First outing

I remember my first outing with baby Avery.  First baby, first outing.  It was with my mom and she drove to my house and picked me and my baby up and we drove down the street to JoAnne's fabric.  I mean, I couldn't have gotten there without her.  I needed things to make headbands but I could hardly get up and dressed with the newborn much less up and dressed and anywhere besides the mailbox.  It wasn't that Avery was a particularly difficult baby.  It was the ADJUSTMENT. If you've ever had a first baby, please tell me that you know what I mean.

Second baby?  Also an adjustment.

Third baby?  She came with my mom and I to the park on the day after she came home from the hospital, which was a scant two days after she was born.  Cal football game on day 4.  It's like she was born and I was already back on my feet running.

TOOOOOOOOTALLY thought that's what was going to happen after baby four.

Ha ha.  No.

Baby four was much like my experience with baby one.  The adjustment has been so huge, it's still huge and he's almost three months old.  Definitely has to do with the night of sleep lost (incidentally I lost a night of sleep with Avery also) during delivery.  Also my body is older.  And he's a boy.  And I didn't know it but dairy was making him a very uncomfortable little boy. Which meant I really wasn't sleeping at all.  No sleep plus three kids?  Zombie mom.

Luckily we had not zombie dad to sweep us off our very cabin fevered feet and take us on our first grand adventure as a family of six.  We just wanted to get out of town, out of the heat, and to see if we could find a little swimming hole in the mighty Kern river.  :) You know, upstream, before it gets all nasty.

And still to my amazement, we found the best little place! We literally parked on the side of a windy freeway and then basically scaled a steep path down the mountain.  But once we were there, it was just lovely.  I lectured for a very long time about accidentally getting swept away by a mighty river (there were places where it seemed to me like the water was flowing too strong) and my kids listened very intently. My hormones were a ragin'. But luckily there really wasn't any danger and we all had a very great time.







Ken even did all the due diligence necessary and found the kids a place to do some cliff jumping.





The kids doing the jump.  Can you guys see this video?



Penelope, however, preferred to keep her whole body out of the water, opting instead to sit by me and our new little baby (6 days? ish old).


Best shot I could get of him from so close.  Wasn't about to put him down.

Ha ha, I love how he so often looks a little bit ticked off.




Sissies.



And it didn't take long for them to find and make the most of the mud.







Painting rocks with mud.









These shots are when they were making plans on how to cross the rushing water to get to the other side so they could jump.  They are very strong swimmers.



Afterwards, sigh of comfort, lying on the warm rock.



Dads and daughters. What a special relationship.





Thanks to my husband for sensing the need for us to get the heck out of dodge for a bit and for finding us a beautiful place to spend the day.