Turning My Tent Upside-Down: A Lesson in Camping with Kids

Some families do Disney. Some do Hilton Head or Daytona Beach. Others jet across an ocean because they have the funds (bless them, oh Lord, for I am jealous). Then there are families that camp.

Camping is not for everyone. Sometimes it's a harrowing experience with more dirt and bugs than you can shake a stick at. Other times you walk into a deluge meant only for Noah. Laying on the ground isn't for everyone. But for some, it is the piece de resistance. My childhood was full of that resistance. 

There were multiple summers where we packed our Honda Civic wagon to the ceiling and drove across the country, camping the whole way. A cooler wedged in the middle of the back seat was the only thing separating my sister from myself. But the cooler was narrower than my arm, so it was useless in stopping any fights that involved hitting, poking, or pinching.

Most mornings we would pack up camp and drive for 8-10 hours, only to stop by dinner time and set up camp again. Everything in the car had a place, that had a smaller place in which the place would be set in order to make room for the next place. There was order to the order and it was beautiful. I credit it all to my dad, but I'm sure mom helped. (I love you mom. You make great sandwiches.) We rolled our clothing into tiny cylinders so that we could squeeze as many outfits as possible into the small duffle bags that held our lives for more than a month. Dinners were cooked over a Coleman stove, and lunches were always packed in the morning for quick an easy disbursement at noon. A well-oiled machine people. Clockwork.

It may not sound super appealing to you, but the memory of these trips has reached sainthood in my mind. And so, with that tucked away in my adolescent brain, I grew up and had children of my own. And what better thing to do with five children than go camping? Stay home, you say? Not a chance.

Planning- a.k.a. the part where you are blissfully unaware of reality

Seeing as how I was a child when I was little, I didn't really have an insiders view of the preparations for camping. I saw the results, but not the process that led up to it. With that skewed vision in mind, I began to plan our Grand Memorial Day Camping Adventure. I made lists. I love them, and they make me inexplicably happy. Kind of like straight lines in mown grass. Lists of food. Lists of things to do. Lists of super important, don't you dare forget this because this is the most essential item when camping, kinds of things. 

                           

Packing- a.k.a. the part where you realize just how much your lists have on them

There are seven people in our family. That is a lot of sleeping bags. Two tents. A lot of pillows. It is a lot of shirts, shorts, towels, underwear, teddy-bears, toothbrushes and diapers. When we bought our wonderful mini-van, we did not think ahead like smart people do, and got a not-so-grand caravan. That means that the packing space in the trunk is deep enough for a grocery bag. Maybe a couple of raisins. 

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Once we were squeezed into our spaces like toothpaste, we made the trek across the state to the campground. Our site was directly across from the playground. Thank you, Lord, and Amen. The kids played in the sandy Michigan dirt while Adam set up camp. Dinner was late and crazy. Ramen with veggies. And all of a sudden it was dark, so off to sleep we went. 

Just kidding. Adam in one tent with four children, and me in the other with the one that cries and wakes up an average of 5 times a night. No sleep.

Breakfast- a.k.a. the meal that should inspire a camper to climb mountains, or at least trade legos

Bacon. Eggs. Poptarts.

Two parts iconic, one part reality.

Oh, and coffee. (See, "no sleep" above)

We spent the next two days boating, fishing, swimming. All on whims. No plans, just wake up and be. 

It. Messed. With. My. Head.

What about my lists?

What about the meal planning that I did?

How is this going to be EPIC if it doesn't go like I planned?

The moment of truth came our third night there. I had packed our super awesome ice cream making balls, and all the pre-measured ingredients in little zip-loc baggies to make some deliciousness. While the kids were boating/playing/fishing, I got them set up. Salt and ice in one end, and cream and sugar in the other. The time comes to roll the balls and there is not a child to be found. I spy one across the playground. Even before he's in earshot he starts yelling a question about going to play a game. He can clearly see the big red ice cream balls under my arms. He does not want to do the quintessential camp thing that I planned. He wants to play. 

No.

But mom, can't I just go play and then come back when it's ready?

No.

Seriously?

No. If you go play now, you will come back and watch us eat ice cream. And I will eat it slowly and make lots of good food noises so that you are certain to regret your decision to go have fun and leave me with all the work. Shake. A. Ball.

(Somewhere in my planning, I forgot to check how long the process takes. Fatal mistake.) 

Mom, is the ice cream ready yet?

No.

How long does it take?

It takes...as long...as it takes!

How long is that?

*flames...on the side of my face*

In the end, I sent them all off to play while I finished making what ended up being sweet cream shakes. When they came back to enjoy the fruit of my labor, the baby was eating dirt, the mosquitoes were attacking, and the mountain of camping dishes to be done before bed was literally falling off the picnic table. At some point, Adam disappeared into the van for three minutes...just to sit...away from the insanity. 

