Backyard campout---oh, what a night

Backyard campout---oh, what a night
Originally uploaded by CyberJazzDaddy.

This summer, and all last summer, the kids have been asking when we are going camping for real. And when my wifes mom bought us a huge family sized tent, I knew there could be no denying now. I'd have to follow through sooner or later.

So we engaged a little experiment this last weekend: the Backyard camp-out.

We put up the big thing in the back yard to try it and see. A dry run to point out the weak spots before we actually haul this thing out into the wild. The number one rule---daddy gets the air mattress.

There were mixed results. I did discover that putting up a tent in your backyard increases the hyperactivity quotient in you children by a factor of 10 (roughly). When the time came to lay down and get ready for actual sleeping, I began to feel restraints may be in order.

We finally got everyone settled down to read a book, and shut off the flashlight. The first one to abandon the effort was the oldest boy, the only camping veteran. It was a cool evening, around 70 degrees, and he turns over and asks, "Do we have a fan we can bring out here?"

A fan.

In a tent.

My "Of course not!" sent him back into the house. The call of a cool bedroom and comfortable bed was just too strong.

Next to leave was my daughter. She said she was getting a headache.

So the two youngest and I were all that was left. Mommy was the smart one. She took some photos, kissed us good-night and went inside from the start.

My big discovery: There's a reason people don't camp out in the city. They are as follows:

*Traffic
*City lights
*The Fire Department (did you know they work at night--with sirens! How rude!)
*Trains
*Wedding parties driving around honking horns after the reception is over late at night.
*Cats fighting. Which I had to break up. Which the boys clamored out of the tent to watch. Which then meant I had to herd them back into the tent. The boys, that is, not the cats.
*Cat's wanting to come in and meowing at you through the tent wall
*People getting up and going to work before the sun comes up with much slamming of car doors

All this and my deflating air mattress meant that I didn't get much sleep. But the boys thought it was great!

Onward.

It's 5:30 in the morning. I've been up since four.

I woke up with a headache, shuffled to the kitchen in the dark and took something for it. It went away but my mind began swirling like it does sometimes. Nothing in particular that should be keeping me up, nothing that should be causing turmoil in my brain. But it just starts firing off in all sorts of directions at once for no reason, like a snow globe shaken real hard with all the little flakes going round and round, and then I can't sleep.

I came out to the couch to see if a change of venue might help. It does sometimes. Not this time. The sky out the windows is starting to turn a lighter blue. They'll be no sleep now.

Till this afternoon after church, then I'll be aching for a nap.

I sadly have been very absent from blogging, I know. And it's not that I haven't thought about it. I have tons of things that I think of writing about. The birthday of the Lemur at the pool. Spending the 4th at my brother's house 3 hours to the west. Afternoons with the family. But there never seems to be time to just sit down and write. Days filled with the everyday. Then, when a friend from out of town visits and asks, "So, what have you been up to?", they get a blank look and a shrug, "Not much, really".

There's work, of course. Tending the house. Running errands. I usually arrive back home in time for the bathing of the children. I try to spend time with each of them. We talk about things that occupy their minds. Friends, the days adventures, funny things that happened---with the little Bear there's always a thought about Godzilla. Yet, it feels like I swing from one to the other, hand over hand like crossing the monkey bars at the playground. Not having enough time with any one of them.

I did find a good book that I'm reading to the two youngest boys at bedtime. "The invention of Hugo Caberet" by Brian Selznek. It's one of those amazing books that we find every so often that engages them and me in equal measure, at the same time. The story is dramatic, imaginative, and none of us have any idea where it will take us next, which makes it very exciting. The book has a novel convention that it's using where every so often the text will stop and the narrative is picked up by several pages of drawings, like story-boards for a movie. Then when the text picks up again, it'll start with the story where the pictures left off. These bedtime readings are full of wonderful moments where a corner is turned and Lemur and I look up at each other with a spark at what has just been revealed.

Sometimes in the day to day there are little disappointments, stresses and frustrations that are nothing to speak of, really, but have a way of making a person feel out of sorts. Slightly sad, and at the same time realizing that a body should be thankful that these little things are all we have to contend with. Yet, even realizing there's much worse that could be wrong, still not able to shake the mood.

But curling up with a freshly washed boy at each shoulder, the faint smell of soap coming off damp hair mixing with the mint of toothpaste still in the air and combining with fragrance of the pages of a new book, everything seems fall into line. The swirling stops and the flakes suspend in the air to allow you to duck under and step out of time for a moment. There is nothing but this page and the next till the chapter finishes and your realize it's getting late.

And you feel like the begging for 'one more chapter, please' means that if nothing else, at least you did one thing right today.