump of hair in the drain--it's MINE!"  Or, "I recognize that dead cricket in the left corner of the shower, he's been there for 6 days!  His name is Fred."  And the sense of disgust turns into a peaceful recognition.  But this one, well, it takes the cake.  No peaceful recognition here.

Where to begin....We made it to a campground/RV park in Shreveport, LA this afternoon.  We will arrive in Texas tomorrow.  Sean warned me that the showers were scary at the RV park in Mississippi yesterday, so I told myself I'd skip the shower and take one today.  I immediately regret that decision.  Is it acceptable to go 2 full days without shower, when waiting till tomorrow will make it 3???  What if it's been like a million degrees outside with 100% humidity?  Can I somehow manage to fit into this?

Maybe if I squeeze myself nice and small, I will fit?!!?

So, I went for a nice long walk with Beckett and Cooper around the campground and decided it was time to check out the bathrooms.  I dropped off baby and chicken dog with daddy, and made the trek to the bathroom.  As I cut through the grass, hundreds of tiny fly mosquito hybrids attacked me.  Ahhh....nature.  I love you.  As I arrived at the bathroom, a blue, yes, a blue lizard was frantically trying to get into the bathroom.  WHY would any living creature in it's right mind (insects not included) want to make it's way into the bathroom?  I would soon have my answer.  The floor was crusted with thousands of fly mosquitoes.  And what was that sound????  A LOUD deafening fan was sitting in the only window doing nothing for air circulation and blocking any sunlight that might happen to come in. 

Ok, so I had to document this on camera for you.  I mean, have you ever heard the expression, "it made my toes curl?"  I never really understood it until I realized that while in the bathroom, my toes were unconsciously curling.  So here is my disclaimer...if you have a weak stomach, scroll fast.  I will help distract you from your horror with happy pictures in between.

My first sight.  Sink with dead fly mosquito hybrids.  Not so bad.  I can handle it.

Bonding boys

Wait...what is on the shower floor.....

Look at me, I'm cute, and not scary like shower floors!

WHAT IN THE WORLD

Big boy outfit and no scary bugs in sight

Avert your eyes, AVERT!!!!!!!!!! (Do you know how close I had to get to that thing to get this shot!?!?)

Look at me!!!!  Take as much time as you need to recover!

And a little treat as I frantically ran for the exit. A dying daddy longleg.

If you made it this far, thank you.

 

 

 

The happy family :)

Alright, I must go figure out how to get clean.  Don't worry--I assure you it won't be in that shower.  Until then, I wish you clean showers and uncurled toes.

Lost

Well, we are off to Texas for our Houston Metro Dash challenge on September 18.  Our goal is to get there by Sunday, so we are staying in Mississippi tonight.  It was bittersweet to leave our fabulous campground--we prolonged our stay there because we loved it so much.  But, we are ready to move on to new adventures.

The other day was quite the adventure after Sean got a little work done.  (Sean says I'm overly dramatic, but just hear me out :) )We spent some more time at our favorite hidden beach for some splash time, fun in the sun, and of course more picture time.  The light at that time of day is just too beautiful to resist.

Baby likes fishy faces

The famous daddy walk that works wonders to knock baby out (see below)

Thanks for the loin cloth (aka burp cloth) mom!  You are so crafty! :)

After beach time, it was time for my favorite part of the day—“Jo, let’s go for a run, and when you ask me how much longer, I will always answer that I don’t know.”  So off we went for our first run with the AMAZING Bob jogging stroller sans infant car seat.  (Thanks mom and dad!)  Lemme just tell you—I kicked that run’s butt.  Well, I kicked its butt for the first 6 min. 34 sec. until the downhill disappeared.  At that point in time I declared two things: 

1. My brand new Baby-G’s stopwatch was crap.  We had to have been running for at least 15 minutes. 
2. Sean was now in charge of pushing baby.

I love you Baby-G!  Now when I am up 3 times a night feeding the baby,  all I have to do is look at your beautiful face to know the correct time.  SO much better than asking Sean what time it is, have him pretend to look at his watch, and make up a time.

