about camping

Remember how excited I was to go camping? First of all, let's just say that I still love camping. I plan on taking the kids every summer, and hopefully when they get older we'll go for more than a couple of nights. Maybe we'll even have a camper. But this year had its challenges. I was actually going to write down the events of the weekend as they unfolded, knowing that these challenges would arise. I started, but only made it to the end of Friday. I'll point form my started list:

Tuesday
  • 6:00 - arrived at the camp site. Yay camping!
  • 7:30 - "hey, let's go swimming!" Yay camping! We started to walk down to the swimmin' hole. Turns out it's about 18 miles to get down there. The kids didn't much want to ride in the wagon, but it's much faster, so we made them. Tennyson fell out of the wagon, pretty much taking care of that pesky skin on his chin. Blood everywhere. We decided against the shortcut because it was through very tall, mosquito infested grass.
  • 8:00 - swim.
  • 8:30 - decide to walk back. People were laughing as we walked by, because of our two kids crying the entire time in the stroller. They didn't want to be in the stroller. However, Mommy and Daddy didn't want to be mosquito snacks. We decided to take the shortcut, we were right about the mosquito population on said shortcut. We accidentally took a wrong turn on the shortcut and it wasn't so short after all. Let's not forget the mud.
  • 9:00 - return to the campsite. Yay camping!
  • 9:30 - seems like a good time to go to bed. This is also a good time to mention that Tennyson doesn't sleep very heavily, nor is he impressed with his playpen. So hey, I know, let's everybody cry!
  • 12:00 midnight - the kids finally fall into blessed blessed sleep. We decided to go to bed around this time. Did I mention that Tennyson sleeps lightly? Round two of crying commences.
Wednesday
  • 5:30 am - Rise and shine! It's great to wake up to crying. Yep. Frickin' camping. At this point we let the kids run around the tent and attempt not to strangle them.
  • 7:00 - finally give up on resting and start the day. Showers, breakfast, getting our food back from the clutches of the squirrels, you know how it goes.
  • 11:00 - this is when the rain started! Yay frickin' camping!
  • 2:30 - the rain stops. Miraculous.
  • 2:45 - from inside the tent where our blankets and stuff are - "Daddy I pooped in my pants!" Gotta love those poomergencies (oddly enough, poomergency isn't in the dictionary).
  • 3:00 - off to the beach. Nice cool day for a swim.
This is pretty much where I stopped jotting down stuff for my blog. I didn't want it to start sounding too sarcastic. I really do like camping. The second day was better. That evening, Lorelie & Andrew and their lovely children Oliver and Lewis joined us. Well, not Lewis so much, he slept in the car the entire time. But Jordan and Oliver ran around like crazy bush-kids and had a blast together, and Tennyson fell asleep right away. That's what happens when a kid who normally sleeps 12 hours a night only sleeps 5 or 6 hours the previous night and then has short naps the next day. After Andrew & Lorelie left Jordan fell asleep in Daddy's lap and was happily carried off to her bed, not to be heard from again. The (now) little angels let us sleep until almost nine the next day.

Hey want a tally of some notable things? Yes? Okay!
  • The number of times Tennyson fell out of the wagon - 1
  • The number of times Tennyson fell off the picnic table - 3 or 4. This took care of the rest of the skin on his chin, as well as allowing him to bite his lip and make it big, puffy, and bloody. The kid's a bleeder.
  • The number of times Tennyson fell out of the van - 1
  • The number of times Jordan pooped her pants - 2. I don't know what's up with that, she doesn't poop her pants otherwise.
  • The number of times Jordan was told "no" and then started crying that she wanted to go home - a million.
  • The number of times we said "yay camping?" - not many. But yay camping!
It may sound like the kids didn't have fun, but seriously they did. Jordan keeps bringing it up:
  • Jordan - bemember we go camping?
  • Us - yep
  • Jordan - and we sleep in the tent and go swimming?
  • Us - yep (like it was just a couple of days ago). Do you want to go again sometime?
  • Jordan - [excitedly] yeah!
I'll make little campers out of them yet, whether Daddy is super psyched or not! We've decided that next time we'll get there earlier in the day and let them have a couple of hours at the beach to run around and tire themselves out a little. Getting there only a few short hours before bedtime, and after being in the van all day (we had some business in the city first) and then expecting them to nicely go to bed once we get all settled may be a little naive. Live and learn!

Comments

Q&L said…
where did you go camping?
July 22, 2008 at 8:15 AM
Tiffany said…
Bird's hill. We had thought about Spruce Woods, but you know how the mosquitoes are out there!
July 22, 2008 at 9:53 AM
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