Here’s Naomi, with all her hair intact. It’s not thick, but it was getting rather long.

Enter cheeky big brother Milo. Here he’s trying out the big plastic saucer-of-amusement we borrowed from the toy library for Naomi. He used to be all keen on being a “Big Boy,” but tonight when I told him that big boys don’t need pacifiers he corrected me, saying he was a LITTLE boy. Well, little or big, he was tall enough to reach over the side of Naomi’s bassinet and do a number on the front of her hair with his scissors.  I lashed out with the classic parental rhetorical statement: “WHAT are you doing?!”  “I’m just cutting Naomi’s hair,” he informed me.  I hadn’t thought to tell him that hair cutting was a Mommy-only job, and he obviously didn’t realize the seriousness of the offense.  Hopefully he does now.

Here’s Naomi after Milo’s chop job. I was just thinking that her hair was worthy of a tiny little barrette, but I guess that will have to wait.

Milo lost his scissors for the rest of the day, consequence of his hair-cutting stunt, but still gained the big boy bed. Does that make it two steps forward and one step back? He didn’t have any sadness parting with his crib.  I’d like to think that’s because of his new big boy bed quilt that he watched me make, but it’s more likely just a credit to his easy-going nature.

What do you call those little thingies we use to hold clothes to the line? Pins? No. Pigs?! Come off it! Oh, PEGS, I get you now.

Milo likes “beyah” too. He doesn’t like drinking it of course, but he does like helping daddy bottle it. “Beer” and “Bear” are pronounced identically in New Zealand, but context usually makes the meaning clear.

Tahr burgers in the back, sausages on the side, and “fallow fowl,” also known as “falafel,” in the front left.

Happy Birthday Daddy! Jeremiah’s choice for his birthday dessert was peanut butter pie, his Mom’s recipe. I have to say that I enjoyed it more before I really looked closely at what’s in it. Butter, whipped cream, cream cheese, peanut butter, and sugar, with a little hydrogenated vegetable oils and chocolate thrown into the mix. Yikes, if I wasn’t worried about my mortality before, I should be now!

Today, Jeremiah’s actual birthday, was predicted to be wet and nasty, remnants of a tropical cyclone pummeling Christchurch. So yesterday we ventured out to a beach on the Banks Peninsula for a fun birthday excursion. Driving over the hills the clouds were building up on the northern side and we thought we’d be in for some early cyclone rain, but it turned out to be a fine beach day after all.

Jeremiah’s main reason for choosing a beach birthday was to test his new spear hunting gear. He caught the spear hunting bug during our recent trip to Stewart Island, and it took him about 2 months to gear up completely. Well, I’m sure not COMPLETELY, I’ve been married to a hunter long enough to know that even the best hunting kit is never complete, there’s always some new nifty lighter neater gadget to covet. Turns out the water at this beach was too cloudy for spear fishing, but at least he christened his wetsuit.

This is why I was amenable to a new hunting hobby. Kids + sand = happiness. Spearfishing must by necessity happen at a beach, and while not all beaches have sand this nice, some will.

This beach also sported cool lava rocks, smooth and warm on chilly bare feet.

Last year the tame little waves rolling in made Milo nervous, but this year he has gained more confidence and ventured out shin-deep on his own.

While Jeremiah was out spearfishing, Milo and I made him a flounder….in the eventuality that he didn’t get any fish in the water, we’d at least have one to present to him on land.

Our friends Ian and Sophie joined us with their three girls, and all the kids examined the crabs accidentally swept up in the flounder net with interested squeals.

These pincers and the speed with which the crabs disappear back down into the sand elicited tales of my youth at Cape Cod, and the search for the perfect water shoe to protect vulnerable toes from pinches. Lucky for these crabs, none were big enough to be worth the trouble to eat. Had Jeremiah been in the picture in those early Cape Cod days, I’m sure he would have managed to capture some keepers.

