Needless to say after sharing this transaction with the Hubba he was feeling a little sheepish--seemingly as though he was standing in the way of his little princess' happiness. So when he suggested that during his one vacation that he takes all year that we go camping I have to say I was a little surprised. I suppose a fine illustration to just how much he loves this gal. He quickly started researching places in Colorado with water and cabins--he was only willing to take this "camping" thing so far--and within hours our destination was determined and reservations were made.
Now I hear people talk about taking their kids camping ALL the time. After having traversed the experience the only question I am left with is WHYYYYYY!!!!????? I literally packed enough food and supplies to last us a good 6-month stay in a bomb shelter. Our house looked like a ghost town before we left as almost everything in it was coming with us. It just seemed stupid to me to haul all of our belongings 3 hours away just to unpack them and enjoy them outside for the sake of outside. We could have just popped a tent in the backyard and called it good. Honestly, I think if the wee one's would have experienced THAT we wouldn't have had to up the ante to a far-away excursion but whatever.
Luckily we got to take our pooch with on this vacation and I think he appreciated that about as much as any dog could. Our 1st stop was the Garden of the Gods (gorgeous) and boasting clouds that distended and inflated to the likes of a big head of blown-up cauliflower that you might see in a Macy's Day Parade. The sights were breathtaking and the heat was ON. The dog was about to pass out from all of the out-of-the-ordinary exercise in the mid-day heat and when we got back to the car he jumped right in. As we tried to associate the kids and get some food in them we heard a howling from someones engine, as though they were tearing down the road at 100 miles an hour. The Hubba and I looked at one another, looked around and we both came to it at the same time--the dog had propped his ass directly on the 1st piece of real estate in the car--the accelerator. Thank God for working brakes is all I have to say because that parking lot was FULL of cars, people and pets and with a 40 pound dog sitting on the "go" button we could have had quite an eventful experience. The pandemonium in my mind's eye is excessive...
Unfortunately, in-car navigation missed the updated version that included our campsite so we spent the better part of an hour searching for our final destination all the while to questions of "Haven't we gone this way already? Haven't we seen this part before?" Backseat driver takes on a whole new meaning. Once we arrived the kids were pleasantly surprised to find a huge playground right across the dirt patch from our cabin. It was a space filled with 70's era play equipment that begged to be climbed upon and beckoned a closed-head injury. The playground in particular touted a over sized metal merry-go-round to the likes of which I have not seen since I was their age. Truly I thought these were outlawed for safety reasons but backwoods Colorado evidently missed the memo. With a multitude of miniatures at the play area the kids jumped right in the action. The merry-go-round was irresistible. They climbed on along with about 17 other campers. I was quickly sized up and noted to be the biggest kid on the playground and therefore nominated the official pusher. OK. I'll bite. I could use a good work out. After about 30 minutes of hurling kids around in circles, listening to them scream with glee (none louder or girlier than my boy, of course) and stopping occasionally to let off a green passenger or two I set a goal. I decided that the day would only be a success if I forced one of them to lose their dinner. Try as I might my goal went unrecognized and I felt a tinge of defeat. Once the playground had cleared out a bit and most of the kids had gone back to their campsites disoriented my kids took a whirl at the apparatus on their own. This would be Boy Wonder's 1st lesson in centrifugal force. While I was the pusher my kids just sat down and held on for dear life. Left to their own devices a sense of bravery set in. The Moose was feeling like some sort of hot shot and decided that he was capable of things greater than himself. He branched out and tried on some tricks of the 8-year-olds who had come before him. As the merry went round he attempted to stand up, lean back, let the wind blow through his not so present hair and hold on with his head leaning outside of the bars into open space. Shockingly, the pull of this law of nature was more than he had bargained for and to say he went FLYING is an understatement. The next thing I knew his chubby little hands gave way and he was violently thrown from the apparatus. His head, being as large as it is, got kind of stuck under the moving vehicle and it finally pushed him out of the way of its tumultuous path and onto his face. This all happened in a matter of seconds at which point I am scooping him up to assess the damage, wishing we had brought his helmet, and he was SCREAMING! I figured he had broken an arm, a tooth or received a concussion. Once I got him turned around he looked up at me and all I could see were blue eyes--his face was COVERED in sand. His screaming mouth was FULL of sand. His nasal cavities were impacted with sand. He was NOT pleased. I got to quick work exfoliating his face and he is still wailing. I finally reached my whole hand inside of his mouth and scooped out no less than a quarter of a cup of dirt and then the crying immediately ceased. So I learned here that my son is not so much affected by pain as he is by irritation. Good to know. After a thorough dusting and further evaluation he had only a 4" long bleeding wound on his arm, a sand-burned elbow and a slightly more lumpy cranium. All in all I call that a win because if you had seen it happen you'da thought we'd be taking a trip to the ER.