Darkness could not fall soon enough.

As I lay in my sleeping bag, cursing myself and regretting the crazy rabid mama that I had become that evening, I began to think a bit more about the perfection that I had failed to achieve. My memories of camping as a child are so gilded and perfect. I don't know what work went into creating those memories. I don't know if my parents were stressed out trying to do that with us. I don't even know if the memories that I have are fully accurate. I may have created things just to match the emotional euphoria that is etched in my heart from those trips. 

But looking back, it wasn't the meals or the detailed planning that made me love those trips. It was the moments. Snapshots in time. Family intimacy in God's great big beautiful creation. Bugs and all. 

My kids had spent the weekend wallowing in each of those delicious snapshots. Writing those memories into their little souls as beautiful, fun and good. They were seizing the day while I was worrying about planning for the next great memory. 

*face palm*

It really was an absolutely, fantastic weekend. And in spite of my obsessive tendencies, the kids deemed it the best. weekend. ever. Adam and I came out alive, and know for certain that we'll do it again.

 In fact, we've already started planning... 

Anger Mis-management

My mind has been very preoccupied lately. So many different parts of my life are flying in as many directions, and I often find it difficult to be "in the moment". This is a dangerous place to be when five small children are constantly running circles around my ankles and asking questions about life and their pursuit of a mid-morning snack.

Needless to say, it hasn't gone very well.

Take today, for instance. All day I was sitting on pins waiting for a call from our loan officer. The appraisal for our hopeful house was supposed to come back today, and it was ALL I COULD THINK ABOUT. The kids would come up, be completely in my face, and I wouldn't even see them there. I would hear my name being called, as if from far far away in a distant Narnia land, only to realize that their nose was touching mine and they were screaming. Bloody, evil screaming.

So I screamed back.

Bloody, evil, Mommy screaming. Ugh.

Case in Point:

While trying to explain a math problem to one of the older boys today, the younger one piped up with the answer. I asked him to wait so that I could finish my sentence. And he kept talking. No pause, nothing...just kept going. As if the words coming out of his mouth had to be expelled before he could breathe. It was infuriating. After shushing him three times to no avail, I lost it. I started to make this terrible noise. Like the one they teach you to do when you're being attacked. Not a high pitch scream, but a guttural, loud, annoying air horn type of sound. One that might just make you pee your pants if you're 6 years old and sitting at the dining room table trying to do your math.

And this was not a singular sensation today. Granted, I didn't pull out my victim scream again...but seriously, every time that I felt crossed or disrespected or ignored or inconvenienced, the volume of my voice would jump. IMMEDIATELY. No questions asked, just yell.

By 4pm I was certain that all was lost. I just knew that the appraisal would come in low and that we would have to walk away from the house we wanted...that my children would grow up knowing only one form of communication defined by its excessive volume, and that they would need therapy in order to survive...I knew that I couldn't do any of this well enough, not school, not child rearing, not wifery, not housekeeping, nothing. And it was only 4pm, so I just couldn't justify that glass of wine.

*sigh*

There are some days that are just like that. ^

Sometimes things are beautiful, and my children listen and I can just feel God working through me to raise my children. Then there are others where it's lost before 8am and the desire to hide in my bathroom behind locked doors is so intense that I can not resist the fleeting respite, and I sit on the pot with my face in my hands and choose to breathe through the din of the banging on the door.

It's on days like today that I am so thankful for tomorrow.

When my 6 year old wakes up tomorrow, he will look at me with fresh eyes. He will see his mama. His strong, beautiful, morning coffee breath mama, and he will curl up in my arms as if there was never an evil bloody screaming match over a math answer. He will reach up and twist my pony tail and tell me he loves me because, like the God that made him, his mercy for me is new every morning.

hallelujah.

All Grown Up

The other day, I had to take one of the boys in to have a tooth pulled. He's a brave fellow. Always. As my little guy settled down in the chair, knowing exactly what was coming, the dentist looked over at me and handed me the papers to sign so that he could go ahead with his work. Then he said, "Mom, do I have your permission to go ahead and do this?"

In that split second, I felt like the world around me was moving in fast forward. Life in motion, me sitting still. Moments like these bring to the forefront of my mind the glaring reality that I am a grown-up. Some educated dude I had just met was asking me if it was okay to poke and prod and yank at a child's mouth, removing a tooth and cutting up some gums. Asking me! How in the world did I get here? How is it that I hold the weight of that decision -and so many others- in my hands?