Naomi spent most of the day happily watching the goings-on from my arms, but when she’d had enough we plunked her into the stroller to take a beautiful snooze. Aw……

Mmmm, mushy banana! We waited until 6 months to introduce food to Milo, and then we started with that horrible baby rice cereal. He didn’t like it.  When I tasted it I found out why. He never has liked new foods, so this time I thought we’d give Naomi a chance to try stuff earlier, perhaps before her palate becomes so picky.  So far there’s been nothing that she outright rejected–avocado, banana, pancake, bagel, yogurt, tomato sauce. It’s funny to see the contemplative expression on her face, absorbed in the new taste experience. Milo is always interested to watch her diaper changing. “Done big poos?” he always inquires. Now he’ll get to see bits and pieces coming through–all the more exciting!

While Naomi’s learning new tastes, Milo’s honing his hand-eye coordination. This week he learned how to tie a knot, a basic life skill. Of course, he then proceeded to tie 10 of them in a row on his apron string. Next life skill? UNtying knots.

The Marlborough Sounds are up at the north end of NZ’s south island, and as our boat driver told us, they’re not glacier-carved “sounds” as much as sea-flooded river valleys. The Queen Charlotte Track is a well formed 3-5 day track through green-and-blue scenery with the luxury of boat taxi transport for your packs and hostels or resorts instead of DOC huts for accommodation. Posh!

Our boat taxi took us out to the far end of the sounds and we hiked back south over three days. We abbreviated the trail on the first and last day in consideration of the kiddos, and had one long day in the middle. Water taxis ply these waters on a reliable daily schedule and the places of accommodation pick up the bags at the taxi wharf–it all runs like a well oiled machine. The boat was a highlight for Noah!

Here’s Laura and Noah, her two-year-old. “Mum and bub” as they say here, except as a fellow American, Laura hates the term “Mum.” “I can be Mom, Mama, Mommy…but MUM?! No!” Laura’s older daughter, Audrey (4) stayed home with Papa, just as Milo stayed home with Daddy.  After backtracking for Noah’s dropped hat the first day, Laura sewed it to his collar and it worked like a charm.

Here’s my little “bub,” just big enough to ride in the backpack. I brought the front carrier too and when she got grizzly about bobbing around in the back, I shifted her to the front to tuck in and sleep.

The cicadas have an impressive population this year. Some spots along the trail were so raucous with rasps and clicks that we had to shout over them to converse. The trail was pocked with holes where the mature nymphs had emerged to crawl out of their last skin and finish their lives as adults.

We spent our first night at Punga Cove Resort, which fortunately also has some port-a-builds for cheaper backpacker types like us. The hot tub was a disappointment though. Naomi is eying the murky water with distaste…or more probably just looking at her toes.

Our second day hiking was the long day, 24 kilometers, so we got up early and put a couple hours behind us in the cool of the morning before we stopped for breakfast. Ok, I’ll own up, it was a second breakfast for me. I’m admittedly hobbit-like in my need for morning sustenance.

Here’s our breakfast view–now that feels like home to me. Those narrow sounds are sea water, but they remind me of Adirondack lakes ringed by tree-clad mountains. Even the “wilding pine” on the right that DOC is trying to control feels like a giant white pine from home.

One of the best parts about the trip was being two Moms together. Laura is delighted with Naomi, and I never have to apologize for normal baby behavior like one does when hiking with child-less families. Need to nurse? Let’s take a break. Whiny? Ah well, kids can be like that. Smiley? We love those giggles!

Noah trucked along for bits of the track, giving his Mom’s back a break. He was a surprisingly good walker and enjoyed one of Milo’s favorite track games, hide and seek.

Marshmallow motivation! We alternated between hide-and-seek on the trail and dispensing colored marshmallows liberally. Here they are, holstered for ready action!

Naomi spent our lunch breaks kicking around on a cloth, gurgling and blowing spit bubbles, a recently acquired skill.

Cling-ons! One advantage of walking the track with kids is that we’re moving slowly enough to notice more details around us. These grass seeds reached out at the track edge and grabbed tenaciously onto anything they touched. Laura noticed that when they clung to our arms, the tight V-shaped hook on the end held so tightly to the hair that it pulled out from the root. I thought by the end of the trip I might have lost enough leg hair that I wouldn’t need to shave…..but alas, they were not quite that thorough.

Our second night was at a cozy little backpacker called Debretts, in Portage Bay. It was miles above Punga Cove’s port-a-builds.

