That’s What She Said: Banff with a baby (carrier)

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I
was listening to a friend pontificate about his upcoming foray into parenthood:
“We’re going to stay the same active people. Baby will just come along with us.
In one of those bag-thingies”

He
was referring to a baby carrier and I remember thinking something similar
before I had a child. My baby would not change me. My life would be the same,
just with the addition of a couple of thick shoulder straps and a cute head
peeking over my shoulder.

But,
of course, I was wrong. While never a particularly busy person (I get
overwhelmed by evening featuring dinner and a movie), in the last few months,
my partner and I have taken being homebodies to a new level. Our couch dents
are deeper than the Qu’Appelle Valley. This summer’s highlight was when Netflix
released Stranger Things. There’s a few reasons for this. We both work full
time, we’ve moved three times in the last year and our baby has the energy
level of a tiny hurricane. We deserve a rest but we also needed to break out of
our rut.

We
headed to Banff for a vacation. I was a bit nervous, because we hadn’t planned
anything and on vacation, our goals are rarely in sync. I want massages and
walks with a latte in hand. My boyfriend wants hikes deep into the woods where
only mobsters would go. With a baby, we’d have to find some kind of midway.

Our
first day trip was a bust. We headed to Lake Louise. My partner brought our red
hiking baby carrier, a gift from one of his outdoorsy friends. I wanted to
bring the stroller but was overruled, “It’ll just get in the way.”

We
put the baby into the backpack carrier in front of the hotel. He hated it immediately.
His cries suggested that it was a medieval baby torturing device. People stared
at us, openly concerned. Other parents passed us with babies in backpacks,
their babies smiling and waving. Our baby refused to be talked into it. We gave
him high fives and I held his hand but he still cried.  After a very tense ten minutes of listening to
his cries echo across Lake Louise, we gave up and released him. The baby toddled
towards me, his legs slightly bowed from the carrier.

From
that moment on, he would only let me carry him. I glared at my partner over his
shoulder, thinking of our fancy stroller sitting idly in the hotel room. I
could already feel my back muscles tightening up like a snare-drum as sweat
poured down my face.

The
next day trip was to Sulphur Mountain on the gondola. There’s a trail up there,
a network of wood walkways linked together with stairs. The first time I went
to Banff, when I was eleven, the trail was a dirt path. I guess they built this
walkway to prevent tourists from falling off the side of the mountain and
sliding down its slate surface. Because that leaves a terrible footprint on the
mountain.

I
saw the top of the mountain in the distance and when my partner started walking
towards it with the baby, I thought he was joking. I came to the top of the
mountain to have dessert. A hundred years ago, being on top of a mountain would
normally mean that you were going to die. That’s why eating dessert on top of a
mountain is the ultimate “screw you” to nature. By me eating cheesecake I’m
basically “owning” this giant hill.

But
my partner has a different perspective. He wanted to reach the toppity top of
the mountain to prove that parenthood was not holding him back. Not today.

We
didn’t have the backpack of cruelty. We had only our arms. But baby wasn’t
interested. He walked ahead of me, his little paw in his dad’s hand.

People
walked past and smiled at this tiny determined person. His father smiled
proudly, I looked into their eyes, searching for confirmation, “Is this okay?
Can toddlers climb mountains?” This is the problem with being a new parent,
always wondering if what we’re doing is right.

Right
or wrong the baby continued up the mountain. He took a break near the top and
his dad carried him. But then he wanted to be put down again.

We
reached the top of the mountain, which is not a flat surface. It’s a real
mountain top with rocks sticking out of it. (For my future visits, I’d like the
Banff people to pave it over.) I took a picture of the two of them up there.
The baby looks unimpressed, almost as though he wished there were more stairs
but his dad looks happy. And tired, which is the natural by-product of
parenting.

Oddly
enough on the way down, we encountered babies coming up from every direction.
Some in carriers, some on foot. It would appear that babies are holding no one
back and in fact, perhaps we are holding them back.