Times like these (which happen more often than I should probably admit) make me feel emotionally naked. I fear that the person I'm talking with can see into my soul and is chuckling to themselves, "Look at her, a kid pretending to be an adult! Who let her in?"

I know it didn't happen all at once. Little by little, adulthood grows on you. Some of us start earlier than others, with it thrust upon us when we are yet children through the circumstances of our young lives. Some of us fight it into our 40's. But eventually, whether we like it or not, we grow up.

We pay bills. We stress about committees. We do yard work. We tie the knot. We have kids. We get used to our hands being puked in or pooped on. We have cats. We suck it up and dig the hairballs out of the drains. We deal with the IRS...

Other than the whole cat thing, I've done all of that.

My husband and I have been married for over a decade, and have five children. I would say that we certainly qualify as grown-ups. Yet with the birth of each child, I kept telling myself that I didn't feel grown up. Maybe I'll feel it when we finally buy a house, I surmised. That's what adults do. They buy houses.

So here we are, wading through the paperwork to close on a house.

Do I feel any more grown-up? Nope.
Stressed out? Yep.

Maybe it's synonymous. Stressed Out = Grown Up

I certainly hope not, because if that's the case, hypertension is in my near future, and my fingernails will be a thing of the past. My children will grow up to hate me and eventually refuse to grow up themselves for fear of becoming as stressed as their mother, therefore causing me more stress and creating a vicious cycle and some seriously daunting therapy bills. I can see it all, and it isn't pretty.

Okay, rewind. What I said before, about that feeling in the dentist office...am I the only one? Do you ever get that feeling when you're in the middle of big decisions, or even everyday life? Can you feel your 10 year old self, still tangibly present inside you, and it seems to be more who you are than the grown-up that the world thinks you've become?

I look back at my childhood and wonder if my parents, and parents of friends, and Sunday school teachers, and elementary school teachers, and all those people that seemed so very big and important at that time... Did they feel that way? Did they look in the mirror at the end of the day and wonder what they were doing, and how they ended up being responsible for so much?

I have to assume that the answer is yes. *If you disagree with me here, and have never experienced this phenomenon, you are not allowed to tell me. I do not want to know. Shh. Seriously. Shhh. *

When I wake up in the morning, five small people need me. FIVE. That's still such an unreal, crazy number. Five persons who need me to feed them. Teach them. Discipline and guide them. Every thing that I do is sopped up by their little brains and turned into stock photos of what a grown up looks like. I am their main reference for "functional adult human being".

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

So, yes. Obviously, a grown-up.

I was thinking though, that it's probably good to keep a bit of that 10 year old around. Me, back then -though thoroughly confused by the world- hadn't yet crossed the threshold into a place of false pretenses and self-importance. There was still imagination and wonder, a willingness to receive correction and an understanding that I didn't know much of anything. That's the beauty of being only a decade out of the womb: you're free to be real about knowing so little, and therefore, free to learn faster and ask more questions without fear of reproach.

Imagination - Humility - Fearlessness

None of those qualities seem like a poor lot to keep in your back pocket.  That and maybe some jacks, your lunch money, and a sparkly gel pen...for signing really important documents.

Transparency

I was walking around our house the other day, muttering to myself under my breath, cursing each and every object I tripped over.  Nothing was where it was supposed to be.  I had cleaned one spot of the house over five times that morning, and it had been stealthily re-mucked...again.  AGAIN!  Seriously, if I could make money off my children's ability to make messes, I would be blogging from a lounge chair somewhere in the Caribbean.

After about an hour of brooding over the mess, slamming cabinet doors, and snapping at my children, I took a deep breath and asked myself a question:

Why am I doing this?  Nothing is ruined because my house is messy, so why the intense stress to maintain a certain standard?

So I sat down for a few minutes and read a Parents magazine while the world continued to fall apart in my living room... and as I went through that magazine it hit me. The last page was this beautiful advertisement for a mattress set from a big Swedish store that rhymes with Eyepeeya.

Do you see it?  It's just a mattress.  But the bed is made, even though she's still sleeping in it, and the window is clean, and it's sunny outside.  And her closet is organized, and her husband is holding presents. She's got kids blowing confetti at her, for goodness sake...and why?  Because she has a new mattress from Eyepeeya!  Yaaaay!

Now, I know (consciously) that this is an advertisement.  This is a set, not a real home.  It took hours, and many people to make it happen. That is fake sunlight shining on fake trees.  In fact, that might just be a fake dog. I bet they make those. Those presents are empty, and after this photo shoot, every single one of those models went back to their own homes that are most likely not nearly as well kept as this picture.  I KNOW this.  In my brain.

