The End of an Era

As the years have progressed, we've used our backpack carrier less and less. That's understandable as Teddy has grown. Physically, he's now close to 4 feet tall and weighs 80 pounds. When I'm only 5 feet 2 inches on a tall day, there's not much height difference between us. He's also grown steadier and stronger in his walking, though his ability to listen hasn't grown in equal proportions unfortunately. 

For the past several years, each time I pulled out the carrier I was reprimanded by my loving husband and mother ... truly from a place of love and concern that I'd injure myself by carrying Teddy. I insisted on bringing the carrier last year on vacation (and used it on one hike for just a short stint when the listening ears and all other attempts failed). When I didn't pack it for vacation this year, I knew it was time to pass it along to another family in need.

We had to do one final "ups" before mailing the carrier. He still fits. ;-)

Since it was hard for me to give up this season of life, I wanted to give it to another PIGN-CDG family who could benefit. As I type this, our carrier is on its way to Colorado where I hope it brings a sweet 4-year-old boy and his family as much as it did for our family.

Look at that toothless grin! We loved exploring together!

This carrier (and its predecessors) allowed us to get through the basics of life. It made grocery shopping possible when I needed my hands free. It made shopping trips possible when I couldn't wrestle Teddy into carts anymore due to his size, especially combined with my height. (There may have been a couple times we upended the shopping cart when I was trying to wrestle Teddy out by myself.) It allowed Teddy the snuggles and closeness he needed when he was in a mood and needed all the extra love ... yet I couldn't just hold 60+ pounds of sad Teddy.

We did plenty of hiking at our land with the carrier. Ted had to take an important call.

Beyond making the ordinary moments easier (or simply possible), this carrier traveled the country with us. I'm pretty sure this carrier has visited more national parks than many Americans. So, I couldn't resist searching back in time and sharing a handful of places we've been and memories we've made with this carrier. I'll be forever grateful for what this carrier gave our family.

You couldn't always see Teddy in the selfies, but you can see Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

It's completely safe. He's strapped to my back at Olympic National Park.

This was when Teddy still had pacifiers attached to the carrier at Rocky Mountain National Park.

Again, perfectly safe to walk up a river with a child strapped to your back. 

No way we trusted Teddy around the ancient ruins at Mesa Verde.

Not pictured are the ladders we climbed to get to this view in Canyonlands.

Sometimes I even let Dave carry Ted, like here in Great Sand Dunes.

Respite

Last week we had the opportunity to enjoy a bit of respite in the form of a backpacking trip with only AJ for a couple days to Pictured Rocks in Michigan. This trip is an annual tradition for us, with this being the 6th time we've went in the past 7 years (darn you COVID in 2020!). 

It's incredible to watch AJ transform on these short trips as we all truly relax and enjoy life without the daily stress and challenges that come with living with Teddy. A highlight this year was watching AJ create a lounge chair out of sandstone slabs propped in the middle of the river. He spent probably close to 2 hours creating this masterpiece and relaxing in it, knowing there would be no guarantee the waters wouldn't claim it overnight. (It did survive until morning, so he got one more relaxation break there!)

Hiking and camping are my happy places. We have so many family memories that I cherish, but hiking and camping are difficult to near impossible with Teddy through the years. That's why this trip is so incredibly special because we get to do things we love without being fully responsible for care 24/7. 

We're grateful for our village, particularly our one sitter who has spent lots of quality time with Teddy including mornings far earlier than she enjoys, to make this respite possible.

I can't help but share some of my favorite photos from the trip. And we're already looking forward to next year!

All set to hike in to our campsite!

I'm not sure how many more years we can all squeeze in one hammock.

AJ is relaxing in his chair.

We hiked to Spray Falls with AJ, first time since he was 11 months old!

This is my happy place.

Best Brother Ever

It takes a village to raise Teddy, and he's so lucky to have his brother AJ in his village!

