Sunday, August 05, 2007

Camping. Kind of.

I write this(in my head) to the glow of... my dashboard. You thought I was going to say campfire didn't you. You hear the word camp you think campfire right? Well that is not how our camping trip went. I will tell you the story of how I came to be in my car at 3 in the morning with nothing to do but write this.
We went camping with my sister and her husband and their dog-child Lexi. Everything was fine. Bear didn't jump in the fire(one of my big fears) Tela didn't eat Lexi(another fear) and we were having a good time. Until bed time. About 10:30 I think we decided to turn in. At this point Bear had had a nap at 8 and was doing okay. So okay he didn't want to go to bed. So he cried. And cried. And cried. I really though they were going to kick us out and ask us to go home because he was disturbing everyone else. Finally he got to sleep but woke up every hour crying. I was getting very frustrated. Daddy was sleeping through all of this and taking most of the blanket. So I was cold, tired and VERY agitated. Finally at 2am Bear had fire diarrhea and screamed big time. I changed his diaper as fast as I could under the blanket and hooked him up hoping that would help calm him back to sleep. No. It did not. So at 2:30, I decided I had had enough camping and I was going home. I grabbed the car keys and Bear and headed for the car. When we got to the car I decided I should probably change his diaper in the light of the bathroom and make sure I got all the diarrhea off. So there we headed. I got to the bathroom and changed the diaper and he finally calmed down. I thought hey, maybe we can stay camping. As we walked back to the campsite though, I pointed out to Bear all of the beautiful stars in the sky. To which he replied in his biggest yelling voice, "Sdars! Sdars!" And kept yelling about the sdars pointing up at them. So I no longer thought that staying there was a good idea since my yelling son would have caused a camp wide riot. I loaded him up in the car hoping that the car ride would put him to sleep.
As I drove out of the camp grounds I felt like I was in a scary movie. You know that 2 foot layer of fog that hangs just above the ground? I was driving through that. I don't watch scary movies for this reason right here. I have the most wonderfully active imagination. I knew that the thing from Jeepers Creepers(the last scary movie I watched 4 years ago) was going to get me. So as I drove through the middle of nowhere with my son singing about balls and Duke in the back seat, I was watching the night sky waiting for the Jeepers Creepers guy to fly down and kill us. I was driving about 20 under the speed limit too because I was also waiting for a deer to leap out in front of the Xterra. I drove around for 2 more hours waiting for the Bear to go to sleep. Bear would drift in and out teasing me. I also realized at some point in here that I had been driving around with my bullet lights on this entire time and that was why oncoming cars kept honking at me. I played with the thought of just going home and then coming back in the morning but that would of given him 2 hours of sleep before we had to start back. So around I drove, eating tootsie rolls and sun chips. Finally(I have used this word quite a bit in writing this) he fell asleep for good. It was 5:30 in the morning. I headed back to camp and parked in the parking lot. I slept for 30 minutes until Bear decided it was time to wake up for the day. I drove to the camp site, got out, walked to the tent, woke up Daddy, who had gotten a whole night of sleep because he could sleep through a tornado, handed him the baby, said "its your turn," and crawled into my sleeping bag and went to sleep.
The morals of this story are this:
-1 year olds are too young to camp
-always keep tootsie rolls and sun chips in your front seat
-and the Jeepers Creepers guy may not have attacked us that night, but that does not mean he doesn't exist.

1 comment:

MamaGeph said...

Dang. Here I was, coming to bug you about posting more often. Instead, I think I will hand you this shiny medal. :)

I would have left a note saying I went home and for hubby to get a ride home in the morning. Cos I would be sleeping in bed. You are a very kind wife and mama.