We have a wonderful camp spot thanks to our family. It is quiet and peaceful and a relaxing place to get away and enjoy a little bit of nature while being comfortable. While on an extended vacation, we decided to try to stay overnight for the first time as a family of four. We were a bit nervous as our daughter has had a bit of trouble falling asleep and taking naps lately but decided to give it a try. 

After a fun afternoon and evening, it was time for bed…and lo and behold…our little one fell right to sleep after her bedtime bottle! We planned to let our boy stay up a little later to give her time to really be asleep so our night was already off to a good start. After a nice camp fire and some delicious s’mores with Grammy and Papa it was time for kid #2 to go down. Unfortunately this didn’t go quite as smoothly as our boy was still a bit restless and our little girl woke up. After a few failed tries and about an hour however, both kids were asleep! We were prepared for a long night ahead though as Fourth of July weekend at our campsite means lots of people.

Amazingly, the rest of the night went very well! My wife and I even got the chance to sit by the fire and talk for quite a while. Both kids only woke up once and, once pulled into our bed, both went right back to sleep. It was actually really comfortable and a great experience to have the whole family cuddled together in a sleeping bag on a queen sized air mattress. We were doing it! We were actually successfully camping with a preschooler and a baby!

Then…5:00am hit. The time wasn’t the issue, we wake up at that time nearly every morning. The issue was…what I’ll simply call…a poop incident 😦 It’s hard to start any day with something like this, even after a great night. Adding to the difficulty was the impossible task of keeping an energetic three year old’s voice quiet enough to not wake up our camping neighbors at 5am. Let’s just say tensions were high, nerves were getting frayed and tears were shed.

Luckily things got slightly better as the afternoon went on and I even got to take a nice nap with my little girl in our hammock. We were able to have some fun times before we left and overall considered our experience a success. We even spotted a baby hummingbird by our hammock and watched its mom fly back and forth to feed it! However, if you ask us if we’re going to be spending the night again this summer…well…let’s just say we’re not keen on dealing with another 5:00 a.m. poop incident for a while…

This is fatherhood…