Here they are, Pat and Sue. They met at playcenter with their babies more than 40 years ago and are still friends….maybe this will be Laura and me in a few decades. I asked Pat if they do this kind of trip often, and she informed me that it was their first. “How’s it going? Would you do it again?” I asked. “Well,” Pat hesitated, lowering her voice. “I’m not sure. Sue talks so much….I like my quiet time….” and she continued to chat on for half an hour about this and that. Personally, I think they’re quite compatible.

This may look like a plain old tea towel, but look again–it’s a diaper-folding demonstration, courtesy of Sue. “Do you want to learn the best nappy fold for a boy?” she asked us while we were sipping our wine and nibbling our chocolate. And she proceeded with an origami trick on the tea towel, complete with pulling out a triangle and rolling up an edge. Quite handy, I hope I remember it next time I’m without the modern pre-folds!

Sunset at Kenepuru sound, Portage Bay. Noah dropped his Alaska quarter in the water here, saving it to puzzle some archeologist a thousand years from now. Noah never went anywhere without something clutched in his fist, but that also meant that we left a steady stream of kid brick-a-brack along the trail, lost when his grip softened in sleep. The red matchbox car, the expired pass to the Discovery Center, the Diego toothbrush….we dropped them all!

The one dropped item we did manage to recover was Shark, Noah’s fluffy pillow pet. On Friday night Laura picked me up from the airport in Nelson and we drove to Picton, stopping on a side road near Blenheim to feed Naomi. When we got to our backpacker Noah’s shark was no where to be found, and we guessed that it must have dropped out of the car when we took a break. We eyed the side roads on the way back, located the right one, and were thrilled to see a gray furry bundle still sitting on the grassy verge. A happy ending to the trip.

A view out over Queen Charlotte Sound from a ridge section of the track. We have a Kiwi friend that gazes over the “golden tussock lands” (they’re really brown, not golden), and pronounces his contentment with the scene. But I love the green and blue of regions that get adequate rain. These are the views that bring to mind that section of song Mommom and Poppop used to sing…. “God has created a new day, Silver and Green and Gold…..”

The day before we started the Welcome Flats tramp we visited Fox Glacier. The road in to the glacier’s tail end had signs marking its location in 1850, 1930, etc, telling the same story as most of the other glaciers on earth. Despite the record-cold winter in the U.S.A this year, on average earth is getting warmer.

Look again! That DOC guy is just a sign, warning sight-seers like us not to jump the rope barrier and approach the glacier’s tail. I did find that DOC’s sign of the news clipping of two brothers who did just that and got squashed by a bit of falling glacier ice was actually quite motivational, even to my rules-be-damned Harro attitude. The solemnity of the story was a bit spoiled by the unbroken line of tourists climbing the glacier itself, in the company of a well-paid guide ($123 a pop!).  Still, we’re responsible parents now, and we didn’t hop the barrier in broad daylight with the two kids in tow.

We stopped to cool our feet in an icy stream along the glacier path. The glacier river itself was ugly muddy brown, but our paddling stream was so clear that we drank from it. Naomi is completely oblivious to the splendor of the views.

Lake Matheson sits on the small plain between the Southern Alps and the Tasman Sea, reflecting their grandeur at dusk when the wind falls.  I realized how spoiled I am by Adirondack lakes reflecting our humble yet beautiful mountains….the pier was packed with people clutching cameras and waiting for the magic moment when the wind dies, and the mountains mirrored in water actually seemed quite comfortably homey to me.

Milo was unimpressed by the mountain views, but he sure had fun using our camera. Hurray for digital media!

You can’t see them very well, but there are pretty black and white Holsteins grazing this grassy paddock near Lake Matheson, completely oblivious of the views of Mt Cook and the southern alps behind, just like I’d imagine a Stonyfield Yogurt commercial except every cow in NZ has views like this. Well ok, these ones might just have an edge on the ones over in Canterbury in terms of views.

Friday morning we set off on our 18 kilometer hike to Welcome Flat hut in the Copland Valley. According to B.E. Baughan (no, I don’t know who that is either) “This is the Copland Valley; all the luxuriant loveliness of green, rocky creeks rushing with song and sunshine down through leafy glooms, the Noble Nakedness above, the pervasive forest-breath of Romance…..” 1913 prose. Why is it so green? Because it rains HEAPS (to use a favorite Kiwi superlative). Apparently 5 meters of precipitation is average at sea level, while the peaks boast 16 meters! That DOC sign MUST have been including snow on the peaks (perhaps?), but at sea level that 5 meters would all be liquid rain. We had an extraordinary weekend with hardly a cloud.

