Mom and Me Camping

Friday morning I decide enough is enough and three nights of not sleeping isn't worth pretending I'm a healthy person. I accept I'm a sickly weak person who has been on antibiotics three times in two months and called the doctor about the cough that is trying to kill me (and my marriage).

At the doctor I have chest x-rays taken and hey! Hello Bronchitis! You're a new affliction I haven't yet had in the last three months. I mention to the doctor how I was supposed to go camping, in the rain, and how I probably shouldn't go, right? I mean, if you could just give me a note to give my son that would be swell.

He doesn't see any reason to cancel the trip, even when I reminded him about the tent, the rain, the lightening, and the lack of bathrooms he still thought I'd be just fine on a camping trip.

Jerk.

****

We're setting up our tents, one of the veteran Cub Scout moms comes over to help a few of us out. As we're helping set up someone's tent I ask, "So are there sinks here?"

She looks at me as though I've just asked if where the hot tubs and massage therapists were.

****

It's 8 o'clock, rain is pouring over me as I realize everyone else has some sort of cover over their tent and mine...doesn't. I borrow some stakes and a tarp and attempt to create some kind of rain shelter. While it pours and I try to hammer stakes into the ground. My underwear is wet. I am not comfortable.

I've never been camping in a tent as an adult. There was the one time Logan and I set up this tent in the orchard at the bed and breakfast we stayed at when we got engaged. But that didn't count because we were in the backyard of a house and also because it didn't rain.

****

The rain stops, we go to watch the bonfire and some awkward teenage boy scouts perform some skits. Lightening flashes over the lake and scares Max so we head back to our tent to eat graham crackers, chocolate and not-roasted marshmallows.

A bolt of lightening touches down 20 feet away. I begin to wonder if, you know, sleeping in a big open field with metal supports over my head is such a fabulous idea. I'm wondering why I'm the only one who seems to think this is a terrible idea. It's probably my crazy medicine talking. Or something.

****

The sky opens up and rain pours down. The bottom of the tent is wet but we're up out of that because of our air mattress. The air mattress I had to fill inside the tent because it is just a tiny bit bigger than the square footage of our little tent.

Max and I get out of our clothes, he's suddenly shy about getting naked in front of me so we turn out all the lights and get our pajamas on in the dark.

It's actually really cozy in the tent when the rain isn't coming down too fiercely. It hits the tarp and makes a satisfying crackle. We use Max's head lamp to make shadow puppets on the walls of the tent.

I hope this is a night Max always remembers.

****

It's midnight, Max is asleep exactly two minutes after telling me he wasn't at all tired and could stay up all night.

I'm listening as my totally makeshift, I-Have-Absolutely-No-Idea-What-I'm-Doing, rain guard is blowing in the wind. Each gust threatens to tear the entire tarp off the tent. I know my knots are ridiculously non-functional.

I'm waiting for the minute I have to make a run across the camp, carrying Max in the storm to the car.

My friend Leslie is in the tent next to us with her little boy (the one I left home alone). The winds pick up and she texts me, "You okay?"

I reply, "Who the hell thought it was a good idea to put the girl with anxiety issues in a tent in the middle of a hurricane?"

Her: "That should be a movie."

Me: "....or great content for my website. If we make it out alive."

****

We make it out alive.

Comments

[Christy]

I would like to say how funny that is (the camping incident, that is) but I know it's not. My husband and I have gone camping a handful of times (tent and all)with our kids and had a really great time...right up until the last trip. We had downpours every day and our tent, beds, everything we brought was absolutely soaked!
Well needless to say we got rid of everything and QUIT camping!

[Kathleen]

Don't worry, by the time Max has finished with cub scouts,etc he'll be to do it all by himself! It really is an amazing movement, one which I've been a member of for 9 years now (we're co-ed in the UK) and one which has improved my life immensely. Plus it has given me so much more confidence, has to be a plus. You don't get wet in most tents unless you have items or people pressing up against the sides whilst its raining or the tents wet.

