We Went Camping

Yes, we went camping. Yes, the four of us.  No, I have no pictures to share, other than the images burned into my mind.

It rained most of the day.  When I say 'rain', I don't mean a romantic drizzle that brings people closer together, hugging and smiling in merely wet-to-the-touch clothing. No. I mean the kind of rain that requires three clothing changes before bedtime. The kind that has kids rolling in puddles and laughing about it. The kind that makes sane people seek shelter.

Thankfully, the rain stopped in the early evening, and we were able to set up our tent. I waited until 8:30 pm to shove the kids into it, crossing my fingers that the little darlings would go to sleep right now, and simultaneously cursing myself for forgetting luggage locks for the tent zippers and wondering exactly how much trouble I could get into for using them...

I checked on the kids a little later. Tiptoeing up to the tent and sloooooooowly unzipping the flap to take a pee- "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHERE ARE YOUR PANTS? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"  Little Miss Dee is standing, naked from the waist down, on top of her sleeping bag. She peed. On her sleeping bag. Pee. I take a deep breath and pass all of my annoyance out through my mouth. She was afraid of leaving the tent. Well, who could blame her? We're in the middle of nowhere and who knows what's lurking out there waiting to eat a small child with a full bladder? I clean her up, put the sleeping bag aside and tuck her into a pile of blankets.  I say goodnight to The Wees and back out of the tent.

I return a short time later, peeking just one eye into the dim tent. Dee is sound asleep. The Littlest Lord, however, is sitting right in front of the door with a huge smile on his face. "What are you doing? Go to sleep!" I whisper at him. He smiles and splashes his hand into a puddle of something on the floor. Suddenly I'm aware of a scent in the tent. I know that smell.  What is it? It's kind of minty, but muted perfumey at the same time. What is that? Once more, I crawl into the tent. I fumble around trying to find the source of the smell. Moisturizer. Huh. That's really odd - Mr Man is not in the habit of getting into stuff (Dee, on the other hand...). I put the moisturizer back and search around for something to clean up. Instead, I find what's left of my deoderant. Huh. And toothpaste. HUH. All over our blankets. All over the floor. And, judging by how my hair just stuck to the side of the tent, all over the walls, too. "Why did you do that?" I whisper to him. I know why. This child will not sleep anywhere unless he's confined. He cannot sleep unless he had walls. I had anticipated that this would be a problem, but I had hoped that just the fact that the inside of the tent is like a giant bed, he'd be OK.  Thinking quickly, I make a bed of the large Tupperware tote I brought alone to store blankets and clothes, and tuck him inside. He was out as soon as his head hit the balled up sweater I gave him for a pillow.

I joined Handsome Hubby and some friends by the campfire. We had a few laughs and went to bed way too late. I also had the poop scared out of me by a sound that can only be described as what a moose would sound like, had it had the taste of human flesh. Someone said it was a bullfrog. Ha! Right. Bullfrogs don't sound like man-eating mooses. Meese. Moose. Es.

I was awoken in the morning by Dee singing her heart out. No song inparticular; just a random, lilting narrative of what she saw and was doing. Apparently she was planning to wake everyone up. She succeeded. I found the bag of food I brought for The Wees: Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, Teddy Grahams (what? they were oatmeal flavour and oatmeal is a breakfast food!) and mandarin oranges, and lay back down, listening to them chomp away.  Funny how food makes kids quiet.

When I opened my eyes again, I got them dressed for the day. As I was in the middle of a diaper change, I became aware of little shadows on the tent. Curious, I unzipped the privacy screen so  I could see. Slugs. ALL OVER THE FARKING TENT. If there were thirty, there were two hundred MILLION! SLUGS!!

I woke Hubby up, only feeling just a little bad because he had gone to bed even later than I did, and hissed that he'd better get up and get the show on the road because I was DONE.

We were home a few hours later, and I spent all day yesterday washing the stink of urine, mud and Off! Deep Woods out of our clothes and blankets. But I'd do it again, so that's something, right? Without the kids, though. And maybe closer to the bathroom building next time.