I couldn’t resist posting this mug shot of a gorgeous slime mold. I had a pet slime mold in college for a couple weeks, must have been a biology lab left-over. Her name was Amarilla. I fed her bits of people-food. If I remember right, she liked bread but didn’t like banana.

For most of the hike I carried the kiddos, and Jeremiah carried everything else. I’ve about reached my max in terms of weight, but maybe once we get the pack hip belt adjusted so the weight sits more on my hips I’d venture to do it again. Yes, that’s the real color of the river behind, not a trick of the camera!

This is how Naomi spent most of her weekend, peering out over the side of the carrier while licking the edge.  Good thing she likes it in there.

This track was a bit unusual among NZ tramps in that all the major river and creek crossings were bridged. And what bridges! Wiggly! Not for those who are afraid of heights, that’s for sure.

Bush diapering! The sandflies were INSANE at the trail head parking lot, swarming so thickly that after a hurried diaper change I later found 5 flies in squished inside her diaper. To my great relief they weren’t nearly as bad in the woods on the trail.

It took us 7 hours, but eventually we did reach Welcome Flat hut. A truly welcome sight. Milo understandably gets tired of riding in the carrier and wants to walk, which would be fine if he actually kept his feet moving in a forward direction. But a three-year-old’s priorities are quite different from those of 32-year-olds, and Milo likes to stop and poke every puddle, pick up stones, flail his walking stick around. Jeremiah just wants to get there. Molly wants to stop and eat chocolate, then get there eventually. Naomi doesn’t care as long as she’s with Mommy.

Check out these gorgeous bunk rooms, just perfect for playing “ride on Mommy.” The hut was just refurbished 6 months ago and it is seriously built to a higher standard than our rented home in Christchurch. There are even screens on the windows. Milo’s favorite past-time was running from one end of the sleeping platform to the other. The night we got there we shared with two Kiwi couples who thankfully thought Milo was cute. He is….but he can also be tiresome at times. Constant. Incessant. And spunky–I love him!

Here’s the allure of Welcome Flats–big natural hot springs. I’m imagining the first person to find these pools was either fascinated or freaked out, or both.

The DOC info in the hut says that the water bubbling out of the ground is 250 years old…I’m assuming they mean it has been underground for 250 years, since most molecules of water remain as water for a lot longer than that. Contact with the hot rocks dissolves minerals into the water, resulting in these red and yellow deposits, kind of like Saratoga springs but hot. The red stream here was too hot to stand in, something like 57 degrees Celcius.

Nope, this water isn’t actually boiling, but the bubbles of some sort of gas are roiling up. It’s not stinky though.

The pools are actually quite shallow, and the silt on the bottom makes a squishy layer of muck, sort of reminiscent of the mucky bottom of Lake George in front of Sunnymeade. The mud is only the beginning of the problem with the ambiance though, the real trouble is the sand flies, a species of black fly. They make total body immersion a necessity, except one has to be careful to keep one’s nose out least you catch a particularly nasty amoebic meningitis, rare but deadly. The sandflies aren’t out after dark, but since it didn’t get dark until 9:30 or so, I didn’t stay up to enjoy the pools without their presence. Consequently, our soaks in the hot pools were brief.

We spent more time playing down by the river than up at the hot pools. The river itself was pretty icy, but there was one tepid side stream coming down from the hot springs that we enjoyed. Milo was hopeful of catching fish in it.

Milo has solidly entered the world of imagination. Here he’s made a fishing pole out of a stalk of grass and excitedly informed me that he was catching fish. “See Mom! Salmon!”

That beautiful river would make a formidable crossing even now, after nearly two weeks of fine weather. You look at the water-sculpted rocks and just imagine the torrent after a typical rain. The very first river crossing near the car park has no bridge, with the intent that if hikers can’t negotiate that first obstacle then the conditions up the valley will be even more forbidding and they should turn back. But we enjoyed ideal weather and water of that mysterious blue glacier-silt hue.

