After two years, I thought I’d resurrect this blog for a new purpose. Not what my kids do in the Alaskan wilderness, which is regularly featured on Ground Truth Trekking. But what they’re working on the rest of the time. We’ve been dipping our toes into Project-Based Homeschooling lately (love that book). It’s basically a mentoring handbook: how to take what a kid’s already doing and help them figure out how to go deeper and farther with it.

Dinosaurs! – Katmai’s Prehistoric Creature Project

Of course! What almost-4 year-old kid doesn’t love dinosaurs? After having read “My Favorite Dinosaurs” to him several dozen times, something more needed to happen for my own sanity. Luckily, prehistoric life is endlessly fascinating (I’m learning stuff too), goes beyond dinosaurs, and is well-represented in even our tiny town library.

So, we’ve been in prehistory land for over a month now, in an infinite loop between the Pre-Cambrian and the Cretaceous. Katmai’s crumpled pieces of origami paper into “dinosaurs” to display in a museum. He’s drawn and dictated a prehistoric creature book – where the real creatures were quickly replaced by more and more fanciful versions. Squished wire into a “pachycephalosaurus skull”, and threaded beads onto a pipe-cleaner “agnathan” (early jawless fish). He’s cut out dinosaur printouts, scribbled his versions on a dino family tree, and stuck googly eyes on crudely-cut dinosaurs of felt. Cut eurypterid (ancient sea scorpion) claws from construction paper, and then cut the rest of the paper into “fish” for it to eat.

Prehistoric Creatures real…

And not so real…

Demonstrating his Eurypterid claws

He’s learned how to use the index in his library books (though his sounding-out word skills often need my help), and laboriously typed things like “trilobite” and “pachycephalosaurus” (also with help) into Google Images. He’s watched a few prehistoric life documentaries, who’s visceral realism has driven him to side, consistently, with the plant eaters. I’ve read him books geared way above his age level, over and over and over again until I think he must be memorizing them. Then he bursts out with quotes that make it clear he is memorizing them. Asking questions. Noticing where they disagree. Coming up with his own bizarre theories about which one is true.

a prehistoric jawless fish, with beads for bony armor

His project looks like crumpled paper and scribbled pen strokes. It looks like play. Snuffling in the snow as a Lystrosaurus, eating dinner as Barosaurus, raiding the fridge for swiss chard leaves as a Stegosaurus, slithering and crawling across the yurt floor enacting the evolutionary transitions between lobe-finned fish, early amphibians, and early reptiles, with Lituya slithering along behind him … It looks like conversation, as he eagerly tells me all about “the time that will come after now, when humans will go extinct, after being outcompeted by animals as big as houses that will evolve from giraffes”. Or the dinosaur called “blowcircus” that escaped becoming extinct by “flying way up high into space where the asteroid couldn’t hit it.” His everyday play and conversation is littered with references to the gait of reptiles vs. dinosaurs, the differences between amphibian and reptile eggs, the eating style of jawless fish, the ancestors and relatives of different animals, geologic eras, extinction, evolution, and all the ways the different creatures ate, hunted, and protected themselves.

Katmai wanted to draw his own dinosaurs on this family tree

Does he understand it all? Not as well as I do, but far more than I would have guessed a not-quite-four-year-old could. I’m curious to see where he goes from here. I think the next things on his list are to paddle across Seldovia Bay to look for clam fossils, and to prepare a costume and decorations for his “Plant-eating Dinosaur Bobbing for Apples Party” for his 4th birthday in a week and a half.

You don’t want to know how many times I’ve read these

Painting a squid

Born 1/1/11 at 10:07 am. 9 lbs 14.8 oz., 20 inches long, head diameter 15 inches.

No one is pregnant forever. That was the mantra I kept repeating to myself, and what I told everyone who asked. But as the days ticked past my “due date” and turned into weeks, I was starting to doubt it.

The ultrasound told us we could expect a baby sometime around December 17th. My son had come only 4 days past his due date, and everyone I talked to seemed to have a story about their second one being earlier. No one delivers babies in Seldovia these days, and transportation is unreliable (particularly in the dark and snow of winter). So on December 8, the whole family moved over to a hotel in Homer, ready to start waiting for the little one’s arrival.

So we waited. First came the “due date.” Then the full moon and lunar eclipse. Solstice. Christmas. My dad’s birthday. All of my landmarks came and went, and the baby stretched my incredibly protruding belly as tight as it could possibly get, stubbornly refusing to show any signs of an impending arrival.

