You might be asking yourself....How could Chris and Jess possibly consider this to be a good idea? Well for the record, I did not ever think this was going to go well. But our church goes every year, and we most definitely didn't want to miss out on the fun.
We did go camping last year and it has been a point of contention in our marriage. Last year, I looked at the forecast and noted that it was going to be about 50 degrees at night and we didn't have any adult sleeping bags. I asked Chris for a sleeping bag, and at that time, Chris said "What? No, we don't need to buy a sleeping bag. I'll just bring blankets. It's only going to get down to 50 degrees. No problem." And then unbeknown to me, Chris brought an afghan. Two afghans. And as I was laying there covered in sweat shirt and pants huddled under that ridiculous blanket, I distinctly remember glaring at Chris and saying "I freakin knew 50 degrees was cold." to which he replied "Oh. I just realized I've never camped sober. Turns out 50 degrees is cold. Who knew?"
Imagine how well that went over.
So this year, I was emphatic. Bring a sleeping bag. Non-negotiable. And I was very anxious about keeping Adelai warm. I planned for long underwear, and two pairs of pajamas to wear. And I got a sleeping bag, but Chris decided to just bring the down comforter from our bed for himself. The boys had new sleeping bags that they were very excited about, and I had made lots of snacks for the children.
In our life, warm + lots of food = a chance at happiness. I was hopeful. But do you see that my only concern was warmth? And food? As if that's all you need?
So naive. So ridiculously not outdoorsy. So caught off guard.
Did you know it can rain when you camp?
Because I did not.
It started raining at 8pm on Friday night. I had just put Adelai in her pack and play to go to sleep. I should have seen this disaster coming, because when I put her down, she looked at me as if I had completely lost my mind. Sleep in this tent in this crib? Mommy, do you not remember that I sleep in my crib in the house with the heater? Have you completely lost your mind?
Then she pooped through two of the three layers of pajamas that I had put her in. Awesome. We got her cleaned up and down to just one layer of clothing, and I laid down with the three kids in the tent. They briefly played an intriguing game of Adie throwing her toy and the boys attempting to trick me by stealthily picking up the toy for her before settling down. The rain kept increasing in intensity and I marveled at how romantic it was to sleep in a tent with the four loves of my life.
For 90 seconds I marveled at that.
Chris joined us and appeared remarkably surprised that I had taken the whole sleeping bag. Apparently he had some vision of us sharing the sleeping bag and the down comforter together. I laughed so loud that it startled the kids. That was not happening. So, he wrapped himself in the comforter which just happened to be littered with dried up fruit snacks. It looked that splotches of stains all over the comforter, except that they were sticky. Interestingly, at some point you just stop wondering where the stains/sticky stuff/boogers come from after the third kid. Suddenly you just accept what you see. Expensive down comforter littered with sticky goo? Naturally. Chris made comments to support his decision of no sleeping bag again, saying things like "Wow, it's kind of hot in this blanket. I'm sweating" and "I'm really glad that I didn't have a sleeping bag because this is so comfortable, like I'm being hugged."
It continued to absolutely down pour on our tent. I again marveled at how this tent was able to hold back the water. The five of us slept for about two hours. And then.....Adelai woke up. I don't know what time it was, but I think it was about 1 in the morning. She woke up screaming as if offended that she had been left in this circumstance. I was immediately concerned that she might wake up other campers, so I broke my rule of allowing her to soothe herself and I scooped her up and made the infamous "shhhhhh!" sound that is gifted to a mother the day that they take their child home. You get the "shhhh!" and the tired, worn out, beaten up body as a reward for your sacrifice.
And then it happened. She looked at me and smiled a huge smile. She might as well have said "good morning, Mommy! I'm ready for my sippy, eggs and toast."
I would rather meet a bear in the woods than see my 1 year old daughter awake for the day at 1:30am.
I picked up her toy bear that she was sleeping with, which had been flung onto the ground. One of the legs was dripping wet, as if somebody had dunked it in the lake and then brought it back. I checked all around her bed for wetness, but it was dry. Then I stood up in the middle of the tent and found myself standing bare feet in oh, I don't know, an inch of water.
I must have stood there for at least one minute, trying to understand how my feet could possibly be wet. I'm inside a tent....and my feet...they have water on them. How can this be? This isn't right. This is wrong, isn't it?
