Camping

It's been almost a month since I last posted. Where does the time go?  Anika is now 19 months and Kai is 3 months. We've been camping twice in the last month and have learned a few things in the process.

Firstly, the parent who is watching the babies (usually mom) is paralyzed from being able to help with any other task leaving the other parent (usually dad) completely on their own with any set up/ clean up etc.

We have gone back to tenting. The first trip we slept in our van, which was fine but we've decided the van camping days were better when we were a couple traveling without children. It takes a bit of work to convert the back seats into the bed mode and with uninstalling and reinstalling two rear facing car seats each time we want to go somewhere, it just isn't time effective, especially considering the paralyzed parent situation noted above. Also the baby had to sleep in a travel bassinet on the console, so that solution would really only last us another few weeks until he starts rolling over.

Toddlers are extremely skilled at getting into things they shouldn't. They can find and try to ingest cigarette butts, sticks, rocks, pine cones, and leaves. My heart skipped a beat or two when I heard not once, but twice my daughter say "knife" only to look up to see that she'd grabbed a knife off the picnic table that we thought was well out of her reach. Thank goodness for good language skills and total toddler honesty.

Clip on travel highchairs are the best invention ever! Once a toddler is buckled in and busy with a snack you've got 15 minutes that you can sit down too, or do something, or give the baby some attention. Fully enclosed travel playpens are another wonderful invention. We used this for naps and nighttime sleeps in the tent and didn't have to worry about her migrating around. Both of these products are Phil and Teds like our double stroller. Gosh I love the Kiwi inginuity of those two blokes.

Camping creates a mountain of laundry. There is no getting around this one, it just does. We had 6 loads to do when we got home.


You might as well go for 3 or 4 nights because 1 or 2 still takes the same amount of packing and unpacking.

We used to be the backcountry campers that enjoyed going to the harder to get to spots where nobody else would be, so we are still adjusting to the more front country style of camping but are seeing the benefit of having some amenities. A small playground on the campground can be a real bonus, especially if it has a swing.

I think we'll try for one more camping trip in September.