Labor was exhausting an long, but eventually Lituya could relax at Erin’s breast.

We count pregnancies in weeks. And two weeks “late” has become a kind of magic number in the medical field. As I approached that deadline, the midwives got less and less comfortable seeing me still pregnant. And it was certainly testing my patience. But the baby passed every test they could throw at it with flying colors. We decided to wait a little longer.

On the night of December 29, I started to have a little bloody show, and a few sporadic contractions. December 30 brought more of the same. On an afternoon hike, I felt a few small gushes of fluid that had to be some of my water. Excited that things would be starting soon, I called the hospital, canceled the non-stress test I had scheduled to check on the baby, and waited for things to ramp up.

And waited. And waited. I would have some contractions when I changed position, or walked around, but otherwise, they just petered out. I called the midwife several times to tell her that no, nothing really was happening yet, and got a fitful night of broken sleep.

The next morning, I tromped up to the hospital for another non-stress test and ultrasound test. The leak had plugged itself. The baby was perfectly happy. And though the occasional contractions and bloody show seemed to be a good sign that the baby would eventually arrive, baby seemed to be in no hurry.

Photos from Lituya’s first day.

It was December 31, officially two weeks past my due date. I took off for an hours-long hike on the beach, contemplating various methods I’d heard of for encouraging baby to come. Hiking hadn’t done much for me so far, but if nothing else, it was a good way to pass the time.

The walking contractions were nothing terrible, but enough to slow my pace. It’s an odd sort of state of mind, when you’re working hard to increase your own pain. After the hike, I paced the hotel, changing positions constantly to keep things moving along, worried this “labor” might stop at any moment. After a couple hours I called to give the midwife a heads up, finally ready to believe it was for real.

I needed the ice cleats to walk up the hill to the hospital, but this time, I didn’t need to stop and vomit along the way. I worried aloud to Hig that we were showing up too early – that I wasn’t really in labor yet, and that we should go for another hike instead. But in freezing rain at 11PM on New Year’s Eve, a hike didn’t seem like the wisest or most pleasant plan.

When the midwife said I was 6cm and 100% effaced, I was extremely relieved. Baby wasn’t going to make it for 2010 (no tax deduction for us), but would definitely be here for New Years. We tromped around the hospital for awhile (very quiet on New Year’s Eve), then I got in the tub. But after a couple hours, all I’d managed to do was move from 6 to 7 cm. It was looking to be a long night.

The contractions got stronger, and longer, and much more intense, but never really any closer together. At 8cm, I let the midwife break my water. But baby’s big head plugged most of it, and things continued on a long slow pace. More hours passed. By 9cm, I was yelling through the contractions, which were still irregular, but starting to pile on top of eachother with an intensity much greater than anything I’d felt during Katmai’s birth, sometimes continuing for several minutes without a break. I passed into a labor and sleepiness haze at this point, no longer aware of the time, and barely able to stay awake in the short breaks between the pain. At 9.5cm, they gave me a very short dose of pitocin, hoping to speed the last bit along. But my body was already moving that direction, and after 10 minutes, they turned it off again. I didn’t think it could get any more agonizing, until the midwife pulled aside the final lip on my cervix so baby’s head could get past it. Then it was finally time to push.

With Katmai, the pushing was the hardest part. This time, it felt almost like a relief. I could feel the baby moving down each time I pushed. The head came down, then out. Then a sudden panic – baby’s shoulders were stuck! The midwife yelled at me to push as she worked to free the shoulders (Hig says it was a lot of tugging), then I felt the rest of the slippery weight slide right out.

Within seconds, I had a baby in my arms, squeaking just a bit, and zeroing in on my nipple. I focused on that intent little face for a minute, then couldn’t wait any longer to know our surprise. A little girl!

Photos from Lituya’s first day.

Meanwhile, I delivered the placenta and distractedly followed the midwife’s instructions as she gave me a shot of pitocin and a few pills of cytotec to help stop the bleeding, and sewed up the tear I’d gotten when her shoulders were stuck. It wasn’t as peaceful as I’d hoped, but as I cradled my nursing newborn, it was peaceful enough.

It wasn’t until an hour later we weighed her and discovered our little girl was not so little after all! Lituya Journey Higman was born at 9lb 15oz, 20 inches long, with a 15 inch head. Born over 2.5 pounds heavier than her brother, not one of us had any idea that such a large baby was squashed inside of me.

