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Camping with baby again… pretty great this time

Baby on a memory foam matress
What a baby sleeping by a contained campfire on a mattress covered in a warm blankie might look like

So a couple of weekends ago we went camping and it was not great for the baby. Up until that time we’d never had any prolonged baby dislike. This time was quite different than last.

After a four-hour ride which she slept two and a half hours and only complained for about 40 minutes we arrived at our destination, which was a field in which several people were gathered for a birthday party.

Right away this had a lot better setup going for it – Maggie was able to walk and scootch around (last trip we had to hold her constantly because it was nothing but mud and rocks,) there were kids who were converted into daycare servants so Maggie had attention and mobility, and the weather was perfect.

The only time we had any real baby incidents were after sundown, which came earlier than Maggie was expecting I think (we’d traveled east for a while,) baby got a bit desperate wanting to stay awake, see everything and everyone, and we were a bit away from where we were planning to end up for the night (we’d decided on cabins this go-’round).

Maggie and a baby three months olderLuckily our hostess had a memory foam mattress which Maggie got plunked down on near (but not too near,) a fire pit. She snored peacefully by the fire as the night went on, and slept as she was carried the last 1200 feet or so to the cabin.

She ended up sleeping in a Pack & Play, the transition from arms to the P&P being the only issue, and slept in late after a pretty fun morning of looking at a fishtank, scootching around a house, and playing with kids close to her own age.

The trip back was not so hot as we got stuck in traffic that existed for no reason, she got quite pissed off at that, but we were stuck in the left lane going an average of 12 miles an hour for about an hour which lead to baby rage as her mirror was messed up, and everything was just terrible.

We stopped on the way back at a fireworks stand, which was the greatest thing ever. We ended up getting her the lamest fireworks we could find for use sometime later on. There’s something that when lit puts out small amounts of smoke for an extended time, and a couple of other non interesting/threatening things we’ll set her up to view sometime since she conked out on the 4th.

Lesson learned that baby’s a fair-weather camper at the moment, and having a small contingent of teenagers forced to play with your baby is awesome.

Paul King

Paul King lives in Nashville Tennessee with his wife, two daughters and cats. He writes for Pocketables, theITBaby, and is an IT consultant along with doing tech support for a film production company.