bee
bird
butterfly
dirt
dirty
moon
mountain
tent

Can you guess the theme?

We went camping! This is actually David’s second camping trip. We went last year when he was seven months old, and it was cold. This year the weather was spectacular. I love The Mountain in all weathers, but it is particularly breath-taking when the sharp white peaks seem etched into the blue sky and the magenta paintbrush, avalanche lilies, lupine, and bear grass dust the meadows with color. We even saw a doe and faun. It was that perfect.

This is Mt. Rainer I’m talking about, my sacred space.

We went with my sister’s family, my mom, and my sister’s in-laws. In other words, the adult to kid ratio was almost 2-1, not nearly enough adults. David needs at least one adult on him at all times as he races around the campsite, climbs over rocks, falls over rocks, tries to put the burned wood back in the fire pit, tries to taste his now charcoal covered fingers, and goes nuts over the low-to-the-ground water spigots. He, in fact, had a blast. David loves being outdoors. Camping is 90% outdoors. What could be better?

We’ve done this trip for three years now, and it’s getting easier each time. We know which campsites to reserve a year ahead of time. We have our list of what to bring, and the equipment keeps getting nicer and nicer. When I was growing up, we had the really poor quality camping knives, can opener, peeler because why bring the good stuff into the wilderness? Our attitude now is why torture ourselves with dull rickety knives? We have yet to bring a rice cooker or microwave into the woods, but the gas stove is nothing like the miserable pumping green things of my childhood. Do I feel like I’m cheating? A little, but I’m working so hard on the kids, I can smooth out a few areas.

The food is also fabulous. John cooked chicken sausages over the fire and made foil dinners with sweet potatoes, salsa, and fresh corn. I’m sure he’s going to put all in his cooking journal. Oh yeah, my sister made, you heard me, made, the marshmallows for s’mores.

Sleep, not so good. For me the wilderness is about many things—quiet, impossibly tall trees, real dark, air you can drink—but I don’t sleep well on the cold hard ground. Even with the fancy blow-up mattress, my hips hurt, my back hurt, and the baby kept deciding the most comfortable place to sleep was diagonally across me. Others didn’t fare much better. David, the 5:30 rooster, didn’t help much, but we let the three girls sleep together in a tent with my mom. Uh huh. They wiggled. They giggled. They kept each other awake and woke each other up. The predictable crabbiness was actually not as bad as last year.

Every year we have grandiose plans for hiking. We drive up to Paradise, scout the trails, and. . . The first year, the girls bickered up the half mile hill and had to be carried down. The second year it was too cold to leave the visitor’s center, and anyway Rose fell asleep, and David wanted to nurse the whole time. This year we actually made it around the 1.5 mile Nisqually vista trail, and it was stunning. My sister had a second hike planned after lunch but then Rose got sick.

It is a little scary to have your daughter moaning in pain at the top of a mountain. Rose does not complain of stomach pains to get attention, so when she pooped and her tummy still hurt, I was starting to think about next steps, like calling the doctor whose phone number I didn’t have. (Note to self. . .) We got her to drink a bottle of water. In about twenty minutes, she recovered. Even though, she had drunk a bunch of water before the hike, our best guess is dehydration and maybe altitude sickness.

So, that put the kibosh on hike #2. And the next day we had yet another hike planned that the kids nixed. Still they loved being together, being in the campsite. They loved the ranger talks. They loved the adventure. Me too.