Despite being supposedly 2 weeks late, she was not the slightest bit overcooked, with plenty of vernix, no peeling skin, and a perfect placenta. Lituya decided to cheat her parents out of the 2010 tax deduction, in favor of the glory of being Homer’s New Year’s Baby. With a birthday of 1/1/11, no one will forget it.

By the time she was 24hrs old, we were getting on a ferry back to Seldovia. So far, she’s a calm happy little girl, and Katmai is adjusting well to being a big brother.

And what’s the origin of ‘Lituya’?  Lituya Bay is in southeast Alaska, a hundred miles from the nearest human settlements.  It forms the only protected harbor in a long exposed coast, and was carved by glaciers out of tall mountains.  The ocean and forest around it is rich with bears, sea lions, salmon, and giant spruce trees.  It’s most famous for a tsunami in 1958 that knocked trees down 1500 feet above sea level.  There is evidence that this was the last and largest of a series of similar tsunamis, which may be why the native settlement that the French explorer La Perous documented in the late 1700s was abandoned by the time westerners frequented the place.  La Perous lost much of his crew here to the violent tidal rip at the mouth of the bay.  For me, it’s a dramatic and mysterious place that stood out on our 4000 mile trek.  And it’s a nice name.

In a nutshell:
36 hours of pre-labor (not enough to slow me down at all, but just enough action to make me hopeful and impatient).
9 hours of early labor (slowed me down a bit, not too bad)
10 hours of active labor (slowly and painstakingly dilating from 6 to 10cm, of which the last 4 hours or so was more and more intense)
1 hour pushing (surprisingly much easier with a nearly 10 pound baby than for one with an asynclitic head)

Warming his hands by the fire

We were hardly home this summer. And when we were, we had guests – a full house of both relatives and friends. Katmai went on 3 expeditions this summer, a week, a week, and finally – a month in the Arctic. So of course his blog has languished, but we’ve got a billion pictures of him. Here are some from our most recent journey (described in detail on the Ground Truth Trekking blog – start here for the first installment).

I have a mischievous plan

Tossing mom’s hat!

After two long book tour trips, and this long expedition, I am even more convinced that shaking up the usual routine leads to great leaps in development. In the course of a month, he’s become a chatterbox, speaking in 6+ word sentences often, and picking up new words as soon as we say them.

“Sand come off. Wipe on mom pants.”

“Pick red cran berries. Put in mom bag”

“Dead sscchh (fish) don’t jump. Eeeive (live) sscchh jump!”

“I see spruce tree. I see uh-oh tree. Uh-oh tree fall in Noh-tak. I see not uh-oh tree.”

“Buh (bird) fwying! Up in buu dye (blue sky)? No. Up in grey dye. Buu dye all bye-bye”

“Leaf float down in Noh-tak”

Wearing mom’s shoes

On the plane

What kid wouldn’t like spending nearly every day on some sort of beach, throwing rocks in the water? And pointing out every possible color of beach trash. “I see buu twash! Buu twash bad?” “Yes, trash is bad” “Buu twash bad. Purp (purple trash) bad?” “Yes” ….

Katmai throws rocks in a lagoon on the Chukchi

And the rest of the days either picking berries on the tundra or eating muktuk (whale blubber) amidst adoring crowds of village kids?

Picking blueberries with mom

Eating muktuk in Point Hope

Finding trash on the Chukchi coast

Carrying Katmai, I was carrying maybe 22+ pounds of him, another 20 or so pounds I’ve gained in pregnancy weight, and finally, a front pouch weighing maybe 5 pounds. So even though Hig had all the gear, I was fairly loaded. (It’s the front pouch under the coat that makes me look so odd – not the baby bump!)

All bundled up for rain

Berry face

Picking cloudberries

Katmai’s favorite was the cloudberries (poof berries to him), but he enjoyed all kinds.

Diaper changes in the chilly air? Not so cool.

“No wipe on butt!”

Charging down the mountain

“Pink walk stick!”

Walking a narrow sand spit on a Chukchi Sea lagoon

With dad in fall colored tundra

Posing on a caribou rack by the Noatak River

Katmai in the Wilderness May-June 2010 from Erin McKittrick on Vimeo.

Katmai’s video clips from the summer’s first two big trips.

My turn to drive!

Oh well, guess I’ll ride back here

Unfortunately, he did have to ride in the back seat when the car was actually moving… The two months since I last posted have been a busy time for Katmai. We left the Seldovia blizzards behind to take him to southern realms where the ground was showing, dragging him around on book tour with us for a month. Katmai toughed it out through over 4,000 miles of driving, sleeping in 20 different places, and attending all but one or two of our 15 hour-long presentations. He’s an adaptable kid.

