The summer after we were married, Ed went out and bought a tent for a weekend camping trip with his siblings and cousins. He bought a six-foot high, six person tent. I laughed and laughed. What an absurdly big and expensive tent for just the two of us. And then we didn’t go camping again for another NINE YEARS. Until now.
We drove 125 miles out of the city and pitched a tent for our family of five to sleep in for the night. So I guess Ed gets the last laugh after all. Maybe.
Oh, did you think we were in the wilderness? Goodness no. We were staying over after an evening in the country with Ed’s co-workers. There was a house (and indoor plumbing) within spitting distance. There was also a catered dinner and a hot breakfast the next morning. Seriously, catered camping for families! There’s a business idea there for someone to jump all over.
It was a low-commitment, low-risk camping adventure for our young family and THANK THE MOTHER LOVING HEAVENS because I never want to spend another night like that again. We were short a sleeping bag, to start, so we had to open one sleeping bag up and then lay out a baby play blanket (replete with built-in rattling toys and squeeky buttons) for Ed, Mary and myself to lie on. Then we all lay down together just after 10pm — three WAY overtired kids and two parents who couldn’t remember the last time they went to bed that early. Imagine the antics and the squabbling and then multiply that by ten. We did get them to shut up at some point and then Irene fell asleep. Ed was maybe sleeping too. Colum was not. Mary was not.
I was lying on my side in a 12 inch-wide swath of space between Colum and Mary trying to nurse her down while Colum kept asking me question after question after question. “You’re waking Mary,” I kept hissing. I was lying on my side, nursing Mary down to keep her from crawling all over the tent, our bodies, our faces, and hiding the car key in a bundle of dirty underwear. I was lying on my side on the rock hard ground and I couldn’t move at all, all night long. I mean, I kept trying to shift … just … a … little … bit … and Mary would wake up instantly, screaming mad.
Finally, the sun started to rise and some cows on the next farm started mooing like their lives depended on it and I gave up trying to get her to sleep anymore. I let her crawl and cry and thrash and scream until Ed took her and the other kids out to watch the sun rise and I caught a couple blessed hours of shut eye.
So, lesson learned. Next time we will have some sort of foam or air mattress, enough sleeping bags for everyone and a baby who is a full year older. Any other family camping tips I should know? Because clearly I’m a little lost.
