Mark just bought this new (enormous) tent with dreams of many family camping trips. I was off work a few days, so we thought we would try it out at a campground about 45 minutes away. Just for one night. So, we packed up our 8,000 items that it requires to spend the night with our two children in diapers + dog. As we were packing it looked like rain. Now I like camping, but only for a short period of time and NOT in the rain despite Mark assuring me our new expensive tent would keep us dry. We carried on and made it out there after nap time. It started out great. No rain, Harlow ran around finding sticks, Burger was well behaved, we got a great site. Violet even took a little nap in the pack and play inside the tent. We roasted hot dogs and then elected to keep our usual routine of putting the kids to bed between 7:30 and 8 and then Mark and I could have some time to just hang by the fire and drink our cold beers we had in the cooler. So I laid Violet down and well, she cried. We let her cry, all through Harlow's bed time stories and beyond. There was a guy one site over who was looking over in our direction periodically while she wailed. I tried to hold her, feed her, give her paci (all the time knowing that the only way she was going to get to sleep was to cry it out). Typically if she cries at home, it's only for max 10 minutes, so we started to get concerned after 30 or so. Meanwhile Harlow kept popping her head out of the tent. It seemed like eternity, but at about 8:45 (the gate to leave the park closes at 9) we decided to bail. We left all our things there since we were worried if we didn't leave before the gate closed, we would be stuck all night with a wailing baby and a cranky toddler.
It turned out ok though because we went back the next day and went on the little hike to the waterfall we had planned . It the best of both worlds because we went "camping" but slept in our own bed! We just wasted a little driving time...but oh well. The life with two young children!
I am hoping that Violet does a little better sleeping in the comfort of a hotel this weekend since she doesn't have a lot of experience sleeping other places then her own cozy crib.
Great pictures! Everyone looks happy! Good for you for trying it!
ReplyDeletethanks, we're hoping to get some more use out of the tent!
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