Boat, Baby

True to form (both my own and that of a somewhat sleep-deprived new parent) I've started and not completed several blog posts since the last.  Not surprisingly, they're almost all about Atlas.  I mean, who wouldn't want to read long, rambling Mom Posts about this little guy?

The Stinker.  I mean, Thinker.

But striking the balance between sentimental and humorous is tricky (see "sleep-deprived" above) and what sounded clever or profound one day just sounds stupid the next.  Or something.  Like I said.

Atlas is going through a phase (I hope) where he only wants to sleep on someone.  Like, if it ain't got a pulse, it's not an acceptable mattress.  This results in many long bladder-holding, stomach-rumbling hours of laying in bed with a very cute baby on me.  Because sleep.  Please, please, sleep.  So I've been doing some blog-reading, and what the hell did new moms do before smart phones, please?  Like, really, I want to know.  I'm so sorry for you all.

A sailing friend recommended this blog when we announced we were having a baby as a good resource for sailing with little ones.  I'd perused it in the past, but finally had the time to really get down to business reading the archives.  As good writing often does, it's motivated me in many ways.  They cruised with kids around the Pacific-side of Mexico, and were going for an Atlantic crossing before losing their boat due to an unfortunate series of circumstances and having to get evac'ed.  Which sucks, but such is life, and everyone was ok.  After getting back to shore and working to rebuild their lives, they've fully embraced small-house living and intend to acquire a new boat in a few years (those things are expensive) and move back aboard.  Anyway, as a one-time (and hopefully future) live-aboard, new parent, and small-house dweller, I'm incredibly inspired to do more of all those things better.  She's also incredibly crafty, which I am decidedly not, but I have a sewing machine and I'm not afraid of making things that look terrible.  Recently I made a ring-sling, and it is great if you don't look at the seams.  It works, anyway, and rather than using "ring sling aluminum rings" I went to Ace and bought stainless steel, because steel's real, baby.  Or it might have just been what they had.

Baby sold separately.

Anyway, Tri-oomph is in the water and more or less ready to sail.  We went for a little motor last Friday and clipped into someone's mooring (not a ton of boats in the water yet in Essex) and hung out on the tramps eating potato chips.  It was cold and windy.  Remember this time last year?  Let's see, today's Thursday, so one year ago today we were probably exploring St. Catherine Island in Georgia.  

Today I'm doing a lot of this.

There really are no bad options.   But last year I was definitely more tan.  I thought I'd get tan again this year, and then I realized that newborns really aren't supposed to be in the sun, so, well, New-England-Pale it is.  (New-England-Pale is my term for how those who spend their winters in New England and avoid the tanning bed look come March.  I've opined before that Revlon should make a shade of foundation called New England Pale, but it just occurred to me that it would be a fantastic name for a beer.  It would have to be sort of a springtime release, you know?)

But I digress.

We went for a motor on Tri-oomph because, while we'd stepped the mast and gotten her in the water, our wee deckhand had had enough by that point so we departed without getting the shrouds properly tensioned, or gotten the boom on, or really any number of little things that need to be finished before we can actually sail.  Plus, it's a little nerve-wracking having a baby on board and we are definitely going to start small and build up our confidence.  While some might think it's dangerous, let me assure you that he'll require far more vigilance once he's mobile.  At this point he either sits in someone's arms in his life jacket or is worn in the ergo.  

The best baby lifejacket.

Again, a digression.

So we went for a motor with no boom on and lazy jacks and halyards flapping in the wind and our outer shrouds looping.  That was pretty funny, because when we were cruising last summer and we saw a boat with no boom you could pretty well bet that no one was planning on sailing it.  Likely a permanent live-aboard of the variety that many wealthy Florida residents are trying to prevent from anchoring near their homes.  So we had a good laugh about that.  The sound of the outboard lulled Atlas to sleep in seconds.  Then on Sunday we pulled her up to the dock to finish getting her sail-ready.  This year "us working on the boat" is Cody working on the boat while I stand around with Atlas, but Cody held onto him in the cabin while I took care of the all the little details that still needed to be attended to.  We finally got ourselves sorted out to register her in Massachusetts, and sticking our new registration sticker to the bow was pretty rad.  When it came time to attach the boom, however, Cody carried it from the dock while I held Atlas, but he tripped stepping onto the boat and stepped on the edge of the trampoline.  You may remember from last summer that our tramps were shredded by the time we got back (combination of old thread and abrasion from the dinghy, and plenty of usage as well) so we got some new trim fabric and our rad (much more crafty than I) friend Jenny helped Cody sewed them for us.  We (and this is all on me and Cody) estimated a little short, however, so once the tramps were in place we realized they were too tight.  You could pluck the side pieces like a guitar string.  We had intentions of moving the trim out a bit to let in some slack, but hadn't done so yet.  So when Cody stepped on the edge it ripped the railing out, taking a substantial chunk of wood with it.  C'est la vie.  Boat maintenance.  He went out and epoxied and through-bolted it yesterday, and we took the tramps off to restitch, although I'm not too sure when we'll get around to that.  We can't really take her out with no tramps, so our next mini-adventure will have to wait.  We've been hoping just to anchor and spend the night on board close to home, but maybe next weekend.  