Jeremiah took his rifle and went for a hunt while I stayed at the river with the kiddos. Up the valley a bit he clambered up this series of waterfalls (the biggest one a hundred feet high) and sat down to look for a wandering chamois (a type of mountain goat). Instead up climbed 6 other trampers, and hope of surprising an animal disappeared.

Naomi charmed the rest of the hut residents. She’s at that wonderful stage where she’s happy wherever Mommy is–her needs are simple.

The day we walked out we got up early and started our hike at 8:00, but still didn’t reach our car until 2:30. A dinner stop at Hokitika at Pipi’s Pizza (highly recommend it if you’re passing through!) and a long ride back to Christchurch, which I actually found to be the toughest part of the whole trip. Naomi was NOT happy, just wanted to get out of her car seat, but it’s 2014, and riding on Mommy’s lap in the car is not an option, so we had to soldier on. Hurray for NPR podcasts to help pass the time.  I’m glad we went, though I don’t feel the need to do it again.  Mission accomplished!

Happy Birthday Milo! One, Two, Three candles for his third birthday (yesterday), and plenty of energy and hot air which which to blow them out!  We had his birthday bash on Saturday with cake etc, hence the candles in the non-cake (cornbread) for his birthday dinner. 

For Milo’s party we invited three other families to join us for a beach barbeque at Rapaki beach on the Banks Peninsula.  While we were waiting for them to arrive we were digging around in a little fresh-water seep on the rocky beach. Despite the overcast day the puddle felt comfortably warm, and it finally dawned on me that it was a thermal spring! I’ve always wanted to swim in a natural hot spring!

Here our friends Audrey and Noah are enjoying the thermal pools before the tide comes in and swamps them. We were busy doing birthday prep and the tide was coming in fast so I didn’t get to sit in the pools, but I’ll be back!

Plink, Plank, Plunk! Nothing occupies kids as simply as throwing rocks into water.

I guess dirt cake is an American thing–our English friends had never heard of it. Its unveiling was greeted with much skepticism from the kids and British acclamations from the adults (“Oh, that’s Fab, that’s Brilliant!”). All the recipes involve cool whip, which is non-existent in New Zealand. After two attempts to make it from scratch failed miserably, I’m happy to report that the dirt cake turned out just fine without it. At least we can still purchase Oreos here.

The kids aren’t quite sure about this cake-in-a-bucket thing, but the prospect of dessert was enough to lure them in.  Plus, trying to light candles in the wind is rather amusing.

The excited babbling turned into silent absorption as the cake was doled out. It was met with approval, after all.

Milo sure thought it was “Fab!” Lick those fingers, don’t miss a scrap!

Here we’re actually at an outdoor concert the evening of his birthday party, but tackling the girls was what Milo had been doing all day, too. Not that he’s partial to girls yet….it’s just that among families we’re friends with, they’re readily available. It’s a predictable pattern: they start with a game of chase, then Milo catches, then the girl screeches, then Milo gets told off. He tried it with Amelie, Ella, and Audrey, repeatedly.  Poor kid, he’s just being a normal puppy, but he needs to learn to pick his subjects better.

Yup, Naomi is the next chase partner. Even though she can’t really move away yet Milo still tries tackling her, but instead of screeching, she actually smiles! Hope that attitude lasts!

There’s my boy, complete with a cheeky grin and an enormous birthday cookie! The three-year-old era has begun.

A swing in the park for the first time ever! I actually think Milo had more fun pushing her than Naomi had riding, as chewing her fists seems more absorbing than the motion of the swing.

I’m not sure how much of Milo’s grime is soot, and how much is chocolate. Joshua in the background is showing off the blackened sole of his shoe, compliments of the Sign of the Bellbird hut’s windy open hearth. We had given our friends Graham and Teena some tips on tramping meals, but their first attempt was (reputedly) a repulsive mix of curry and smoked fish, given thumbs down all around. I don’t know, it doesn’t sound so bad to me….but we thought we’d meet up and cook a meal together in the Port Hills to give them a positive experience. Or perhaps to discover that Americans have an uncultured palate? In the end they liked the meal, even the brownie with (unfortunately) a slightly charred bottom.

