September, in a post

I used to do a bit of camping. Then I got pregnant with Lillian and who wants to sleep on the ground when you're pregnant? Not me. So we quit. Then, everyone told us how easy it was to take babies camping. I didn't believe a word of it, so we never went. Then, Lillian became a really good sleeper, when we had her exact bedtime routine and she was sleeping in her own bed. A woman after my own heart, she does not want to share her bed with anyone. (Remember when we took that road trip to Idaho and no one wanted to share a bed with me because I would kick them and push them in the middle of the night? I very vividly remember trying to push mom out of the bed. When was that... 1993?) Every time I've tried to bring her in bed with me (like when she wakes up at 4:30 and is wide awake and not interested in going back in her bed), she refuses to sleep. Never have I been successful with co-sleeping that one. So, I pictured a similar disaster if we took her camping.

The ward campout was a few weeks ago, and in our quest to make friends and meet new people, we decided to go.


You'll notice I'm wearing a sweatshirt. It was amazing, I was cold for the first time in months. Some members of the ward complained and dramatically shivered. I sat around in my tee-shirt and relished the 45 degree chill until I really was too cold to do it anymore.

And my predictions about Lillian not sleeping... completely valid.


We all slept for maybe an hour before she was up and poking me and poking Tyler and playing with the zippers and singing songs to her animals and taking Bunny and going "boing boing boing" on Tyler's head until Tyler threw Bunny to the foot of the tent and waking me up to tell me that daddy threw Bunny and so on until sunrise.

When we got up, Tyler looked at me and said, "Well, I think I got about 3 hours of sleep total."

I'd be OK with trying again, maybe it was the novelty of sleeping outside in a tent that got her. Maybe the novelty of sleeping next to mom and daddy. Maybe if we got a bigger tent so we could make a little area just for her instead of trying to wedge her inbetween us in our two-man. Over hot chocolate in the morning, I tried to be optimistic when discussing these possiblities with Tyler. For him, this was a one time thing. Never again.



And now for something completely different.


The people Tyler works with are silly; they have dress up days all the time. On Talk Like a Pirate Day, they all dressed up like pirates, except Tyler who is not silly enough for that, and they handed out eye patches and gold earrings. Tyler also tells me that every email had to begin with 'ARRRRRG!'

Lillian caught the vision, except we couldn't get her to put the patch on just one eye.





Also, you never know when one of your stuffed animals will have an accident.


Better to be prepared.