So that's the state of boating.  

It's funny - two years ago when we sailed around here I really had no idea what I was doing.  When we began our trip last year I also had no idea what I was doing.  By the end of our adventure I could sail at night while Cody slept by myself, and felt fairly confident that I could do just about anything that I'd need to do in such a situation.  But now that we're back in home waters I feel like I did two seasons ago.  I think it's just a question of context.  In the context of sailing around home I've only ever felt nervous and inexperienced.  Once I'm on the boat, though, I know what to do, even if I don't feel like it.  When we were tying onto the mooring the other day I managed the outboard and the tiller with a baby strapped to me.  No way could I have done that two years ago.  

He just woke up from his nap in the swing and is throwing me shade while I ignore him and work on the blog, so I'd better go get some cuddles.

On Babies, Boats, and Bicycles

For those who missed it, about a year ago I wrote this blog post.  It's pretty funny, I recommend it.  For the TL;DR version, it's about why cruising on a sail boat is like having a baby.  Obviously, at the time I'd done neither.  Now, I've done both in less than a year.  On May 11 it will be one year to the day since the two of us set off on our sailing adventure.  Three of us came home 14 weeks later.

I'd intended to write a funny follow up to the aforementioned blogpost, but trying to wrap the experiences of the last year into a few pithy paragraphs is going to be impossible.  Still, I'll give it a go.

In said blogpost I made a joke about how having an infant is sort of like cruising, because you're sleeping in shifts, and you never see each other, and you're pretty much just shoveling whatever food is closest at hand into your mouth while you set the autopilot/the baby sleeps.  This, I can confirm, is quite accurate.  Or, at least, it was accurate before Cody went back to work.  Now that he has to get up early and support us, I try to let him sleep through the night (but not on the weekend!  haha!).  So, it's actually more like when we'd sail through the night in rough weather, when I was too much of a weenie to stay at the helm and he'd have to pull all nighters, except with our roles reversed.  I remember one night when he tacked back and forth into a 25 knot headwind and 6 foot chop while I slept in the v-berth.  Occasionally we'd drop off a wave and I'd look out to see if he was still on board, then fall back asleep.  I'll get up to feed or change the baby, and Cody will stir and mutter something like, "wanmetachange?" which I think is him asking me if I want him to change a diaper, before falling back asleep.

As far as the pregnancy goes, well, not much about it was like preparing the boat for our trip.  Well, now, maybe that's not the case.  Truth be told, I didn't enjoy being pregnant much.  There were cool things about it, like when he kicked, but mostly I just felt physically lousy.  The first 18 weeks or so it was nausea, then there were a couple weeks with no gastrointestinal complaints, then it was gnarly heartburn for the duration.  I thought maybe the nausea would be like seasickness, or something like that.  Difference is that you can just take drugs on the boat!  People just keep offering you ginger when you have morning sickness.  Stop it.  Stop offering ginger.  It totally did nothing at all.

Working on the boat was, similarly, not my favorite.  It was springtime, and rather than spending hours on the trails we were in a dark warehouse sanding and painting and epoxying.  Every damn weekend.  But the true similarity is in how I feel about the process with the benefit of hindsight.  Which is to say that if I could do it again I would, and not just for the end result.  Rather, the process is part of the adventure, even if it doesn't feel like it at the time.  And when adventures come to an end I always feel nostalgic to live them again.  But to conclude that anything has come to an end is untrue, because just as we'll be back on the water this summer, our adventures with our little guy are just beginning.

Now, labor.  I have to admit, I felt pretty confident going into labor.  I figured I'd just treat it like some gnarly 24 hour bike race, and contractions would be like intervals, and yada yada yada.  No.  Just stop. That's wrong.

There is literally nothing that compares to the physical misery of labor.  People should just stop trying to describe it, because you can't.  And you're stuck in it.  It's the most committed to something I've ever been in my life, but only because there was no way out of it.  If there were I'd probably have taken it.  At one point I was trying to be really pathetic so Cody or the midwife would offer me drugs, but they just told me to breathe.  Breathing did literally nothing.  Counterpressure did literally nothing.  Here's the only analogy I can come up with that conveys even a modicum of how I felt:  it was like crossing the gulf stream to the Bahamas, when a gnarly gail blows out of the north.  Now, since the gulf stream runs south to north, a strong north wind causes it to blow up into big chop and can produce gnarly conditions.  It's not advisable to cross at these times.   Finding myself halfway through labor was like getting halfway across the gulf stream only to have that cold north wind blow through.  There's no turning back, there's nothing to be done but persevere.  No one can help you, you just have to suck it up and keep moving.

And if you make it through?  You're greeted either by that amazing bluegreen water, or, you know, your son.  And it's unreal, and amazing, and you can't believe you survived but you're oh so happy that you did.  And you're stronger, and better, and life is perfect.

Now what?  Well, we're settling into our newest adventure comfortably.  Cody's gotten to go mountain biking a few times, and I'm hoping to be back out there in another week or so.  The boat probably won't be in the water until the end of May, but that's OK, because Atlas has to be 9 lbs to fit into his lifejacket, and he's still under 8.  But we're super excited to get out sailing again and are hoping to do a weeklong family cruise northward later in the summer.  Everything is more fun with more love.