Recently my four year old son asked me if we could go camping and sleep in a tent. My initial thought was "sure honey we can put a tent up in the backyard and you can sleep in it!" Then I realized that I have never slept in a tent or been camping. Then I thought about the things I didn't experience as a child. For example I never had eaten vienna sausages until I was an adult. When I had my wisdom teeth extracted I got "dry socket" and was extremely sick. All I could eat was soft food and my mom came over to my house and brought vienna sausages. I happen to love everything salty and when I ate the vienna sausages I became upset with my mom because she never fed them to me as a child. I just couldn't believe I missed out on the salty goodness for 28 years of my life! My mom was baffled and thought she had done me a favor by not feeding me something she obviously grew up eating and promised herself she would never feed her children! I've since forgiven my mom but now that I am the mom I am determined that my kids get to experience things that just maybe as an adult, I don't necessarily want to do. I've never been camping and have never slept in a tent. Do I want to sleep in a tent? Not necessarily. Do I want to eat smores by the campfire? Yes! Do I want to get poison ivy? No. Do I want to experience something new with my children? Absolutely! So this weekend while my kids are on Spring Break we are going camping. We are going to sleep in a tent. We may even eat vienna sausages. And inevitably my kids will grow up, have children and decide that they will never make their children go on camping trips and eat MRE's when all they wanted to do was sleep in a tent...
Any advice, tips or prayers for this first time tent camper is greatly appreciated...
Wish me luck...
