Joshua Tree: Baby Edition

In October we took Claire out to Joshua Tree with us for some climbing and camping.  This is not the first time we've taken our baby out to sleep under the stars.  Way back when she was four months old we ventured out for the first time.  We met up with the Van Wickles and the Nelsons for some beach camping just outside Malibu.  For the record, Malibu is GORGEOUS, but much farther away than I'd like. Claire did really well, though.  She slept through the whole night, and was in high spirits the next day.  Here are some pictures from that trip:

Proud parents of a happy camper

The happy camper

This last trip presented a new challenge.  Claire is now scooting, the precursor to crawling.  She takes her scooting privileges very seriously and does not appreciate being restrained for hours at a time.  As the mother of a newly mobile baby I am terrified Claire will ingest a plethora of choking hazards, so I do not appreciate her crawling about the small rocks, sticks, bugs, and cacti that litter Joshua Tree National Park.  Therefore we only had one chance at happiness: the Pack'n Play.  In case you are unfamiliar with this traveler's best friend, it is a portable crib that folds into a smallish rectangle.  However, collapsing capabilities aside, it is fairly heavy, and therefore unwieldy when hiking.  Still, we packed it up and brought it to the desert.  Here is an example of her mobility:

Claire backed herself under this couch.  

I am a good mom, so I would never purposefully put her there.

Obviously.

Claire slept fairly well during the night, although she did wake up around 5:30 am, a good two hours before her usual time.  Whatever.  It's better than waking everyone up in the middle of the night. The next day we hiked about a mile and a half to the rock, where we set up the Pack'n Play.  I sprinkled toys all over the crib and let her have at it (What does that mean? Do you know? Can you tell me?).  She was happy.  Then we further complicated things by adding Claire's day twin, Sienna. Sienna and Claire were born on the same day, a few hours apart, so naturally I call them day twins because what else would you call that?  Lucky? Well that, too, then. 

Claire and Sienna

 They awkwardly scooted around each other, tried to eat one another's hands, and threatened multiple steam rolls.  It was very, very cute.  Occasionally one of the babies would grow unhappy with the situation, but there were no full on meltdowns. My only real complaints with this set up are that it was not conducive to napping and that the PNP is not fun to hike with.  There wasn't a good way to get Claire away from the noise so she could fall asleep.  We needed something light, covered, and protective.  Once we got back I got to googling, and I found these.  Genius.  I started autobidding on ebay, and we won a gently used one for a very low price.  Did I mention it has an air mattress?  We are such good parents.  It's also small enough to fit in our tent with us, so we no longer have to bring two tents (until the next kid). Claire thoroughly enjoys it:

Now we can camp without fear!  She also happened to get cold during the night, so I ebayed a snow suit for her to use as a sleeping bag.  That made for some great pictures, too.  I cannot look at this one without laughing:

Lately she bites things as if she were a dog.  Teething?
Wolverine? It's hard to say, really.

Camp on, Mayfields.  Camp on.