Camping With a One Year Old

Yesterday afternoon, Ingrid and I picked up Brendan from work and left to go camping. It was a short trip to the campground, where we found the site was nothing but dips and hills--absolutely no flat area to put up our tent! And you could only sit on one side of the picnic table because it was so tipsy. My first impression was not very good. I was already crabby after a long day, and Ingrid was as well, so...it was not much fun right from the start.

However, we made it happen. Brendan set up the tent on a major incline with some help from Ingrid.

We got a fire started and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.

It started to get dark and Ingrid started to get really whiny and I realized it was about an hour past her normal bedtime. We had nothing but pit toilets so there would be no bathtime for Ingrid. We put her in her footy pjs and of course all she wanted to do was walk around and then fall because there was NO FLAT GROUND. The later it got, the more milk she had drank, and the more she cried, without falling asleep. I tried to rock her but sitting ON AN INCLINE and trying to hold a 25 lb. kid and rock rhythmically is no easy task. And then when I thought I had done it, she puked on me. Sigh.

Brendan finally got her to fall asleep as he walked around with her. We didn't bring a sling so it was just him holding dead weight. She slept for about an hour, then woke up every hour after that. I think we maybe got another hour of sleep before some people showed up with a cooler of beer and songs to sing at a nearby campsite. Hello, people, it's midnight, shut up!! Then at about 3:30am Ingrid had rolled so far down in the tent (did I mention we were on an incline??) she rolled into Cody, who was scrunched up in the corner. She woke up and thought it was really cool that Cody was there to play with. She thought it was pretty cool that we were in a tent, ooh, look, mama and daddy are here too! Let's hit them in the face! Let's talk really loudly, at 3:30am!! We tried everything and could not get her back to sleep for two hours. She fell asleep again around 5:30 and we all got two more hours of sleep before she was up again. How is it that she can get absolutely no sleep but be the happiest little camper around?

We noticed three other families of young ones near us and I think they had similar nights. Most of them were gone by the time we left at 8am!

I got up with her and made breakfast, which she didn't want, she only wanted a "crack-oo." Dirt and all.

We took a walk down by the water, which was gorgeous in the early morning. There's my silver lining--if she hadn't gotten me up that early, I never would have seen how pretty it was!

Like I said, by 8am we were on the road. The people at the office were so nice and gave us a refund for the wood we didn't use and for the night we weren't going to stay. How nice is that? Maybe they knew they had given us the WORST campsite ever. Ingrid slept on the way home, as did I, and we all got naps later this afternoon. It was not a fun trip, but it was definitely a memorable one. I know this will be a story we'll tell her about the first time we took her camping and how Daddy said he was never going to take her anywhere overnight ever again!!