AJ is the most empathetic, kindest, thoughtful kid I could imagine. When we started fundraising for drug repurposing for CDG-PIGN, AJ wanted to help. 

He developed a fundraiser with an online order form to sell 3-D printed fidgets with all money going to the fundraiser. He/we cover printing costs and donate his time to make them. He did well with that and decided to take advantage of my connection with the farmer's market to sell them at a couple markets.

He did 2 farmer's markets this summer, raising almost $800 and a lot of awareness. He did a fantastic job making his display board, and his dad helped create a really awesome board to display the fidgets. It was a great learning experience for him 

The real magic was listening to him interact at the market. He's incredible talking to people and explaining his mission. We're so proud of him.

AJ works markets like a pro.

Teddy may not realize how lucky he is to have AJ as his brother, but he does know how much AJ loves him. 

Running & Relaxing

Let me preface this by saying there is very little relaxing about running when it's 90 degrees pushing 90 pounds. 

But it is relaxing for Teddy to be pushed, especially along the riverfront where there is an endless stream of boats. We also detoured to the train bridge and got to watch a train go past, and then walked an extra half mile at the end to avoid the mean seagull that was dive bombing us and almost pooped on Teddy. Jerk pigeon. 

 Teddy had a rough listening day and ended up with hurt feelings, timeouts and not nearly the fun he could have enjoyed. So I took advantage of a group run with Running Water City to change his mood and ensure we both had some form of fun tonight. Again, it's a twisted version of fun for me, but it was worth it to allow him to enjoy the time out and about and for both of us to enjoy the patio at the brewery afterward. 

Fifth Ward is my favorite brewery, and I actually got to sit for about 15 minutes at the table while Teddy chilled with his popcorn until he decided the couch looked like a better seat. He tried to invite my friends to join him, but they couldn't "hear" him looking at them and pointing at the couch. So he had to go back (after about 5-10 minutes of trying) and physically show them what he wanted.

Someone was very happy to be at the table with his popcorn.

Thank goodness for friends who enjoy Teddy's company, who rebuckle him in his chair, who grab popcorn for me, who walk back to our vehicle with us and buckle him in and just make it as easy as it can be to enjoy a post-run beer with Teddy.

Happy 10th Birthday!

Happy birthday Teddy! 

While I'd love to write a beautiful blog post, I'm exhausted. So here's a recent photo of the birthday boy, and I'll reminisce another day.

That smile. 

Vacations

Since we got married, we have spent our vacations camping. While we’ve done nights in hotels, as the years progressed more of our nights were spent in our tent. Even as we added AJ to the mix, we continued with a trek into the backcountry (camping remotely where you hike in with all your belongings). When Teddy joined our family, we knew backcountry wouldn’t be feasible at least for few years until the kids could hike in themselves (hahaha … if only we knew with Teddy), but we continued with our camping adventures. In fact, the year Teddy turned one, he did so in Crater Lake National Park on our longest adventure with 3 full weeks of camping and exploring our national parks.

But each year Teddy got older, it got harder to enjoy vacations. Sleep has always been a struggle for him, especially when we aren’t at home. We’ve had vacations where he’s been up for the day at 2 a.m. or 4 a.m. or wouldn’t fall asleep until he screamed himself to sleep for several hours finally at 11 p.m. Not pleasant for any of us, and really tired parents don’t make for the best travel companions.

Our vacation 5 years ago nearly broke us … we came extremely close to turning around and coming home after the first 2 days. That’s when Dave decided we needed land where we could all enjoy nature, where Teddy could learn to sleep and we could actually enjoy ourselves and relax. That’s what led to our beautiful piece of heaven on earth, for which we’re extremely grateful.

That coincided with the global pandemic that shut down the world in 2020, and we continued to live in a bubble through 2021 and the first half of 2022. When we decided to adventure on vacation in 2022, we brought reinforcements: one of our beloved childcare providers aka adopted daughters. And we decided then that vacations should always include an extra set of hands.