Katmai on book tour (13-14 months) from Erin McKittrick on Vimeo.

And though I feel like we provide him with stimulation at home, seeing all those new people and places brought out an explosion of development. When we left he was 13 months old. He would take a few steps, only occasionally, mostly with the right foot, but basically was crawling. He knew around 10 signs and gestures to communicate.

At the zoo

Musician

In Eugene, at his aunt Valisa’s, we took him out to look at the moon – prompting his very first word. It all snowballed from that first word of “moon”. Now, he’s 14 months old. He’s walking everywhere, has a pretty good overhand throw, can climb down stairs, and between signs, sounds, and words, can communicate over 50 different things! Most of it happened in just a couple weeks. That’s a lot to show for a bunch of hours talking to mama in the car seat.

Blur of activity

I have to put in a list of his words here, because I just think it’s so cool:

words (9): moon, mama, dada, eye, ice, hi, balloon, dog, knee

sounds (3): clock (clicking), moo, neigh

signs (52): bird, kitty, bear, dog, mouse, whale, fish, pig, frog, horse, cow, monkey, mole, otter, moose, owl, walrus, baby, car, airplane, computer, light, telephone, fire, flower, tree, stars, grass, wind, rock, outside, rain, snow, up, down, sleep (bed), big, hot, sad, all-done, more, again, nursing (milk), eat, cheese, bread, water, ball, go-round, book, hat, bye-bye

He even occasionally combines them, creating such scintillating phrases as “more cheese”, “dog food”, “baby eat”, and “book all-gone”.

The highlight of Katmai’s vacation: go-rounds and the moon

First horse

But with all the great leaps, there’s one thing that hasn’t changed: Go-rounds. Whether it’s the wind farms of Wyoming, the ceiling fans in a restaurant, or the loose knobs on someone’s kitchen cabinets, Katmai has a passion and obsession with spinning things that has lasted well over half his life. Did you know that lampshades often spin? That nearly every house has at least one loose drawer knob? Thanks to Katmai, I know all this and more.

Learning to slide

I don’t like this life vest

He’s added a number of secondary passions along the way. After go-rounds, moons and horses are his favorite things to point out and talk about, though balls and books are still the best toys. He likes most animals, but I think my friend Rachel started the horse obsession by taking Katmai to see and pet her horse. I’m not sure why he loves the moon so much (he’ll find it in every story book, as well as outside). Wait until he finds out that the moon goes around.

Ketchikan forest

with his cousin

California hiking

on the plane

Katmai’s first birthday from Erin McKittrick on Vimeo.

Katmai’s birthday was last weekend, on Valentine’s Day. We had a nice party, with some babies, some adults, and some good birthday pie. Katmai was excited to receive his new toys (though we still had to unwrap them for him), particularly the “go-rounds” (tops), and the birthday balloons still slowly deflating in the yurt.

Go round for my birthday

This year has been as special and eventful as any baby’s first year, with the twists that come from being part of a rather unconventional family. I wrote a post on Katmai’s first year in the woods on the Ground Truth Trekking blog.

Snowy hike

It’s been really fun to watch Katmai get more and more communicative lately. He’s picked up a few signs (“more”, “dog”, “nursing” and of course his favorite of all – “go-round”), but does most of his talking by pointing at things. I’m always surprised when he lets us know how much he understands. Who knew he could recognize cartoon flowers in books, and knows the word for them? When did he learn that he should point upwards when I mention that something is “in the sky”?

Katmai’s tricks: 12 months old from Erin McKittrick on Vimeo.

Katmai and Ellis

A beer ad?

Playing with dominoes

More fun with the go-round

Story time with Dad

Demonstrating pig face

I can’t believe Katmai is almost one year old already! As is obvious from the fact that I last posted before Christmas, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do here. As yet, Katmai is neither walking or talking. He can balance just fine on his feet, and I suspect he could walk if he wanted to – but he’s a fast crawler and just has no motivation to walk in a one room house. He’s understanding more and more of what we say every day. This means that he can point to pictures of familiar objects in books if we ask him to. It also means that if I mention something in an offhand comment to another adult (say “throwing food”), I’ll immediately put it in Katmai’s head that he should throw his food. Oops!

