Camping with a Crawler

We are ambitious parents. Josh and I took Dean camping last weekend with some friends of ours. I don't know why we thought it was a good idea to take a crawling child to the woods in the middle of the summer. Dean had a blast. I have never heard him laugh so much. He loved being outside all the time, watching the dogs run around, swimming int he lake, and playing in the dirt. We quickly gave up on trying to keep him from eating dirt and focused more on keeping rocks out of his mouth. Hard to do when you are in a campground with gravel lots. Half the time I would corral him in the tent (which he also thought was hilarious) to give myself a break from the gravel watch, but it was so hot that those moments didn't last long. Then there was meal time...how are you supposed to feed a child like this without a high chair? Even with the 4 of us trying to keep him at least on a blanket while we shoved food in his face, it was quite an ordeal. He was so excited about everything that I could hardly get him to eat the whole time.

So, the daytime was exhausting, but all in all a lot of fun. Dean LOVES the water so it was great that we were 20 yards from the lake. We went swimming like 5 times. A nice way to wash off the filth that coated him from crawling through the dirt and the missed mouthfuls of food that I smeared all over him.

Then the nighttime came...Dean usually goes to sleep around 7:30pm and doesn't make a sound until 6:30am - -I know, we are the luckiest parents in the world. Well, I knew 7:30 would be too early for his excitement level. We all crammed in our big new tent and let him crawl around while we played cards, in hopes that he would finally just crash. 8:30 came and he wasn't slowing down. I proceeded to try to hold him and bounce him around singing him to sleep. He just thought this was more fun. After an hour I gave up and put him in the car and drove around until he fell asleep. Miraculously, he stayed asleep when I got him out of the car and laid him in the tent. He stayed that way while we played cards and ate scrumptious dessert of Cherries-a-la-bugspray and tick-brownies delight. Dean still didn't stir when Josh, Cooper, Jess, and I got in bed. Another peaceful hour goes by with nothing until Cooper hears something and jumps up, waking Dean up. Well, once Dean saw that all of us were on the ground int he same place he was wide awake. He thought it was the funnest game and laughed like crazy and just wanted to crawl around. Josh, somehow slept right through this for more than 2 hours. I had finally had it and woke him up so he could drive Dean around and try to get him back to sleep. The remainder of the night was spent with Josh driving Dean around until he fell asleep, and then the 2 of them slept in the car for a while until Dean woke back up...and the cycle repeated. So all in all, I think we got about 4 hours of sleep total. Josh brought Dean back to the tent at 6am and he was ready to go. We, of course, were done. We packed up and said goodbye to our friends. At 7am we were at the park gate ready to go home and pretend like the whole thing never happend. Only one problem - the gate wouldn't be unlocked until 8am. Lovely. We went back to our sight and had breakfast and coffee with our friends, lifting our spirits some and and letting the caffeine work it's magic. Dean fell asleep (go figure) during this time and slept peacfully in the car for an hour while we ate and drank.

So camping with a crawling child...not the best idea we've had. Doing it in 95 degree weather, during tick season, with no form of child restraint for sleeping or eating...even worse idea. So we had decided that we are not going to attempt it again until later in the fall when the weather is much much cooler, when Dean will be walking more than crawling, when the "everything goes in my mouth" phase is more or less done, and when enough time has gone by for us to forget that miserable night. We also decided that we don't care how rediculous we look, we are going to bring a booster seat and pack-n-play camping. We've done plenty of minimal backpacking and have no qualms about being overpacked car campers now. Times are a changin.

(PS. We have only one picture from the whole trip. I regret not having taken more of his first camping trip. Let your imagination do the work of painting the picture of the little guy spashing in the lake, eating all the dirt he can fit in his mouth, and laughing in the tent in the middle of the night.)