Camping Part II: The Good, The Bad, and The Injured

The Good: 

My kids love camping.  This is a blessing in that they will run themselves ragged when we are camping just being outside and collecting rocks and sticks and leaves.  They love the rocks and the dirt and the bugs and the sleeping on any surface that seems like a bed at the time.  Oh and they especially love the way that bath time is almost non-existent while camping.  We have usually convinced my parents to go with us and they bring this wagon that my kids love.  It's an awesome time.    
 

My husband loves camping for different reasons.  He loves the campfire and just being away from the house on a mini-vacation.  He loves hanging out in the camping chairs talking.  Hell, he loves camping so much that we bought a travel trailer last year. 

The Bad:

Bugs.  Who would have known that there were so many bugs in the world?  I despise bugs.  Especially when they crawl on you in the middle of the night or outside when it's dark.  Now I have that creepy crawly feeling thinking about it.  It's just gross. 

I can't sleep when we camp.  It's not my bed.  It's not my mattress.  My kids are weirded out sometimes because they are not sleeping in their beds either, so they are acting funny.  Plus, I am usually so tired that by the time I go to bed I am too tired... I don't know if that even makes sense, but I can't sleep when we camp.  Around the third day this makes for an awesome experiment in behavioral studies of patients who don't sleep.  I look and act somewhere between a zombie and death warmed over. 

The Injured:

Now on to my least favorite part.  It never fails that someone will get injured when we camp.  Normally it's me.  The last time I pinched my finger hard while putting up the awning.  The time before that we had the scariest time in my life as a parent when Silas took a tumble out of my parent's camper.  Luckily he was fine but that was a six hour trip to the only minor emergency clinic in Mt Pleasant, TX to see the oldest doctor on the face of the planet, who should have stopped practicing medicine like 95 years ago. 

Since becoming a parent I will admit that my anxiety has increased like 4 fold, but if you take that anxiety and add in a camp fire, uneven ground, random holes, bugs, rodents, stairs and open bodies of water, I pretty much become the most stressed out human alive.  Keep repeating:  They are kids.  They will get dirty. They will fall down.  They will get back up. 

Camping & Sara:  It's a love/hate relationship.