camping

My husband enjoys camping. Read this post for more back story about this.

But despite his trying over and over to get me to go, I still hadn't agreed. I just didn't see it working very well with Rachel.....trying to get the complicated tent set up while trying to supervise her in the wilderness, trying to get her to sleep when it's light outside (her bedtime is strictly enforced....8:00!), having a campfire (open flames!?) with Rachel running around it, trying to cook in an unfamiliar place without a kitchen while trying to supervise Rachel....just lots of unknowns and difficult variables I didn't want to deal with.

But he kept insisting, and I knew it was important to him. So we made a compromise. We'd start out by trying it in our backyard. That way if things went awry, we could come inside.

So last Friday night was the night.

We bought Rachel a new sleeping bag (she had her choice of Tinkerbell or Princesses....you can guess which she chose!). We bought supplies for s'mores. We put up the tent (with Rachel safely within the confines of our fenced in backyard, not running wild in the wilderness--she actually did really well, wanting to help us so badly!), blew up air mattresses, and resigned ourselves to the fact that she'd be up past 8:00 and we'd be going to bed earlier than normal.

S'mores were a huge hit.

So was the sleeping bag,

except that once she was in it, she didn't like the feeling of being "stuck" in it, so she really didn't sleep in it.

She and Daddy had fun with the headlamps:

Her air mattress was on one side of the tent and ours was on the other. She wanted to be right up next to us. I moved her a little closer, but needed some space. We all got in bed at 9:00. 9:00!!!! I figured it would take her awhile to fall asleep, and then I'd get up and read awhile (I brought a book and book light out with me). My husband fell fast asleep, as he always does within seconds of his head hitting the pillow. I pretended to be asleep while listening to my daughter sing and toss and turn. At 10:00 she needed to go potty (no, she hadn't been asleep yet), so we went inside. Around 10:30 she finally stopped making noise.

At midnight I was still tossing and turning, listening to dogs barking, sirens blaring, people talking, cars driving by.....you name it, I heard it. My husband woke up around that time and asked if I had been asleep yet. "No," I sighed. So he told me I should just go in and sleep, which I gladly did, after taking ten minutes to open and close the zipper on the door as slowly and quietly as I could so I wouldn't wake Rachel up!

Soon after getting inside I heard Rachel have one of her night terror episodes out in the tent. My husband has never dealt with those before and didn't know how to handle it because she's completely out of it. I laid in bed contemplating going back out to help, but there's really nothing either of us can do in those situations except let her settle herself down again, so I didn't. She stopped after a few minutes.

At 6:30 the next morning I heard her little feet running on the deck outside, making her way into the house. It was a successful camping trip....for two of us, anyway! I felt horrible about not making it through the night, but my husband was just glad that I gave it a try. I'm not against trying again (the air mattress made it not that bad, comfort-wise)....but only close to home....and maybe with some ear plugs. And two tylenol PMs instead of just one. But I'm certainly not ready to venture out into the wilderness.