Fwip-fwap! What little boy (or grown man for that matter) wouldn’t enjoy fencing with grasses. Our admonishments of “just down at their feet, Milo!” went totally unheeded, but at least the weapons were soft.

“Wow, what do you think that is, Milo?” “A Poop!” He knew exactly. The Buskers festival was in Christchurch last weekend, and one of the features was a wild and wacky petting zoo (like something from Dr. Seuss), including this big pile of “Poo” that wandered aimlessly around. Milo poked at it gingerly, then got on all fours to see what was beneath it. “It has wheels!” he declared, triumphantly. Yes Mr. Analytical, it does.

Roar, aren’t cookies exciting! I remember the pleasures of cut-out cookies with Mom when we were little, including the incredibly addicting raw sugar cookie dough. Milo’s birthday is next week so we made cookies to share with the kids at Playcenter. Naomi, as usual, just enjoyed watching the chaos.

A bike ride to school–how cool is that! I started back to work this week, and consequently this week was Milo’s first day at preschool, a highly anticipated event with many pretend practice rounds. He packs his backpack and waves as he closes the door, announcing “Bye, me going school!” Jeremiah will be dropping him off on his way to work, while I pick him up mid-afternoon.

“Me going school in Big House!” The size of the building, which is indeed a big old house, must have impressed Milo on his previous visits. When came to get him at 3:00 I found him nodding off over his snack at the table–must have been a busy day! The teachers said he was very “settled,” which I think just means he hasn’t got a shy bone in his body. He waltzed right in there, waved a hasty goodbye to daddy, and plunged into the fray. It’s a little Montessori school, and while it does appear to be a chaotic hive of “child-led” activity, I think it’ll be a good fit for Milo.  We’re still working out the kinks in the schedule though–he didn’t nap at all, which made for “hangover” grouchy morning the next day. 

Here’s my beautiful baby! Naomi and took 3 days while in Stewart Island and hiked the Rakiura track with two other girls in our group. Naomi did great in the huts, was a champion all-night sleeper, and generally charmed the world with her chubby cheeks and rolly-polly good nature.

Here’s our posse of three women, one 3-month-old, and one to-be-born-in-2-months. Our slower walking pace suited us all just fine, as Steph (the only childless one) was still fighting off the stomach bug.

The Rakiura Track is a New Zealand Greatwalk, meaning it passes through iconic NZ terrain and equipped with well-maintained huts and generally improved trails. That giant tree on the right is a Rimu, a podocarp (that’s a gymnosperm like a pine but with a fruit-like seed), a type of plant well-represented in NZ but not in North America.

This tree is probably a Rimu too, but it’s so covered with epiphytes that it’s hard to tell. Stewart Island forest is temperate rain forest, mossy and green like west coast USA.

In the woods, what’s not covered in moss and vines is swathed in ferns.

On Stewart Island even the sandy beaches had greenery, if you looked closely enough.

Naomi helps to cook dinner in the first hut of the Rakiura Track. It’s not that common for babies to do the tramp, and everywhere she went in the hut about a dozen pairs of eyes followed her. Everyone was friendly though, no complaints.

Look at that stoic gaze. She’s eying up the weather to determine how her nap will be on the rest of the walk.

We didn’t actually walk that far each day, but it still felt good to shuck the boots at the hut door and make a cup of tea.

I’m not sure it would have been so swell bringing Milo to sleep in a bunk room when he was 3 months old and still waking up every few hours to eat, but Naomi slept like the proverbial baby in her home-made sleeping bag, and everyone had a good rest.

Here she is back with the rest of the group in town at the end of the walk.  We were the only couple in the group with kids, and I’m sure the others watched us hopping up and down to meet the kids’ needs with the same quizzical glance I’d have given parents 3 years ago, thinking “hum, that kid stuff doesn’t look like a whole lot of fun to me.” I was surprised to see Mark pick up Naomi voluntarily at the end of the week, just curious I guess.  He seemed to like her.

Milo did score a friend in Carrie, engaging her in various games and enlisting her skills to read him books. Carrie’s baby will be born in two months, so she must be imagining her life with children in the future. I asked her how a week with the kids made her feel about her upcoming motherhood, and she quite carefully said that it made it all seem a bit more “real.” Ah well, I do think it’s easier when they’re your own.