Camping in the Wilderness

My father in law purchased a new car a few months back and as a perk was given a tent. So, bless his heart, he gave it to us. I'm not sure that anyone other than my parents, my sister, my husband and my children know this, but I hate camping. Loathe it. This has been the case for as far back as I can remember. My parents took us camping with some family friends when I was probably 8 or 9. The family friends must not have been into camping either because they stayed in a nice cabin with running water and toilets. And beds. So every day my sister and I would play with the other kids and then at nightfall when all the scary creatures came out, the "rich" kids would go to their nice cabin and we would climb into our tent. In addition to sleeping on the hard ground in a sleeping bag, there happened to be a cemetery no far from our tent. One of the older boys from the other family told me that a dead person was going to come out of his grave and get me at night. I would lie in my bag at night while the rest of my family was sound asleep and wonder when the dead guy was coming for me.

The next camping experience I can remember was with my ex-husband and his brother and Taylor. We went to a secluded island with no inhabitants somewhere off the coast of Massachusetts. There was no camp ground, it was just us in a tent on a beach with not a soul around. Taylor was 15 months old and I was 2 or 3 months pregnant with Shea. Taylor insisted on laying right on top of me and I had to go to the bathroom every hour or so, as is common with a pregnant lady. Outhouses are the most disgusting things in the world, and I would have done something similar to the rain dance if there was an outhouse there. I wasn't afraid a dead guy was going to get me this time, but I was pretty scared that a crab or some sea creature was going to jump up and grab my rumpus. NEVER AGAIN, I vowed. NEVER!!

Here we are present day, and we are the proud new owners of a tent, and a promise from my husband to the little children that we would have a camp out in our back yard. I made it clear immediately that this was a daddy thing. Mommies don't sleep in tents. It's very very bad for our health. Isabella is a relentless child and will stop at nothing to make me feel guilty. So I gave her a "maybe" and she seemed happy with that.

Nick piled about 10 blankets on top of each other to try to make it more comfortable for me to sleep on, which I greatly appreciated. We bought a little grill and used that for our camp fire. We made S'mores and played with glow sticks until it was time for bed. I brought the dog out with us so that he wasn't inside barking all night, bugging Shea. (Shea does not enjoy camping either and opted to sleep in her own cozy bed, and Taylor was in San Diego with her Dad. If she was here, she wouldn't have slept in the tent either. See I have tainted both the oldest children.)

The kids finally fell asleep around 11:00 and I was starting to think this wasn't so bad. Gio slept at the foot of my sleeping bag like a good little laddy until 2:00. I'm not sure if he woke up growling or if I woke up on my own, but I had to go to the bathroom. (I know, it seems to be a problem with me.) So I lied in the tent thinking how ridiculous it was that I had to get my shoes on and run through the back yard to go inside to use my own bathroom and then run back out. But I did it anyway. From 2:00 to 4:00, Gio was so freaked out by all the noises that he ran around the inside of our tent barking and growling viciously. At this point, my back was starting to ache and it was very damp from the night air. Gio and I went into the house, and I was never so happy in my life to get into my pillow top bed.

This time, I mean it. NEVER, EVER, LEVER, TEVER, SEVER AGAIN!!