Sunday, September 13, 2009

Miles from Nowhere

So we boldly took a 2 and almost 4 year old camping this past weekend for the long weekend. We went to one of our “pre-kid” favorite camping spots – Acadia National Park, Maine (if you have never been there, go! It is gorgeous). There was A LOT of pre-planning and fore-thought in order to make this long weekend a success. It sure did not hurt that we were going with 3 of our close friends and that they had 2 kids Ellie & Cole’s age. The kids had a blast running around, playing on the huge rocks, hiking and just being in nature. Also, it helped that the people on the site next to us had an only child who was very outgoing!

All in all, things went very well. No one got burned in the fire pit, no one got eaten by bears and there were only a few falls (mostly by kids other than ours). We bought a new family tent -- anyone who has been on "guy camping weekend" knows we needed one. The tent has 2 rooms (a zip up divider – kids on one side, us on the other.) They went to bed like angels because if you tire them out enough during the day and they will be begging to go to bed. The mornings were another story. They tended to wake up very early. Lance and I threw books, toys, stickers, anything in their general direction to try to keep them quiet. One of the mornings, after the fact, I remember hearing Ellie say "I'm going to cut your hair." Now, mind you, I was half asleep and I just assumed that they were pretend playing so I sort of dozed back off again...UNTIL I felt a tugging on my own hair. Immediately my eyes were wide open. Apparently the two of them had gotten into my travel toiletries kit and had found not only the eyeliner, the deodorant, the Chapstick, the band-aids, but also the travel nail clippers and mini scissors. When Ellie said “I’m going to cut your hair” she really meant it. I found a one inch piece of hair dangling from Cole’s forehead. Good thing it was not in that prominent a place. And apparently I was about to be her next victim, had I not woken my lazy butt up.