But advertising is really good at doing what it does.  Something inside me is absolutely convinced that because I saw it in a magazine, it is NORMAL.  I believe, subconsciously, that I am the only one with a messy house and imperfect furniture. Everyone else has it together, except me. 

Bam.

We are constantly bombarded with things like this.  Things that tell us how we should dress, what car we should drive, how much we should weigh, what our house should look like, what kind of toothpaste we should use, and what kind of toilet paper will help us feel the least human when we poop (a pretty quilting pattern makes it SO much less so).

Why the puppy? Where does puppy softness come into play around one's butt? Eww.

Then there's the other end of the spectrum.  We have given up the hope that we can win this war against advertisement, so in order to feel like we've got it together, what do we do? 

REALITY T.V.   (Double Bam.)

How does a show like Hoarders become popular?  What about Extreme Cheapskates?  We want to see people mess up more, be uglier, get dirtier, make more mistakes, and live in worse poverty and more scandal than we do.  

It's a beautiful tirade.  I know.  And I think that most people are already aware of this vicious cycle that we've created, and all take part in.  But it's a terrible cycle, and it completely lacks one thing:

TRANSPARENCY

Transparent:  adjective \tran(t)s-ˈper-ənt\

: able to be seen through

: easy to notice or understand

: honest and open : not secretive

Here's the meat of it, folks.  I think that what you need (and I what I need as well), is a lot of that ^.

So I'm going to start.  The other day, after reading that stupid magazine, and coming to these conclusions, I walked around our house with a camera.  

I didn't move anything.  I didn't add any filters.  I just documented.

the living room. this is actually pretty clean. our couch is really old, and the stuffing is coming out of the arms and all three cushions need to be covered with sheets in order to stay together. and yes, those are legos on the floor with my baby.  judge away.

this is my kitchen counter even before breakfast dishes.  you should see it at the end of the day.

this is the other half of the kitchen. nothing really gets put away...but my kids don't care.

um. yeah. this room is my favorite. those are axes on our mantel.  we don't do candles, we do lumberjack. a suitcase from a trip two weeks ago, clothes half folded, coats thrown everywhere. squishy pumpkins from last fall. need I go on?...

 the basement playroom/boys room from one angle.  there are shelves to put things on, but the kids seem to like it better when it's all dumped on the floor.  I have washed my hands of it, and close the door when I leave so I don't have to see it.

...And from another angle.  How did wood get there, you ask?  yeah, dunno. 

a pink room that I've tried to teach her to clean, but she likes it this way

One of the bathrooms: notice the lack of quilted paper.  

What you don't see here is our bedroom, (which is full of piles of clean laundry that will most likely never make it to a drawer)...and the master bathroom.  There are some things that one just should NOT share in photo form...but I will tell you that even when our toilet is flushed it looks like still it needs to be, and that the shower walls and floor are often orange. (shame)

Your home may be cleaner than mine...or it might be messier.  You may have a bit more time to put towards the maintenance of your space, or it might be higher on your priority list...or it might be lower.  But it doesn't really matter, does it? 

I'm not advocating the mis-use of the things we are blessed with.  We should absolutely take care of things as best as we are able.  But that's just it...as best WE can. Not our neighbors, not the guy on TV, not our grandmother or best friend.  

Me, and You...in our own situations, within the ability, time and grace that we've been given.

But there's more.

If we do this so often with our physical lives; judging the state of our homes and our possessions against all those around us, how much more often do we do it with that which is infinitely more important?

Those pictures are of my home, in it's most normal state.  It's kind-of bold, I know, because most people don't show that on a public forum. But would you be ready for more than that? What if I were willing to show you pictures of me in the same state?  Not my physical form, but ME?  

The me that yells at my children.

The me that loathes the successes of classmates and friends.

The me that desires recognition for pretty much anything.

The me that stuffs emotion down to her toes in hopes that it won't need to be addressed.

The me that wants to be in control, no matter what the cost.

The me that looks around the house and fumes discontent...

And the me that looks at the list above, and the things that I just can't type there...and weeps.

We all have a list like that.  Things that we struggle with, and are sinking deeply into day after day. Things that we are afraid to share, even with those closest to us.  Greed, Lust, Hatred, Apathy...

All. of. us.

Each day we fight these battles in secret.  Sometimes they surface in conversation, but we quickly back peddle for fear of judgement, and then tuck those struggles even further down. 

But what if we were transparent?  

Knowing that we all fall short, that we are all struggling...that is a beautiful thing.  The walls can come down, the masks can come off, and we can stand beside each other in our battles, instead of battling against one another.

We were never meant to fight alone. And once we are able to take that bold step towards transparency, we will find that we are surrounded -not by the enemy- but by Grace.