This trip was filled with firsts. This was our first attempt at putting Boy Wonder into anything but a crib for sleep. The cabin was equipped with one queen bed and a bunk bed. We figured, by his age his sister had already been sleeping in a real bed for 6 months so surely he was ready too. HA! Being a risky venture to begin with we wanted to make sure he was as close to the ground as possible so he got the bottom bunk. Set both the kids up with their sleeping bags and pillows and thought that the days adventures would easily have exhausted them to the point of pass-out. Another "laugh out loud" thought. Hubba and I figured we would give them a chance to settle in and then retire once they had fallen asleep. We sat outside by the campfire and listened to the chaos ensue. Boy Wonder's new found freedom caused a ruckus and he was up and down and up and down again. So our attempt at some alone time fell short and we decided to go in and wrangle the beast. Once we were arrived the up/down program stopped. He was in his bed but couldn't seem to keep himself from talking whilst his sister could keep herself from telling him to shut up. Meanwhile she is up top, singing herself to sleep, kicking her legs like an Olympic runner. This wouldn't have been a big deal but the mattresses of the beds were coated with vinyl (I don't even WANT to know why) so with the rubbing of the polyester sleeping bag against this material there was easily more scratching than in an 80's rap song. To say it was obnoxious falls short of reality. The bed-time charades started at 8:30 and it was now approaching 11 and the girl was still strong at it. I was trying my damnedest to block it out but was just relieved that The Ox had decided to drift off--I'd call that a push. At about 11:30 I remember looking at my watch and realizing the scratching had almost ceased entirely and felt myself floating off to sleep. At 11:45 I hear the boy cry out. I looked down at the floor and saw a gleaming white heap in the pitch darkness and realized that he had dropped his coveted silky blankey. I rolled over to retrieve the blankey so he could resume to slumber and in my effort reached down to feel silky soft SKIN--the boy had tumbled out of bed and he, was in fact, the white crumpled ball on the cold, wooden floor. With my heart appropriately broken, I lifted him off the floor and positioned him between us in our bed. His response: "Fanks, Mom!" as though I had saved him from a burning fire. UGH
Now being that we never, and I mean NEVER allow our kids to come to bed with us this was a new experience. I didn't want him to fall again so between us was really the only option. From that point on I had to serve as human guard rail. The 1st couple of hours I spent head to head with him, we successfully breathed the same air and I could hear his little heart beat. It was actually kind of sweet...kind of. I was reminded of the famous song from Patrick Swayze's hit film "Dirty Dancing"...something along the lines of, "I feel your breath in my face, your body close to me..." but then became starkly aware that this song was not an ode to one's child. After the cuteness wore off the exhaustion set in. My body was contorted in such a way that would have made my Pilates instructor proud. Without such studious training in the arena I don't believe I could have held these "poses" for such a duration and saw this as an opportunity to hone my skills and practice my form. My head was wrenched back while the mini man nestled his head in my chest. Then at one point he had extended his arm across my face and pushed me with his leg so that I was literally given no more than a balance beam's worth of space in which to lay. After this experience I am sure I could work in the circus as a tight rope walker. I decided I was not going to get a lick of sleep in this position and opted to change direction and place my head at the bottom of the bed with the dog. You know it's bad when you choose to share air with a canine as opposed to your kid. With the absence of my body as a safety device Bam Bam rolled over and threatened to fall once again. I quickly fashioned my body into a net-like arrangement and cradled his head with the flexion of my foot. The remainder of my leg and side-body served as a back brace and he fell back to sleep. Unfortunately I didn't. I think I received a total of 45 minutes of sleep that night and woke up in DIRE need of coffee. The Hubba professed that he had about the same amount of sleep and it was then and there that I fell in love with him all over again. He looked at me with his droopy eyes and said "Baby, I was thinking that maybe we might think about perhaps going home tomorrow instead of the day after??" The joy that this brought me was inexplicable. The happy dance ensued as there was a light at the end of my tunnel. I sprinted to the front desk to boast of our early departure. Upon my return the kids has started to stir. My nighttime cohort climbed out of the room and looked up at me with his sort-of sad face and announced "Mommy, I pooped in your bed!" You have to be f#$%^ing kidding me? I said "Are you serious!?" and he said "Yes." so I hurried into the cabin to assess the damage. Upon investigating further I found that he hadn't in fact pooped but peed all over our comforter and sheet (now I'm thinking I know why the mattresses are covered in vinyl). Being that I was prepared for a nuclear holocaust I had packed replacement bed furnishings so luckily we were covered for yet another night.
The rest of that day was filled with a train ride, swimming, more playground time and 2 hours of straight down-pouring rain coupled with a thunder and lightning show. Monday couldn't come fast enough. Don't get me wrong, it was a "nice" time, a good 1st experience, an interesting outing but this is not something that I will be doing again any time soon. After asking the fe-mini if she'd enjoyed herself she responded affirmatively. I then prodded further to see if she was interested in a return venture that I was going to have to cleverly ward off to which she said, "Sure, I'll go but maybe not until I'm a little older." which in my estimation is when she is old enough to pack her own $h!t and sleep in her own cabin. I translated this to mean she appreciated the experience but wasn't interested in another go-round for quite a long time. And so I fell in love with her all over again too.
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