[Beth]

Wow. Not to be the bearer of bad news, but I just read this last week and it scared me to death: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/story/635872.html

[Beth]

Wow. Not to be the bearer of bad news, but I just read this last week and it scared me to death: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/story/635872.html

[emily]

So, not spammy at all, but this is where I, as the Cubmaster, feel obliged to tell you that the wonderful people at Alps Mountaineering give a 45% discount on tents to registered Scouters.

www.scoutdirect.com

[Calee]

I'm going to point to this story in a couple of years when my husband thinks it's a good idea to take our daughter camping. No way. No how.

Props to you though, for giving Max an awesome memory.

[Kate]

I will never understand why people think that camping is a good idea. Why would I give up my warm, DRY bed, not to mention indoor plumbing, to commune with nature. Campers are crazy!

[Velma]

On one hand, I'm glad I haven't had to go through this experience.

On the other hand, I'm a little jealous that you got to do something with that combination of cool AND suckalicious for your boy.

[Karen]

Wow. I read that and the whole time was thinking, "This is going to be me some day." I love camping...but am more of a "let's find a nice park with bathrooms and showers and cancel if it rains" type of camper.

[Formerly Fun]

About 5 years ago I had a similar camping experience, wind so strong we thought our tent would actually get lift, lightning so close a tree actually got hit and fell just maybe 75 feet or so from us. It was just adults, thank god, but we had boated to a sand dune island and were stuck. I was so scared I was actually shaking uncontrollably. We had another day planned but needless to say when the weather finally cleared and morning came, everyone just wanted to go home. I, who normally LOVE thunderstorms, would start shaking everytime I heard one for the next year. Now, time having gone by, it is one of the favorite stories among the group and at least we can say it made us glad to be alive.

[sozzled]

normally when I chime in with a comment it is some wry line about buyuing you a drink. But seriously Melissa, you are a great Mom. I would love to buy you a drink (or twelve) after reading about your camping weekend...and I LOVE camping....but not to the point of soggy underwear.

[Dawn]

My daughter went camping for girls scouts and I think you got totally ripped off! They had tents but they put them into these platforms that kept them off the ground and had a covering over them! If things got really bad there was a back up lodge! Next you should see if you can suggest the camping place. The one with the massage table next to the campfire!

[Tonya]

Camping SUCKS. I mean, really. Why would people who have perfectly nice homes want to sleep outside? Stuffed into an area no bigger than a closet?

My last "camping trip" took place in the corner of my fenced back yard because my five year old was BEGGING us to take her camping. We did s'mores over the gas grill and played on the swing set under the stars. We went in to use the bathroom. I ended up freezing and woke up terrified at the sound of something walking around the fence. (A neighbor dog.) I hadn't slept that poorly since my youngest child was a baby.

I'm with you...she better remember that night forever.

[Amy]

It is hilariously awesome that you and another mom were texting each other from adjacent tents.

I once chaperoned a camping trip with a group of 8th graders on an island with no shelter other than our tents. All our supplies were on our backs, and it POURED rain for 3 days. At least we did have platforms to put our tents on, though.

[Katherine]

Great memories were being made! My kids still remember fondly (really, they love it) the camping trip where the wind was blowing so hard that the rangers evacuated us out of the campground, and when we came back our tent had blown over. But the awesome neighbors still had embers in their campfire and several families worked together to right all the tents and then sat around the fire and made s'mores.

[Sue]

O.M.G. Just pass the knitting needles and let me poke my eyeballs out. Thank God I have no scouts or I'd be calling "Rent-a-Mom". You are a great mom to sacrifice yourself.

[Jenn @ Juggling Life]

You are a rock star.

[Bella]

Another O.M.G. You are such a better mother than I am. My husband took our 1st grader camping this year for Boy Scouts. After that trip (every one of the boys came home sick with some mystery fever virus), he passed on the spring trip. I am so not into the Boys Scouts, that I have talked my son out of rejoining. I can't imagine doing what you did for Max. You always will have a great family story to tell.

