Greetings, friends! This blog has always been a space for me to chat about traveling and getting outdoors to do cool stuff. However, I couldn’t help but interject something a little more personal as a follow up to my last post, Preparing for a Baby in the Era of COVID-19.
When I wrote that about a month before my baby boy’s due date, I was stressing out about the whole childbirth thing, bringing a baby into the world during a global pandemic, and pretty much everything in between. Well, I’m happy to report that everything worked out just fine and that I’m now the MOM of a healthy and hilarious little guy who just turned one month old yesterday!
Note: On this blog, I’ll be referring to my son by one of his nicknames, Chikoo, which is a delicious fruit that grows in India and Central America. Chikoo isn’t his real name, but he does kinda look like a small, round, light brown fruit anyway!
As I mentioned in my last post, Chikoo was flipped upside down in belly, proving that he would already be stubborn from an early age. This resulted in me needing to have a c-section to safely retrieve the little guy and bring him out into the world. On Chikoo’s birth day, hospitals were still really crazy with COVID-19 safety protocols. But fortunately, my husband was allowed to be with me during every part of my hospital stay. This included him being in the operating room to actually watch part of the birth (EEEEK!) and staying overnight with me and Chikoo in the postpartum room.
I was required to wear a mask at all times while hospital staff was in the room with me, including during the actual c-section procedure and every time when a nurse came into take my vitals in the middle of the night. As far as childbirths go though, I couldn’t have asked for a better care team and recovery experience. My doctor and most of the nurses who took care of us explained everything to me really thoroughly, answered all my questions, and helped guide me in my first hours of being responsible for a newborn.
Thanks to Chikoo and I both being healthy and doing well, we were able to get out of the hospital in just two days, the very earliest that I was hoping for after the c-section. Meanwhile, our awesome local dog sitter took care of Monkey while we were in the hospital, plus a few extra days so we could get used to having a baby at home before introducing Monkey to her new baby brother. Spoiler alert: she’s been great with him over the past month – cautious, curious, and protective.
Fast-forward a month and here we are back at home, still social distancing but getting to know each other a little more each day. The whole lack of sleep thing at night is a real struggle with Chikoo, as it is I’m sure with all newborn babies. Breastfeeding and pumping are challenging, time-consuming, and sometimes painful – especially when food is loudly and frantically demanded every 1-3 hours. Getting work done is feasible for a few hours on some days but a total joke on others.
Meanwhile, I’ve been pooped on, peed on, and spit up on all within the same hour. But he’s also a little cuddle bug, makes the silliest faces that crack me up, makes the cutest sounds that melt my heart, and already seems to enjoy being outside and on the move.
With a newborn in the house, me recovering from major abdominal surgery, and due to just plain common sense, we’ve been pretty much homebound lately in this continued era of the coronavirus. My outings have consisted of a postpartum OBGYN visit and a pediatrician visit, while the husband ventures out for groceries and supplies once every couple weeks. Yet we’ve been getting outdoors a lot to enjoy this beautiful New Mexico springtime weather and the awesome plot of land we live on that is tiding me over until travel is a safer thing to do.
I hike with Chikoo in a carrier and Monkey on our little trail every day, and we’ve recently invested in some really comfy lounge chairs for the front porch.
To make our yard feel more like a brewery space, we’ve also picked up some new yard games – bags, bocce ball, and Yardzee (a large-dice version of Yahtzee).
There’s a forest road at the end of our little unincorporated village where we’ve gone out for some stroller rides. It’s usually more deserted than the popular trailheads nearby, but with everyone getting restless to get out while maintaining a safe social distance, even our little “secret” area is getting overrun by others.
A couple weeks ago I got to celebrate my first Mother’s Day. The concept of being somebody’s mom felt really surreal and still does. I spent most of my life never expecting to ever have a baby, but here he is, and it just seems to make sense right now.
Chikoo sure is cute in the newborn phase, but what I’m really looking forward to are the days ahead when we can start introducing him to amazing places, traveling with him, and helping him learn about the world around him. Hopefully all this frequent eating is helping him grow big and strong so he’ll soon be wearing his first pair of hiking boots and going camping for the very first time. And hopefully by then, all this pandemic craziness will have subsided and be nothing more than a great story to tell him about his first few months on earth.
But for now, Chikoo’s face is scrunching up, turning red, rooting around, and letting out a howl so loud that I would have never expected such a small being to make. This could only mean one thing. It’s feeding time…yet again.
This new blue 
The trailer folds down for storage and the wheels come off and stow inside. It’s actually pretty easy put together after you’ve done it a couple times, and there are mesh screens to boost air flow. It came with a black cushion pad, but I whipped out my sewing machine and made her a cushier one to entice her to ride a bit more. She loves soft things.
Our very first ride was on the 
On this particular day, it was lovely weather in the low-70s, and we cranked out a total of about 26 miles round-trip. Afterwards, we let Monkey hike around a bit on a nature trail and then got drive-in milkshakes at Sonic. It was just too-conveniently located right off the trail and too tempting to just gain back the calories we’d just burned. Ice cream and fro yo are my ultimate junk food weakness.
She was a real trooper on this ride, and I felt better about bringing her along than leaving her along in a strange campsite to fend for herself. I don’t believe in keeping dogs in cages at home, especially if they’ve already put in plenty of cage time in a shelter. But I hope the pretty scenery whipping by and the fresh air flowing in are fun for her inside that trailer…especially when we pass by other dogs huffing and puffing by with jealous looks on their faces.
This 17-mile trail follows the old Atchinson, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway line from the Railyard park in Santa Fe to the tracks, Highway 285, El Dorado, Lamy. There’s a little bit of everything along this ride in urban, suburban and rural surroundings. 
Where we started near our (highly recommended) campground, 
But after a grueling while of this, the dirt suddenly transformed into pavement, and we were smooth-sailing again down the trail. Those first few pedals after the dirt felt like flying!
We took our mid-bike pit stop at Second Street Brewery, which unfortunately wasn’t really all that dog-friendly and had some questionable happy hour rules. But a cold brew after that challenging ride tasted delicious nonetheless. A local commuter train called the Rail Runner ran alongside the bike trail and the brewery, which we checked out while giving Monkey a bike break.
The sun was starting to set by the time we made it back to the Jeep, which was perfect timing to collapse the trailer and hit up a local grocery store to cook dinner. The sunsets here really are pretty amazing.
