This was the weekend I planned to introduce my niece and nephew to the joys of camping. I piled the tent, 4 sleeping bags, large air mattress, and multiple flashlights into the car for the journey to Maine. Their mom made sure the ingredients for s'mores were in the house.
Yesterday afternoon when we arrived at the house, Patrick and Libby helped me pitch the tent, blow up the air mattress, and unroll the sleeping bags. They started practicing making shadows before it was really dark. Patrick could hardly wait for it to get dark, but we did decide we'd eat supper first.
When darkness fell, Grandpa cut branches for roasting the marshmallows on the grill...but then Patrick informed us that THAT wasn't how the instruction book said to roast marshmallows. Off he dashed to retrieve Just Me and My Dad by Mercer Mayer. "See, THAT'S how you cook marshmallows," he corrected me, pointing to the picture of a log-cabin style campfire. Eventually he conceded to using the grill and enjoyed his s'more, though he never asked for more. Libby didn't like hers at all.
We all donned our warmest pajamas and then moved out to the tent where we made shadows, read Just Me and My Dad, told original stories, sang Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, turned out the flashlights and tried to go to sleep. The quiet lasted 5 minutes before Patrick broke it with cries of "I want Mommy." No reasoning with him, no consoling him, so in we went. His dad's response? "I gave you until 9 pm." It was 8:50. Guess we'll try for longer another day. Still it was fun. I plan to do some real camping later this week in the White Mountains.
