YO MAMA: Hiking with a two-month-old versus a two-year-old
I finally did it. I passed on my beloved baby-wearing wrap to another mom because my son has simply outgrown it. He walks on his own now, charging ahead in a floppy little run.
I can’t believe the time has come. I must have worn that wrap a thousand times.
I wore it to help get my fussy baby to sleep. I wore it on walks and while I made dinner. Passing it along made me realize how far we’ve come and how different life is with a two-year-old compared to a newborn. As I folded it up and tucked it back into the linen bag it came in, I recalled all those peaceful walks together — plus one that truly exemplifies the difference two years can make…
My son was almost two months old at the time. I had decided to join a friend and her toddler for a hike up my favourite local mountain. It was an event, along with milestones like that inaugural bite of food or preliminary solo step, that I’d pictured in my head as a really special first: climbing up my mountain with my beautiful baby on my back. I pictured a wide-eyed infant taking in the beauty of the forest, eyes twinkling with awe. Maybe he’d smile at a squirrel or tenderly pick up a pinecone.
When we got to the parking lot, my son was having a day. He’d thrown up on the drive over, so I changed him into his emergency onesie which didn’t really fit and read “I’ll have a bottle of the house white.” I was reminded of how — a long, long, long (did I mention loooooong?) time ago — I would pack a beer in my pack to enjoy at the summit. These days, I rocked a fanny pack stuffed with diapers, wipes and Ziplock bags for you-know-what.
After he was changed and topped up with a bottle of the house white in the back seat of the car, I pulled out my baby-wearing wrap from amongst the jungle of burp cloths and managed to drop both ends in the dirt while putting it on. My son was impatiently wailing in his carseat while I became very sweaty working to put the thing on. We hadn’t even started hiking yet and my forehead was beaded with sweat.
My friend pulled up and swiftly secured her daughter into a shiny MEC backpack. It looked so easy I almost cried.
The ascent was pretty smooth; the kid fell asleep and was actually pretty adorable with his fingers curled against his cheek. I did my best to carry on an adult conversation with my friend while intermittently checking that my son wasn’t suffocating in the pouch. Had he asphyxiated, or was he just sleeping?
The fresh air felt better than a face mask and I got way too excited when we saw a little bird aggressively chasing a much larger bird. I didn’t get out much in those days so it was a lot of action for me.
Even in his sleep, my son was a human motion detector and the moment we reached the top and I stopped walking he was wide awake, and he was not happy.
He needed another diaper change. I took him out of the wrap so he could appreciate the stunning view — a patchwork of sunny fields with handkerchiefs of low lying clouds — but he loudly reiterated that he was still pissed off. I spread a blanket out over some fluffy moss and placed him down on it. I sealed up the dirty diaper and put it in my trusty fanny pack, reflecting on how I used to cringe at carrying a bag of dog poop but was now completely unfazed by toting around human poop.
That’s when an alpine wind picked up. It sent a shiver through the trees and suddenly my son, who was butt naked as I scrambled for a diaper, emitted a spectacular fountain of pee. You’d think he just downed a venti of steamed milk. The pee just kept coming. All over him. All over me. He was a human sprinkler.
Finally, he finished, and was all smiles as I tidied us both up and brought him to see the view. He wasn’t too interested in it but I told him all about it anyway. Before we left, I sat on a log and nursed him again, hoping to stave off a hunger attack on the descent. There were no chipmunks, but the moment was peaceful and calm.
We mobilized for the hike back down and I put my son back in the wrap. He was wide awake and peering out from the fabric. We’d been going for about five minutes when he suddenly regurgitated what seemed like an entire bottle of the house white. The cottage-cheese-like spit up settled in the hollow of my clavicle. I swore I felt some trickle down to my belly button. The boy fell happily asleep and I walked the entire way down smelling like sour milk.
I told myself that being covered in spit up on a mountain was still better than being covered in spit up in my PJs at home. And it was. It really was. Despite being covered in two bodily fluids and carrying a third in my fanny pack, it was a great hike.
Not long ago, I brought my now two-year-old on the very same hike. I told him about the time he peed all over both of us, which he thought was absolutely hilarious. We were in the process of potty training and had to stop halfway for him to pee on a tree. It was slow going, but he walked much of the way on his own. When he needed a break, he hopped onto mom, piggyback style. It wasn’t quite the hiking speed I was accustomed to pre-baby, but we were getting there.
On the way back down, we crossed paths with a family of four and their two dogs. The kids were probably close to six or eight years old and were setting a brisk pace. They remarked in passing about remembering the baby days and carrying toddlers up mountains on their backs.
“They grow up so fast,” the mom said. “Pretty soon you’ll be wishing he was still small enough to be carried.”
I knew what she meant. Things had already changed so much in two years. I couldn’t imagine what the next few years would bring. Maybe on our next hike he’d actually make it to the outhouse at the top.
— Charlotte Helston gave birth to her first child, a rambunctious little boy, in the spring of 2021. Yo Mama is her weekly reflection on the wild, exhilarating, beautiful, messy, awe-inspiring journey of parenthood.
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