We stumbled upon a fun path that appeared to go around the lake.  Perfect!  Well, it seemed perfect until we discovered that the path was actually bordering an old, unused golf course.  The debris and plants growing straight out of the asphalt path made it too bumpy and hazardous to run on with Beckett.  He finally stopped his bobble-headedness, and we’d like to keep it that way.  But the path was too fun and adventurous to turn around, so we kept walking. (Imagine my disappointment that we had to walk for the "safety of the baby."  Anything can be turned my way if it involves the well being of the baby.  Daddy is such a softy.  It's my secret weapon.)  It was so bad that Sean made me walk in front of the stroller, so that I could use my body as a human spider web collector to protect little man.  Yes, chivalry goes straight out the window when baby enters the world.  And mom will do anything to protect baby--even stand in the path of spiders.  Now that is love.

When it seemed that we might never find an end to the twisting, overgrown path through the woods and 8 foot tall weeds, Sean made me run up over the hill to see what I could see.  With hawks screeching in the background (waiting for me to die so that they could eat me), I made it to the top of the hill.  Everywhere I looked, I saw winding paths, hills of weeds, and trees.  I started to picture the Others from Lost coming out the trees to capture us.  Fortunately, we were spared and hopped back on the path a little further up and found our way back to civilization.  

Wilderness, I tell you.

Lucky for me, Sean promptly resumed our, “I don’t know how much longer” run--he even found a big hill to run up and down.  Too bad someone had to stay with the baby.  I'm such a martyr.

Home is Where the RV (and all the Baby Gear) is

So when preparing for this trip, Sean and I decided that we would do everything in our power to make sure that the baby didn’t suffer at all from our craziness. (The following blog is not written to put down any parenting choices—just sharing what I am blessed to be able to do with the extra free time I have being a stay-at-home-on-the-road mama) Thus, we I am still cloth diapering and wiping (hey, we spent enough money on the durn things—we better still be using them!)  Sometimes we have to steal our neighboring campsite’s sun spots to dry the dipes!  Thank goodness they finally left this morning so we could do some laundry.  Sheesh.  The nerve of them to stay so long and hog all the sun.

Cooper guarding our valuables, with our home in the background

And, I am making all his food with the FABULOUS Beaba Babycook bought for me by my awesome girlfriends for my birthday.  (Thank you so much to my girlfriend mamas out there who told me about it!) 

Steaming some yellow squash
 

Organic peaches and sweet potato

It’s funny how when you have a baby, birthdays, Christmas, and anniversaries turn into the fabulous opportunity to request baby items.  No more clothes (for mom), makeup, and jewelry.  Hello travel cribs, baby food making devices, and strollers.  Trust me, I’m not complaining—I mean what mom of an infant (who is still not sleeping through the night) has the time or energy to get dressed up or put on makeup?  And jewelry--well we all know necklace + baby = instant mommy choke out.  So it’s Babycooks and baby clothes for this happy mom’s birthday!   Beckett has been thoroughly enjoying his meals twice a day, which range from peas, carrots, yellow squash, avocado, peaches, pears, and banana.   

Typical morning--breakfast in his jammies!

He has had sweet potato, but it causes uncontrollable gagging episodes, so despite mom and dad's amusement, we have been avoiding it at all costs.  That is, he hated sweet potato until I used my Babycook to steam the sweet potato and then blend it with peach and banana, and.....SUCCESS!  (The cute little green machine does BOTH things, so I only have to clean one machine.  This is crucial when you have a kitchen roughly the size of, oh, let’s say your dresser drawer.)  Although, he did give me a few side glances the other day when I was feeding him—as if to say, “Hey lady, you think you’re being smooth, but I know what this really is….I’ll let it slide this time!” 

Even though Beckett is getting the benefit of fresh air and being outside all day, we couldn’t deprive him of all the fabulous baby toys out there by leaving them behind.  (Ok, fine, who am I kidding.  We didn’t have the heart to leave our expensive baby toys that specialize in giving mom a break behind.)  Take a view of our outdoor baby paradise:

Exersaucer for playtime 

(and of course, there is dad, hard at work in his outdoor office)

Swing for nap time

 (Ahem, yoohoo... Beckett....swing is for NAP time!)

