Camping out...

Well, this week I mustered my courage and took my 18 month old daughter and my 4 and 7 year old nieces camping...by myself. Of course, it was only for one night and we stayed in a camping cabin (a room with bunk beds and a double bed) and the next night we were joined by my sister and my mother (of course, they brought my 2 year old nephew and 1 year old niece...). It was exhausting for me (thank goodness I opted against pitching a tent...don't know how I would have done that alone while chasing around my daughter) but we ended up having a great time. The first night, I took the girls swimming in the pool and thank goodness the kiddie end was only 2 1/2 feet deep...it made the task of looking after the three of them much less daunting ( = We had some hot dogs on the grill, made the trip to the bathhouse for the night (thank goodness nobody had to pee at 3 a.m.) and (with the help of the girls' excellent kindling collecting) built a fire to roast marshmallows. It was a bit of a task keeping Julia out of the fire since she wanted to throw stuff in the fire just like the big girls were doing ( = She was finally worn out though and I was able to put her to sleep inside the cabin while the bigger girls finished their marshmallow roasting and discovered the joys of flashlights in the dark woods. Finally, we went inside where the girls hung a blanket down from the top bunk to make the bottom bunk a "tent" and they begged me tell them a spooky story (note: when a seven year old begs for a spooky story, don't do it...I ended up in a double bed with three little girls and eventually left them all in the big bed while I slept on the bottom bunk...). The girls were all extremely well behaved and enjoyed the "camp out". The next morning, I had the...ahem...pleasure of hiking us all over to the bathhouse for potties, showers, and teeth brushing, and then had to repack the car to meet the rest of the crew over at Lake Winnepasaukah for the second part of our adventure...all before 10 a.m.