Camping

We went camping. Just like that. After a week under a rock, we crawled out into the sunshine, bought a tent and went on a family adventure. It was glorious. If I can get pictures from my friend, I'll post some to prove it to you. So, I had this blood patch thing done on a Monday, one week before Memorial Day weekend. It went okay, but by midnight that night, I had a migraine, which lasted until Wednesday. Then I got another one right after that one. It was a hard week on John and the girls. Anyway, enough gloom...We were not spry enough to keep our original plans of trekking off to the beach which we were MUCH looking forward to. It was Sunday before we were all well again. (Nat came down with some freakish 24 hour fever). Fortunately, the Lord gave our starving hearts an opportunity and the strength to get out and have some fellowship.

Planning to camp for a night with two children 3 and under is no small thing. Meals and clothes and "roughing it" with toddlers takes incredible foresight. So I knew that I would be forgetting something important simply by the fact that we had decided to go camping at 1pm and we were to be at the campsite at 4. We still didn't have a tent. I comforted myself with the fact that we were going with 2 other families, and there was a house on the land, and that I was only 5 miles from home. It was well worth it. I set my expectations low. No baking, no cooking--we ate out of boxes and brought tons of baby wipes. I forgot the camera. I also forgot, or perhaps did not know, that 50 degrees at night feels like 30 degrees. I thought I was going to freeze to death. I did not bring enough blankets. The children slept in a separate tent--amazingly they slept through the frigid night. I did not sleep a wink: I was wide awake, teeth chattering, with a coat on, curled into a ball wedged as far under John as I could get, with a toboggan on thinking what a horrible mother I was that I would not get up and hold my frigid children through the night and keep them from being cold. Then I remembered that if I tried to hold them, they would wake up and climb all over me and out from under the covers and cry and fuss the whole night and would not be warm anyway because they could not be still and sleep with me holding them--they have been trained to sleep alone. It did not occur to me to get them up and go home, or to put them in the car and run the heater. It did not occur to me to take them into the house that our friends had left open for us. I am glad that these thoughts never crossed my mind. I would have rejected them, I think. This would not be camping. My next thought was wondering if my bones and muscles would even cooperate to uncurl and let me get up to check on them. A better thought was to rib John and plead with him to go check on them. He was merciful, and in an act of self sacrifice jumped up to peek in on them. They were fine. In the morning, I think around 5:50, we heard the children wake up, and John delivered them to me. Into our tent they came--I stuffed them under our blankets, on top of our air mattress, happy that they were not blue and stiff. I had faintly hoped that they would curl up and we could snuggle and rest for a while, but they would only giggle and grope around in the covers and bounce on the mattress. So after 15 minutes, we dragged out of the tent to see what progress Daddy had made with the fire.
You may be thinking, "where is the glorious part?" Outside. Just being outside and doing everything outside is so splendid. The night before, Natalie wore herself out with the other children running around and playing. We built a bonfire and roasted marshmallows, and made s'mores. Natalie's face was covered in chocolate and marshmallows--a beautiful sight. It was then that I remembered that I had left the camera at home. She was so happy and sticky. The fire made everything smell smoky. The next day, even our pack and play smelled smoky. I love that smell. Olivia did quite well as our tiniest adventurer. She toddled around the pack and play mostly. She is a self-feeder finally, so she was a cute picture in the morning next to the fire plucking bananas and cheerios up in her high chair (we have a portable one). I asked Natalie what her favorite part of the camping trip was, and she said "the mountain!" There was a giant pile of dirt there that the kids scaled off and on. After we got home, she had a big chunk of dirt in her hair that I had to scrub out. I've never had such a tired and happy child. It was good times. We'll do it again.