Cold Camping

Cold camping is the worst.

You wear the same outfit for two and a half days because you only brought one pair of pants, one hoodie, and besides, getting changed is so miserable.

It isn't warm anywhere.

You have to take your hoodie and shirt off in the morning to change from your nursing-while-sleeping bra to your nursing-while-awake bra, and you are like, This is hell. Hell hath frozen over.

Nursing is also hell. You have to unzip your hoodie, and then your neck and your chest and your one boob are so, so cold.

The baby has cold hands and she keeps PUTTING THEM on you.

Nursing at night, you pull the sleeping bag up over the both of your heads and just hope the baby doesn't smother. Your husband wakes up and pulls the bag off of your heads because he's more worried about smothering than about your cold neck. You wake up and pull it back up.

We meant to go camping on Monday, but we looked at the weather report on Saturday and Sunday was supposed to be the Last Good Day, so we rush-packed and booted it out the door Saturday afternoon.

Look at that kid. She's wearing a skirt and flip flops. That was the last time we were even close to warm.

Saturday evening clouded over, and Sunday drizzled until it outright rained, stopping for a few hours in the afternoon so we could go (hurriedly, briefly) to the beach for Eleanor's sake.

Sunday night rained and rained, and Eleanor had to pee in the middle of the night so we ran to the bathroom in the rain, and her only warm jammies are the kind that zip up all the way and have to be almost completely removed for bathroom breaks. Oooooh, she says, sooooo chillllllly.

Our tent leaks when it rains, and we keep not buying a tent because we HAVE a tent, only now we don't have a tent because we threw that piece of shit away rather than pack it up. GOOD RIDDANCE.

Last year, our second camping trip started out in the rain and gradually improved. This year, it got colder and wetter and we had a whole second child to deal with.

And Joel and I are looking at each other grimly, saying Let's just survive this, and then Eleanor, who is sitting in her CAMPING CHAIR! and eating a NECTARINE! from the FARMER'S MARKET! looks up from her chomping and declares, WE. ARE. CAMPING.

This is why we bring her to things.