Thoughts from the Weekend

We just got back a couple of hours ago from camping the weekend in Fremont and here are a few of my thoughts.

1. I hate packing to leave and I hate unpacking when we get home. But I enjoy the time in-between!

2. I really missed my rocking chair. There is really no comfortable place to nurse Christian in the camper. AND, I always had to cover up because I never knew who would be popping thier head in or what little kids would be playing in our camper at feeding time.

3. Next time, we need to take fire wood.

4. I need to be more creative in my meals. Cold sandwiches for lunch and hot dogs/ hamburgers for supper for 3 days. Yikes! My kids don't care, I don't care, it's easy, but we're camping, we should cook something over the fire! And yes, we have before. We made a roast once on the fire and pancakes for breakfast, but since we didn't take fire wood, it wasn't possible this time.

5. I am out of practice. This is only our 2nd time camping this year and I am not quite in the swing of things.

6. If I "think" we have enough of something in the camper, I better bring spare along just in case. We "thought" we had enough bottled water and dog food in the camper, so we didn't take any. When we got there, we realized we didn't and had to make a special trip into town. Also, if I "think" that 1/2 gallon of milk will last us 3 days, I am wrong too!

7. Is it bad that I need to know where my kids are at all times? Sometimes I feel bad because I don't let my kids run wherever they want, whenever they want. Really, should I feel bad about this or should I be responsible for them?

8. Megan is doing a great job riding her bike, but I almost can't watch her! I am afraid that she is going to fall and hurt herself. Her and Matt rode their bikes all over the campground and she didn't have a bit of problem. She did hit a "stop" sign here at home the other day and that didn't help my anxiety any about this at all!

9. Expectations- I don't like it when they are placed on me and I don't like it when I place them on others. Matt always says, "Expectations always lead to disapointment" and he's right.

10. Some day we will need a bigger camper. Adding a third person to our family has really made the camper feel smaller. It's amazing what stuff you need to take with a baby and how much room it takes up. I feel we are constantly stepping on one another.

11. I enjoy taking the girls swimming and watching them jetski, but sometimes I wish I could just get in and enjoy the water with them. With having a baby, I am stuck on the beach watching them and watching everybody else have a good time. And yes, this is temporary and it is the stage of life we are in right now, but I do sometimes wish I could get in and have fun. If somebody watches Christian, I get a little break from the beach, but it usually doesn't last that long.

This also goes for bike-riding. Matt was constantly taking the girls on bike rides this weekend. He said he rode over 10 miles with them! As for me, I asked my brother once to keep an eye on my three kids once so I could go for a short ride. Christian was sleeping when I left and I guess he woke up right away after we left and fussed until I got back. If I wanted to go along, I had to take Christian and push him in the stroller and watch everybody else ride thier bike. Again, this is our stage of life right now, it will be better next summer.

12. Maybe going from Friday to Monday without baths for the children is too long...we would've given them a bath on Sunday, but we were just going to get into the dirty lake later that afternoon. Why bathe them? And Monday we were going home. We just waited, but they were filthy. Even little Christian needed a bath.

I do admit though, we had to wash Megan's hair this morning. I couldn't get through the tangles, so I just put her head over the side of the tub and I washed it. We'll wash the rest of her tonight before she goes to bed.

13. Even though camping is supposed to be relaxing, it's not. Especially when you are by a busy road and the kids are riding scooters and bikes by the busy road or you are trying to keep track of two older children as they run between two campers, the swing set, and monkey bars. Ah, I am almost glad to be home. The girls can run free all they want inside of the house, I don't have to worry about them anymore!

14. Next time we got camping beside my brother, I need to make sure my girls are using our bathroom. They didn't want to go potty in our bathroom because there were too many flies in there, so they thought it was fun to use his bathroom all weekend! Well, he ran out of water by the 2nd day! 50 gallons! Yikes, Sorry!! (and it wasn't just our girls in there using all the water, but they contributed it to it for sure!)

15. Ok, now that my thoughts are done, I should go unpack or make something besides hamburgers for supper!