[Peeved Michelle]

Ok, one more reason why I hope #2 is another girl.

[Michelle]

My brother-in-law has bronchitis too... it's really sucky. I hope you feel better soon.

[gertie]

Wow. I didn't know there people who hadn't been camping as adults. That's just...weird.

[Antonia]

Jesus Christ this sounds just like every family holiday I ever had. (Every family holiday I HAD to have.) I remember spending a night hanging from the roof pole of a giant canvas tent to stop it being torn away in a gale. Turkeys in the lavatory. But! we had lavatories! We had sinks! I've done my fair share of camping on holidays and at music festivals but Melissa how did you do this with bronchitis and no plumbing? I take my hat off to you (and instantly lose it to a bear/Force 9 gale).

[Lindsey]

Just a quick thought about the coughing that's lasted this long -- I know you just got a bronchitis diagnosis, but you also might want to do some research on acid reflux, because if you have that, then it's making the cough even worse. I went through the exact same thing as you have -- colds, flus, sinus infections all back-to-back and I ended up with a cough that lasted nearly three months. Of course, I thought I had lung cancer (thanks, Internet!) but my allergist and ENT said they thought it was GERD. So, they gave me a few samples of Prevacid and a list of foods to avoid for the next few weeks to see if the cough went away, and lo and behold, they were right. I've changed my diet (it wasn't that difficult) and it's been amazing. I've been sick twice since then, and even through allergy season, the coughing has been far less than it ever was. Okay, I've babbled on enough. Just wanted to let you know.

[Mitzi]

You are such a trooper! I'm sure Max will remember it forever.

[Kate]

Wow. I know you've had a tough time lately (at least it sounds like it from your last few posts :-) and as someone who has 'been there done that have the hospitalization in the psyche ward to prove it', I would encourage you to take care of yourself. Max probably will remember this trip forever - but you put your own health at risk to give him that memory. I think you have been putting yourself last for a long time and maybe it might be a good idea to put yourself first for awhile and get healthy and strong so you can be there fully for your family.

I don't mean this as a negative criticism, you certainly don't need that right now, but instead as a reminder from someone who has been there. Don't neglect your own health, mental and physical, until it completely gives out on you. Telling your kids you cannot do something for them because you are sick is ok. :-)

Good luck and I hope you feel better!!!

[msp]

Guaranteed that Max will remember it forever. My son and I went on several Scout camping trips and he still brings up the LONG hike we all took... the difficult horses we rode on the trail ... how we got lost in the muddy campground trying to get to the "barracks". He's now 20 and remembers it all fondly. I recall those same moments plus an outhouse (no plumbing) that featured two dead birds as a bonus. (and dead birds FREAK-ME-OUT). Needless to say, I was thrilled when he decided not to pursue Scouts after grade school. (I was also happy because once the Cub Scouts "crossed the bridge" to become Boy Scouts at a special ceremony they were greeted by a group of older men wearing shorts and knee socks with special Scout "fringe." And at that point, Moms were not welcome to join in camp outs and such. They just wanted us for the years that the kids were out of control.. Boy Scouts/Eagle Scouts was clearly the realm of the men. Made me a little, um, uneasy.) This isn't a criticism of Scouts in general..just saying how it was in our particular "pack."

[Michele]

Melissa, I've never commented here before, but I wanted to tell you that your last post about jury duty really touched me. I LOVED that he stopped, smiled and was pleased with what you've done for yourself. What an impact. Amazing the influence we can have on each other.

[bgirl]

I just went for the first time this year with my little Tiger Cub...only to discover that LOTS of the boys only brought their dads to camp out jamborees. Huh. Would have been good to know.

[PrettyNeato]

How ... comforting ...

We are in the midst of planning our first camping trip. I have NEVER slept in a tent. EVER! I am slightly anxious and worried and freaked out - oh wait, I mean happy. All, the while, trying not to freak out my very emo and worrywort daughter!