Then I groped around in the dark to further evaluate this crazy fact, and lo and behold, everything on the ground was drenched. And because this is the way my life goes, that included all of Adelai's clothes, my shoes, her baby, her blanket and my joy.
So I shook Chris awake, who realized that somehow his whole back was wet despite sleeping on his side, (where is the freaking water coming from?!?) and he started to rock her while standing. She enjoyed this immensely and cooed with him, clapping her hands because clearly she was so proud of him. Then we brought her to our air mattress, where she smacked us in the face for fun and threw her sippy cup into the lake of water in the center of our tent. Every time we tried to lay her down on the pillow, she made a sound reminiscent of a squealing pig being attacked by another squealing pig.
Our pillows became wet from the magic water coming into the tent from somewhere as it just down poured for the entire night. Somewhere around 3am as we were wrestling with this baby trying to keep her quiet, she lunged across my face and became totally still. It seemed like maybe she had just gone to sleep instantly. Can you imagine this for a moment? I'm laying there, praying that this baby will pass out suddenly so that I know God loves me. Then, she lunges across my face and stops moving. Her breathing becomes even and she is quiet. And I'm thrilled beyond imagination, but a bit hung up on the fact that my head is at a 90 degree angle with 20lbs pushing down on it. And while her diaper is fresh, the part where her diapered buns are smashed up against my face is a little concerning. I wonder to myself how long I can keep this, and after three tortured minutes, determine that I can't do it. So I move her as gently as possible, and she sits straight up and is ready for the day, part II. Chris turns to me and says "Really? You couldn't hold that?"
About 30 minutes later, she laid down on Chris' pillow while he was moving around the tent trying to find the water. Again, she went completely quiet and stopped moving. If you have ever been around a young baby, you might recognize this move. It's called the "freeze-stop-breathing-never-move-again-or-you'll-wake-the-baby" move. It seemed to work, except then Chris didn't have anywhere to sleep. I was okay with that, but he was not.
So after a couple minutes of the freeze game, Chris gently tried to climb behind me (Adie on one side, me in the middle and that would press Chris up against the tent wall). And then he whispers "my blanket is wet so I need to use the sleeping bag too". So he was reaching for the zipper as I was making sarcastic comments, saying "Really? Your down comforter didn't work camping? So shocking." Maybe it was because I had been awake for so long, but this absolutely cracked me up. I started laughing so hard that I couldn't contain it. And then I was laughing because I wasn't supposed to be laughing. Then Chris started laughing and....the baby woke up.
So now it's been hours and I realize that if nothing changes, I'm not going to get any sleep and that puts me at risk for seizures. So I say "honey, maybe you should take her to the car so that she can scream it out and go to sleep." I anticipated that he would look offended that I'm sending him out into the rain to an inhumane sentence of listening to her cry in a confined space. But he looked almost gleeful.
"You mean like put her in the car and close and lock the door and come back to bed?"
"What?"
"That's what you mean, right?"
"No. Not at all. And just to clarify, I'm also not asking you to put her in a boat and shove her out to the middle of Triangle Lake either."
"Oooh, now that's a good idea."
So they went out to the car at about 4:15am, and Adelai didn't sleep until 6:15am. I immediately fell asleep to the sound of continued down pour of rain and had a lovely dream. I dreamt that I woke up in the day light, peeked my head out of the tent and the whole church had packed up everything and gone home. One might guess that I would have been offended, but instead I jumped for joy and yelled "we're outta here!"
The boys woke me up at 7:15 and informed me that their shoes were dripping wet, the towels were soaked and all of our jackets and sweatshirts had been outside. And no, the camp had not packed up to leave, much to my chagrin.
So, here is what I know about camping. The children love it to death and can't wait to do it again. The parents of teenagers seem to love it because they never see their kids for the entire weekend. The teenagers love it because they get to see each other all weekend long and have fun. And the parents of young children? They have a diagnosable mental illness.
I very much want to finish by stating that the next camping trip will be over my dead body. However, in reality, I love Oasis so much that I consider them to be particularly irresistible. So I'll go. And the best I can hope for is that my children won't remember the constant look of shock and horror on the face of their mother.
Moral of the story? I love not camping.
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| Her face says everything you need to know about camping. |
