Camping? Really? But you said....

...that you'd never go again with an infant...or a toddler in this case. I know - I know! But I guess deciding to take Ryan camping is sort of like deciding to have another baby - at least so they tell me: you sort of forget what it's really like! ;-)

For those of you who don't remember, we've taken Ryan out in our trailer twice now. Once at 3 months and again at 9 months. Three months was CAKE: I just carried him around in my baby bjorn carrier and he was happy as can be. Nine months: not fun for me at all. Ryan was active and crawling and nothing in the trailer is baby proofed! It was hard to keep him away from the heater (which gets hot), the stairs (which he could tumble down) and the bathroom. He was also too heavy for me to carry around all the time but he couldn't walk either. So after 9 months, I said "Nope - not going again until he can walk".

So here we are - at just about 15 months and I decided that I would try it again...with the proviso that we'd go "only if Brian, Janet, and Sara went too". They were willing (and excited) to come and I was happy to have someone come who also has a curious toddler that likes to explore and get into things!

After several days of procrastinating...and honestly hoping that something would come up that would prohibit us from going...I finally resigned myself to going and put on a new attitude. :-) No sense in making myself miserable and worrying about things that might or might not happen, right?

And wouldn't you know it? Ryan did great on the trip to Stonyford - - - although we left at his bedtime, the little booger slept for all of 40 minutes! By the time we got the trailer unloaded and set up and him ready for bed, it was close to midnight. For a little guy who typically goes to bed between 7:00 and 8:00 and sleeps for 12 hours - this was a big change for him! I was amazed that he didn't even act tired!

You wouldn't believe how much fun Ryan had once we got up the next morning...nor how dirty he was! He had a great time scavanging for rocks, playing in the dirt, and playing with Sara. I slowly got over the fact that he was "dirty" and just let him have a good time. :-) We explored our campground...went for a walk to the meadow to pick up more rocks....and generally entertained most everyone in our site!

He did great sleeping in his pack-n-play and actually did fine getting himself to sleep too! This was one of my biggest worries - because if Ryan doesn't sleep - no one sleeps! I think it was all the action during the day that wore him out. I now feel like I can take him anywhere and do just fine!

I wish I could say that I was a great mom and took a lot of pictures but I didn't....I was so busy chasing him that the camera stayed in the bag ... in the closet! The only picture I took was when we were packing up the trailer to go home. Ryan was "helping" daddy load the bikes and dug out mommy's gloves. Nothing like seeing a toddler wearing his mom's dirtbike gloves! I'll add that picture soon. I really never laughed so hard!










































Hopefully I'll get the hang of this blog sooner rather than later...I know I have some pictures to share! Thanks for visiting!