Glad to hear you made it out alive =D

And, like Michele, ... on the Jury Duty post, I am SOOOOO glad that he acknowledged your success.

[Dana]

I will never go camping, not for Scouts or anything else. I don't "camp." Camping for me is staying in a motel without AC. I am not ashamed. Propers for going the distance, though!

[Michelle]

I used to go camping every summer at my aunt and uncle's house in MA. They lived in a log cabin in the middle of the forest, so we were pretty isolated. They've had bears on their front porch and everything. One night, my friend and I were sleeping in the tent outside of their house, and I heard this weird purring sound. There were definitely a couple of these "purring" animals around the tent. My friend was sleeping, so I had freak out BY MYSELF about the fact that there may be bobcats surrounding me. How I did it again the following summer is beyond me. I actually love camping, but that was a bit extreme.

I can't believe you had to camp during a thunderstorm though. That really doesn't seem safe, but I'm glad you survived!

[Kim]

Wow, that resembles our trip to Yellowstone a few years ago. My husband was the DR. for the park for a total of six days but we stayed for a month. In that month, we decided to camp for a weekend at the Madison campground. Our daughter is named Madison so we thought it would be nice....Not. We arrived at the campground in the pouring rain without the keys to the rocket box. We put the tent, freshly out of the box, together while the seasoned campers under their weather tarp watched. We had never put the tent together because I am a last minute girl..."the instructions can't be that difficult!" Yes, they were! The whole thing was complicated by the fact that we couldn't open the rocket box, the home of our sleeping bags. My comment to Dr. H was "people break into rocket boxes all the time!" He was victorious and broke into the box and we were warm. Our experience was complicated by the fact that our children were horribly behaved and endured many reprimands from fellow campers. Our Suburban failed to start because we spent too much time listening to the radio, the neighbors yelled because our children were too loud and we never caught any fish. I was so thrilled to leave the campground until our rocket box sprung open at 70mph and I watched our sleeping bags go bop, bop, bopping down the interstate..haven't been camping since...Thank God!

[Steve]

I love camping. My fondest memories from childhood involve camping with my family.

We still joke about the time we drove halfway down the east cost to go camping near Natural Bridge, VA only to realize that we forgot the tent poles. We wound up tying the tent upto trees all over the place. It was hilarious to look at.

And now I take my 5-year old camping all the time. What a great way to spend time with your kids.

[jkopftwins]

Wow, you good mom, you! Rain camping sucks (I know, I've done it enough), so I am doubly in awe of you, properly tied knots or not.

I have to remember that texting tip next time.

[Becca]

Oh my! It's very funny to read about so many people who abhor camping... I say, to each her own and I definitely understand why people wouldn't want to go through the stress of the outdoors. As one of those "crazy" backpacker types, though, I'd just like to say that spending a month living in the wilderness through thunder, rain, and even some snow, (underneath just a tarp) was the best month of my life. It can be a very rewarding experience for many people. :) Glad that you got out there!

[Vanessa]

The Girl Scouts don't require a parent to camp with each child, so every time my daughter goes camping with her troop, I go to the campground, help them set up the tents and unload the supplies, then hightail it out of there and leave the leader and co-leader to do the whole sleeping-on-the-ground bit. When they're done camping, I come back, all nice and rested from sleeping in my own bed, and help take the campsite apart again.

I am a wimp.

You are a hero.

[Aye Davanita]

You are a great mom. It will definitely be a night Max always remembers. His mom (sickness and all) making the best of the situation for him.

[KYouell]

I kind of assumed that if our son wanted to do cub scout things that his dad would be the one going camping with him. Now that I realize I could be the one, I'm wondering why I didn't pay more attention during girl scouts. You are my hero.

[Connie]

OMG. I just discovered your great blog.Sounds like our lives are on parallel
paths and it helps to learn how you cope.BTW, I live in Ohio and my hometown paper carries a great column on coping--www.haplecrone.com. I put the word stress in this guy's search engine and was blown away by all of the good stuff that came up. I'll be back as a regular to see how you are doing.