On Location with Carrie and Cooper: new baby!
Welcome to the world, Hobbes!
Carrie, Cooper and big sister, Hattie, have recently welcomed a brand new adventurer to the family! Baby Hobbes arrived fashionably early, a week ahead of schedule. Just as Cooper was readying to set out with a friend for the inaugural day of hunting season, Carrie’s water broke. It was game on, (just not the game that Cooper had intended for the day!).
Hobbes’ brand new bum has been comfortably covered with the newborn gPants since day one. And though it’s too cold now to compost, the disposable inserts are flushable, which means with 6-8 changes a day (or a package a week), the garbage can isn’t overflowing.
“The obvious benefit of not using standard diapers is that we haven’t seen an increase in the amount of garbage we’re creating as it still takes 3-4 weeks to fill two standard garbage cans. That combined with strategic timing of when we flush the used inserts means our net ecologic footprint of adding a diapered family member has so far been negligible.”
Good point. Conservation tip: flush baby’s disposable inserts after someone else has used the potty and, ahem, let the yellow mellow.
“Reloading the inserts has become part of the daily routine, and it’s a familiar one now that brings back countless memories of Hattie’s early days. Super easy to deal with, you just stuff them in the gPants and await their use. Roughly 2/3 of the gPants can be thrown right back into the fold without washing – the messier ones need a bit more handling time to get clean again before being ready for use.”
It takes two.
“While the second newborn is notably easier to handle given past experience, the stress savings is effectively nullified when needing to watch over the older sibling at the same time. Although Hattie is generally an easy going little girl, she’s certainly become more demanding since her brother’s arrival. She hasn’t yet asked us to “take him back” as we’ve heard stories of other big brother/sisters requesting, but it’s certainly harder to maintain man-to-man coverage than it was double-teaming.
One of the primary challenges of an infant at 10,000ft is the fact that he has to be on oxygen much of the time…especially when sleeping. This is the reality for about 95% of Leadville babies, and the chord running through the house presents quite the tripping and “mellow harshing” hazard with Hattie traipsing all over the house. We are hoping Hobbes can kick the habit at the 2-month mark like his sister did.”
Enjoying the ride.
Life changes with a baby. Men and women are quite literally transformed into dads and moms. New hobbies, chores and passions enter the day to day, like staring. Staring at a sleeping or nursing baby is like the slow warm of hot chocolate in your belly: delicious and comforting. The moments at the changing table (or bed top or floor) are many and diverse: there’s the delight in the selection of an itty bitty gPant, and the strain of eye rolling when baby poops 2 minutes after a fresh diaper. Yet even under profound transformation parents can still revel in that which has historically thrilled them. For Carrie and Cooper, it’s skiing.
“The biggest trick will be to discover how we can care for two and still get some skiing in this winter. Cross country is no problem with the back-pack, bjorn, or chariot options, and Hobbes has already lapped the golf course a few times, but things get a bit more dicey on steeper slopes. We managed to hike up and ski down the local ski hill with Hattie when she was 6-8 months old and she loved it. Not sure Hobbes is quite ready for that…”
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