Our adopted daughter was in charge of the selfie family photos.

So we headed on a short vacation at the end of June to Duluth, MN and the surrounding areas with our other adopted daughter, Sigrid. We spent the entire time in the same hotel, which helps Teddy adjust for sleeping, and did day trips to surrounding national parks (Apostle Islands, Voyageurs and Grand Portage), waterfalls and Canada.

The entire family for this vacation!

Our trip was very different than our trips of the past with all our time in a hotel and much less time in our parks, but we got to explore places in different ways. We did a train ride from Duluth, and Teddy was oh so excited because trains are one of the coolest things in the world.

He loved the boat rides!

We also did 2 different boat rides. The first was to Kettle Falls in Voyageur, and Teddy adored that board ride on the smaller boat. He even managed to keep his cool when we were stranded right by the dock for an extra 30 minutes riding out a storm. The second was the Apostle Islands Grand Tour. We intentionally waited to make sure the first boat ride went well before we committed to the second set of boat tickets. While Teddy was far more squirrely on the bigger boat, we managed to enjoy the scenery and the tour (and were quite glad we brought his chair to help him settle down. OK, fine, he got put in there in time out several times because playing on the stairs on a boat is not cool.)

This is why we need extra hands.

Our trip to Canada included several beautiful waterfalls and an adventure into Walmart to stock up on Canadian candy (and ketchup chips to try). We also had to find maple donuts for AJ’s cravings—that’s what he wanted most on this vacation.

While it was different than our trips of the past, it was a fantastic vacation filled with family time, happy memories, natural beauty, history and most of our sanity.

This is the best picture of vacation.

Grateful for Graceful Wakes

Oh my goodness! Today was the perfect summer day thanks to Graceful Wakes. This amazing organization partners with local water ski clubs (in this case the Rock Aqua Jays down in Janesville) to host accessible water skiing clinics for people of all abilities.

Teddy participated in this program last year for the first time and had a great day despite pretty crummy weather. This year our entire family went for the day of fun and enjoyed perfect summer weather and sunshine.

Teddy got to ski 3 times and was so excited each time. The last time he even was waving as he came back to shore. The skiers sit in a chair mounted on a ski, so even people who cannot walk can have a go at water skiing. They have side skiers on either side of the chair to hold and support the individual skiing in the chair.

It’s incredible the amount of volunteers who make these clinics happen. Picture almost 25 people getting up to 3 turns skiing, assisted by 2 buddies each time, plus another couple people in the water assisting with getting into the chair and catching when the skiers return, plus boat drivers, announcers and photographers. We’re so grateful they chose to give their time and talents to allow our family to enjoy today.

Teddy also got to hang out on the pontoon boat. We missed the few rides they did, but we asked if we could sit on the boat earlier in the day and were welcomed aboard. That was great since Teddy is obsessed with pontoons, and that’s all he wanted in the moment.

Just call him Captain Teddy. That's what he thinks at least.

He also got to enjoy a tubing ride with AJ, and AJ managed to sneak in a second tube ride. It’s such a fun treat for our kiddos since this isn’t something we normally have access to do.

The boys enjoyed their tube ride ... a lot!

It was extra cool to have one of our MTT friends Raymond and his family there as well, so we got to visit with them. Plus one of my running buddies now lives in the Janesville area, so she and her family joined us as well to watch Teddy’s first run.

Then on our way home, we had to stop at the World’s largest Culvers (a Wisconsin custard and fast food restaurant). The real treat was we walked into the restaurant right ahead of my aunt and cousins from Mississippi—they were headed home from a week at my parent’s farm. We hadn’t planned it, yet our paths spontaneously crossed.

Such a serendipitous moment!

This goes into the memory bank as a fantastic summer fun day—we’re so grateful for these types of opportunities. Sometimes we have to fight for things for Teddy, and these types of gifts of accessibility and inclusion are even sweeter than the best custard in the world.