Don't try this at home

A few weeks ago, my parents hopped on a flight in Abu Dhabi and met me in Kuala Lumpur. We did city stuff (visited temples, ate tapas, went to rooftop bars, and slept in our friends' pristine air-conditioned ant-free condo) and then flew in a propeller plane to Gunung Mulu National Park in my state of Sarawak on Malaysian Borneo. At Mulu, we saw millions of bats exit Deer Cave, one of the largest caves in the world, in seemingly choreographed spirals and lines. Then, we boarded a bamboo raft and motored through the jungle before hiking 9km to Camp 5, the base camp for Mulu's most famous hike, the Pinnacles. The Pinnacles hike is less than 5km round trip, but it is so insanely steep that it took us 8 hours to complete! We scrambled up and down ladders and used mangled vines and branches as handholds to pull ourselves up the steep rocks. My parents and I agree the hike was one of the most challenging hikes of our lives, and we ain't wimps. We were sore but happy. I am very glad to have parents who are up for adventures like that. 

After Mulu, my dad had to go back to work, but my mom got to come to my town to visit my school and share my bed bug free bed with me and some ants (you win some, you lose some... I'll take a few ants over bed bugs any day). My students adored her and still ask, "Miss, where is your mom?". It meant so much to have her visit and see my version of Malaysia, which is impossible to share with just photos and stories.

Their whole visit was a reminder of how much cooler my parents are than I am, so I compiled a list of the crazy/terrifying things they did as young parents that nowadays would warrant a call to the office of child protective services. I think some of these things really explain why I am the way I am. Whether or not you like the way I turned out, I do not recommend trying these at home (or in the wild). That said, I love my parents and I am super proud to be their daughter, and despite the somewhat questionable decisions they made, I think they did an alright job of raising me. But still, don't try these things with your own kids.

10 crazy things my parents did while raising me (kind of in order from infancy to now): 

1) Went backcountry skiing with me in a front pack starting when I was 14 days old. I repeat, 14 DAYS OLD. 
2) They didn't want their newborn to get in the way of their climbing trips, so they tied my car seat to their climbing top rope system and belayed me up the rock face.
3) Bungee strapped my helmet to the back of the baby seat on the bicycle because I was too young to be able to hold my head up with the weight of the helmet.

4) Attached a leash to my car seat and towed me along frozen lakes as they ice skated. I assume they took the appropriate safety measures and bungeed my head down to prevent whiplash for this...

5) Bicycled around the perimeter of the Big Island of Hawaii with me and my brother in a Burley trailer when we were just 3 and 1.

6) Camped on a bear trail (the only flat part of the beach) on Shuyak Island and awoke to a Kodiak brown bear curiously pawing at the tent right above where my head was. I was about 4 when this happened.

7) Stuffed me and my brother in the center hatch of one of the kayaks my dad custom built for forced family fun. The center hatch is lower sitting than the other 2 hatches so when we were on the water in stormy weather, Danny and I would get swamped with cold sea water. I also remember being dive bombed by an eagle on one of these outings. As I type this, I am realizing that kayaking with toddlers and kayaking with toddlers in stormy weather could count as their own items on this list...

8) Moved to Guatemala for a year when I was 10 and my brother was 8 years old. In Guatemala we did all sorts of stupid things, like climb active volcanoes and go sailing in a potential drug smuggling region of the Caribbean, but one particularly memorable dangerous daily activity was commuting to school on the handle bars of my dad's bike while my brother and I took turns riding our other bicycle. Before we acquired the aforementioned bike, my dad would bring us to school with one of us on the handlebars and the other on the cross bar of the bike.
9) Went gill netting or on trips in our small skiff and routinely ended up drifting in the open ocean while my dad fixed a broken motor. Once, we were stranded on a the back side of Woody Island on April Fool's Day and it took a while to convince a friend to come rescue us because they thought my parents were pulling their leg! 

10) It is hard to pick a specific 10th item for the list, because there are so many viable options. So here is a list of possibilities: Backpacking through southern Utah with infant Anelise, white water rafting trips with toddlers, my dad's infamous "short"cuts, or generally raising me and my brother in Kodiak. 

With my parents at the Pinnacles at
Mulu National Park, Sarawak, Malaysia.

My aunt Teresa, uncle Rick, and my parents being risky parents