A camping we will go

I love camping!  I grew up camping.  My family would go camping multiple times over the summer.  We had a lot at Goose Creek and many times (from how I remember it) we would decide at the last minute and just take off for a weekend of camping.  We had all those family rituals of unpacking and setting up the camper with Dad.  We would fight over who go to help roll up the pop-up and latch the straps.  I remember fighting and not wanting to search for firewood.  Now that I think about it, that might have been Mom and Dad's trick for getting us out of the way.  There was another family there that we would hang out with when we were there on the same weekends.  I remember my sister looking for her pet "rocks" and filling up many buckets full of them.  I also remember my brother holding me under the water and Rocky the Raccoon that we would hear in the middle of the night getting into our trash.  We kept the game Sorry in the camper and that was our "camping game".  Whenever I play it with my kids now, it brings back memories of sitting at the picnic table or the table inside the camper playing it. 

When Greg and I were dating we would go camping a lot with our friends.  It was a lot of fun to feel so "independent" if only for a night.  We were so grown up...shopping and packing for our trip, setting up camp and making our fires, even cleaning up the next day. 

Camping as an adult with 3 kids....Not so many fond memories.  The first time we ever camped with a kid, Abby was 9months old.  She wasn't walking yet and I remember being so worried that something would happen.  I don't remember if she was sick or teething but I remember tracking down the camping host to ask what we would do in the middle of the night if she got sick or wouldn't stop crying.  (This was one particular campsite where they locked the gates at the entrance during the night)  I really thought that was a rough experience.  But in retrospect it wasn't.  As Greg says now, it was two against one then.  Baby Abby had my undivided attention while Greg was setting up the tent or building a fire.  I remember this particular camping trip, we had a large comforter on the ground and all 3 of us lay in the grass playing with her toys.  (How hard is that?)  I don't remember what the night was like, though. 

The past few times we've camped it's been hard.  The first time we went this year, it was during the heat wave when there was all those warnings to stay inside.  We were smart and went camping.  Cameron didn't like being cooped up in the tent and was too hot to sleep.  I remember Greg and I walking him around the campsite at 1am until Grandpa Scheidt woke up and he took Cameron in his truck (where he was sleeping and it was a little cooler).  Grandpa slept with him while we got a few hours of sleep. 

We just got back from camping with a lot of the Scheidt side of the family.  It was fun and a great time to see everyone.  The kids have ultimate free range since we camp on family land and there is no other campers (beside family) nearby that would complain.  Overall it was a good time.  There were plenty of family members helping out with the kids and I never worried about where one of them was because I knew they were having fun with family.  However, it was hard to relax when we were still following Cameron around.  Although he is walking, the land was not very smooth and flat and it truly challenged his newfound skills.  Plus he was always filthy.  Then came bed times.  I tried to get him to nap on Saturday, but the tent was probably about 150 degrees in there.  So Greg carried him around until he fell asleep and then he held him in his arms for about an hour while he slept.  At bedtime, it was no easy task of corralling 3 children to the tent and then getting them to calm down and lay still.  Cameron treated his pack-n-play like a bounce house until he bounced himself right to sleep.  At 4am, guess who was up?  Cameron woke up screaming and we couldn't get him to calm down easily.  The girls slept through it but some of the family said they heard him.  (Surely he wasn't as loud as the trains that go by.)  We put him to sleep with us and he slept until about 6am.  I remember feeling him crawling around us playing in the tent.  When the girls woke up they played with him until Abby couldn't wait any longer to go to the bathroom and started waking us up.  She said when she woke up she saw Mommy and Daddy sleeping and Cameron was playing in the corner.  Her and Leah played with him until they got us up.

I still love camping.  For the most part, the good memories still outweigh the not so good ones.  I am looking forward to when the kids are little older though.  Next year it still might be a little rough but hopefully the following year, we might see some very happy and finally relaxed parents.  We are already discussing letting Abby and Leah sleep in our little pup tent right next to ours to give us all some more wiggle room.