Bumbo for mealtime

Perfection, except for all the stinking bugs.  Lucky for Sean, baby, and chicken dog, they only like to bite me.  Sweet.

Water, Water, Everywhere, and Not a Drop to Swim In!

Best picture EVER!

So, if you know my husband, you know that he is not happy unless he has a body of water close to him that he can jump in at any time.  If he doesn't jump in it, it doesn't matter--he just feels better knowing that it is there at his beck and call.  So imagine his disappointment when two of the campgrounds we have been to have lakes--beautiful lakes, but entering those lakes is forbidden.  Not that that would usually stop him; but you know--we have a kid now, and we'd like to try to avoid hard jail time.

A "forbidden" lake in Boston.  Looky, but no touchy!  As we arrived, a group of teenagers was leaving, one of whom was named "Beckett!"

  So, his main requirement for the campground in Atlanta was that it had to have a lake, and he had to be allowed in it.  Well we found one, and we highly recommend it (bathrooms NOT included in high accolades, of course).  It's on Lake Lanier, outside of Atlanta.  In fact, we are one of only four campsites here being used because we timed it just right with school going back in session.  We have a lake view, easy access to the lake, and nice, quiet, private beaches!  It's SO nice!  My favorite:  Mama gets to strip down to feed the baby without worrying about nursing covers!  AND the lake is so warm!  If you know me at all, you know I am NOT a swimmer.  In fact, I am the opposite of Sean.  But it has gorgeous blue-green water, warm temps, and a soft sandy bottom that I can SEE (that is a requirement for me to enter a lake.  I mean, there could be sharks or giant alligators or anacondas or something.  Haven't you ever seen those movies???)  Shockingly, even I couldn't keep out of the water.  I even tried to get the little fishies that were swimming everywhere to nibble the dead skin on my feet for a nice little pedicure.  Sadly, they weren't interested.  Although, they did nip Cooper's toes a couple times, which resulted in a chicken dog hightailing out of the water.

Chicken dog right before being attacked by little fish.  I know the water looks murky--I promise, it's not!

Chicken dog not sure if he wants to commit

 Daddy sharing his love of the water with Beckett

Swim little man, swim!

Relaxing on the beach!

Pudgy Wudgy loves playtime in the sand and water!

And a perfect end to a perfect day with best buds being entertained by mom and dad with their kettlebells, slam balls, and TRX!  Well actually the perfect end was the 3 s'mores I ate for dessert....but who's counting?!?!

We Aren't THAT Different!

So we arrived to Atlanta today, and upon check-in to our lovely lakeside campsite, I decided that my day really isn't that much different than yours!  Really!

We go for walks.

Hanging out in Charlotte

Sometimes on our walks, we do silly things.

Cooper likes to join in on the fun, too.  Can't you tell?

We also take time to work out.  We just have to be a little creative with our "gym."

I know you can't hear it, but Beckett is in the background saying "3, 2, 1, work!"

Can't forget to stay clean!  We must take our baths!

Poor little guy is wondering, "What happened to my whale bathtub??!?  It's WAY cooler than this little basin.  That's it, I want new parents!!!!"

And...just to keep it in perspective...just how small it is.  Poor little guy....we surely win parents of the year for this one!

See, it's not that bad!

All clean and snuggly!

And amidst all the work we do; yes, we do work :) ; we take time to explore and have fun!

Even Cooper takes time for himself with his busy schedule.  We found the perfect secluded spot on Lake Lanier outside of Atlanta, and Cooper even found himself a toy!

Mommy kisses are THE BEST!

Cooper, pretending he is swimming.  (Don't be fooled, he just splashes around hoping the frisbee will float his way--remember, he is a chicken!)

And last, but not least, I spend countless hours playing with and gazing at the little man.  His eyes can't decide whether they want to be blue or hazel, so they are both for now.  Blue around the outside, hazel on the inside.  This proud mama thinks they are gorgeous!

His newest obsession is playing with water bottles.  Good luck drinking out of one when he is within arm's reach

And, this is what happens when a nervous mama takes away his water bottle to remove the lid because she is scared of him choking on it.

Child knows what he wants!

So, you see, we aren't that much different than you...just living out of a much smaller space and sharing showers with strangers.  That's all! :)