Camping anyone?

I don't always have to write with a deep, brooding tone.  I can be silly. In fact, in real life, I'm pretty hyper and silly a lot of the time.  So to lighten the mood a bit- here's a post about my adventure.

I took the kids camping last night. Alone. For the first time.
I really love being outside.  I love hiking, and swimming, and being in the forest. I always wanted to go camping as a family in years past,  but often I was the only one who wanted to go.  Since life has changed, and I can make the decisions now, I decided I would take it upon myself to get out there and do it.  It was awesome. It was enlightening. Fun. A good education.

Here is my fun list of our Family's Camping 101.

1.  When setting up your tent, either be super humble and ask someone for help, or be super confident and just pretend like you know exactly what you're doing.  Sneak glances around you to see if it looks like everyone else's and pray that no big wind comes and carries it away.  (I did both. I set it up very confidently, and then asked one of the guys in the registration office to pop on by and make sure I did it right.  Guess that thought that I needed a man to tell me if it was right or not is taking a bit to go away. He came by and guess what? I had done a great job!)

2.  I can make a fire.  Really!  I can.  And not a smoky, smoldering mess.  A real roaring fire that calmed into a slow burn for hot dog cooking and s'mores. It was beautiful. And yes, I'm very proud.

3.  Remind your almost-a-teen son not to wander around the site with his swiss army knife drawn.  He said he was looking for wood to whittle, but all I could see was us getting kicked out of the campsite for brandishing a weapon.  Next time I'll remind him before he goes exploring.

4.  I'm not too prissy to sleep on the ground.  I may however, be too old and bony.  I took my yoga mat, a blanket and my sleeping bag. My hips didn't like digging into the earth and while I did sleep some, I think I will need more padding in the future.

5.  Birds are noisy in late evening and early morning- and I loved it.  So many songs joining, and so incredibly beautiful.

6.  I like the smell of fire, earth and even sweaty kids all mingled together.

7. Drunk people were annoying in college and drunk people are still annoying now.  (Go to sleep you silly annoying drunk people! )

8.  Sleeping through the night in a tent with four other people under the age of 13 will not happen. You will be awakened at 3am by a naked child standing over you shivering and loudly whispering that he has had an accident and is now frozen and wet.  You will sit up and realize that your 'extra' blanket choices are limited and will try to bundle him up as best you can, without waking anyone else, and then pray that he doesn't die of hypothermia as you settle back into sleep.

9. Take more blankets next time.

10.  The thought to take .97 cent solar torches was brilliant.  I used one set on top of a jug of water (which softly illuminated the whole thing) as well as one in two different corners as really low nightlights.  It helped the kids a ton.

11.  None of my children are too old to be sung to sleep.  My lullabies saved the night.

12.  Bug spray. Even more than you think.  Ticks? Oh they are already having parties.. some of them were having parties in my kids underwear. yeah.  For real.  Thank heavens for the tweezers on the swiss army knife.

13.  I should have asked for more help setting up our site, but I was so excited to be alone in the QUIET that I kicked them out. Made them go play. It was heaven.

14.  Insist that every child use the bathroom before bedding down.  See #8.  Enough said.

15.  Don't let the kids go in and out of the tent in excitement before it's time to bed down. What seems so fun will turn your tent into a bowl of sand and dirt, and you will be using your car broom to try and get it as clean as you can before realizing you're just going to be lying in it all night and what the heck, we're made from dust, we go back to dust and tonight? We sleep in dust.

16.  Keep expectations low.

17.  Remind children at 6am that it is still time to be quiet and the sides of the tents are not, in fact, solid walls. Whisper loudly to them that their exclamations of 'There's a tick on my testicles' and 'I need to throw away my pull-up' can be heard by everyone within a 1/2 mile radius.

18.  Don't make eye contact with anyone after you emerge from your tent when everyone has just heard about the tick and its choice of location.

19.  Decide that the tent WILL in fact go back in the bag. Refuse defeat.  You will do this. Shake it out, fold it up, pull it into the bag where one lip of the bag will always slide off until you realize that you do not, in fact, have the super power needed to do this particular camping task, ball it up and put it into your car. With the bag on top.  To fix at home. Or, to ask your neighbor to help you fix it.

20.  Cheer the kids on and tell them how wonderful they did.  Chuckle at the preteen who arrived with an attitude that it wasn't rustic enough who is now sitting by a morning fire with a mouth full of pop tarts exclaiming that 'This is my most favorite place ever'. Decide to do this. Again, and again.  Healing comes amongst the trees.