First drawing

Katmai’s been busy learning all sorts of new tricks. One of his favorite games lately is throw/bounce the basketball, which he’ll happily play either as a game of catch or a game of fetch (throwing the ball and chasing it around the room himself). Another is to chase the kitty around the yurt and head-butt him when he catches up. The kitty’s not so fond of this one. Katmai has just figured out that pens make marks – the picture above is his first solo effort (I did none of the drawing). He is stacking blocks into towers, and throwing them across the room. He has a propensity to drop every item (his or ours) in the wood box or some other conveniently hidden place. And when he’s hanging out with one of us, he spends half the day pointing at things so we can name them for him.

Taking a bath

Enjoying grandpa’s Christmas present – hammers

Cool dude saying hi to his friend Ellis

Checking out the sharp spruce needles

Riding with dad

Riding with mom

It may seem, from these pictures, that Katmai spends all his time in the wrap. What can I say? Hig and I are outdoor photographers at heart, and forget to take pictures around the yurt. So nearly all the photos we have of Katmai are on hikes. And I threw in some other hiking photos too, since they’re just too pretty not to. We have an excellent backyard.

Yurt in the last flash of sun

Trail across the pond

Mt. Iliamna and the yurt

Cool shades

In the high country sun

Babysitting

Snowy peak

Fog under Iliamna

Misty valley forest

Frost in the alders

Yurt panorama by Stuart Isett

The NY Times photographer who was here in December took some extra photos of us that he’s letting us use on the blog. See Katmai getting ready for next summer’s expedition!

Tossing baby by Stuart Isett

Training a young packrafter by Stuart Isett

Panda doesn’t get it by Stuart Isett

On the bumps

Sunset on Augustine

Snow-filled gully

Snowshoeing with mom

Today is winter solstice. Only six hours of light between sunrise and sunset. It’s long past dark, and rain is dripping down our windows. I hope the cold returns soon (before too much of the snow melts), but we’ve been taking good advantage of the snowshoeing opportunities in the spots of weather between blizzards and rain.

So I wanted to put up a bunch of pictures we’ve been gathering, from the end of the book tour, and our return back home.

Sleeping like a snow cone

On for the ride

Panda in the snow

Frost in the spruce

Frosted needles

Winter wonderland

In a new rainbow wrap

Bringing the NY Times photographer along

Katmai had a great time visiting all his relatives down south

Thanksgiving Trivial Pursuit (the guys eventually lost)

Grandpa John through the hole

Mastering the stairs (too bad for him we don’t have any in the yurt)

With aunt Valisa

A perennial fascination with spinning things

With nana Niki and aunt Tatyana

With uncle Scott

And now it’s almost Katmai’s first Christmas!

We aren’t huge Christmas people, but how bah-humbug can you be for a baby’s first Christmas? We decided it’d be fun to have a tree, at least – festively hanging from the ceiling. And I think I’ll make some Christmas cookies soon.

In the line to see Santa at the school Christmas program

Decorating the hanging Christmas tree in the yurt

Katmai on book tour – 7.5 to 9 months from Erin McKittrick on Vimeo.

He’s grown so much, even since these were taken. He’s completely abandoned that cute seal-flop scooch, and now crawls quickly enough to get everywhere that way. I even saw him stand up without holding on for a couple seconds today, so who knows how long until he’s walking!

Katmai and I are happy to be back in Seldovia, in our cozy yurt in a snowy place. Now Katmai is rediscovering our whole home with his newfound mobility – and I’m discovering just how many interesting things there are to pull off the shelves! Things that roll and spin are still his favorites, though. The go-round above the woodstove, balls, cans of tomatoes, etc… Luckily he doesn’t seem too interested in touching the hot stove, but I’m keeping an eye on him. In fact, I’ve been wearing him around more since I’ve been home alone a few days, and he’s too mobile to leave anywhere while I get wood, chop a hole in the ice, etc… I’ve got a new rainbow-colored wrap, and Katmai still likes riding on my back. It’s been beautiful here, but I forgot to bring the camera for the first snowshoe trip of the winter yesterday!

The book tour went well, and we’ll do another bout in the spring, visiting California, Colorado, and Montana as well as a few more Alaska and Washington spots. The first printing’s sold out! (I’ve still got some books to sell if anyone wants Christmas presents, though!) But I’m tired of logistics and glad to be home. Hig has been in meetings in Anchorage, and will be home tomorrow. Dede’s in Minnesota right now, since her father Paul just died. It’s a sad thing, but happened peacefully. We’ll see her back here soon.

One last book event in Seldovia this Thursday 12/10 at 7PM in the multipurpose room!