Most of us have heard of the book, Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day, you know the one they made into a movie with Steve Carell? From the moment he woke up his day was destined to be awful. If Judith Voirst had decided to write a camping version, I'm pretty sure it would have gone something like this:
After 5 weeks of prep we were beyond excited, as we loaded the truck on Wednesday night there was a hint of Christmas Eve anticipation in the air. Thursday morning I almost couldn't go back to sleep I was SO excited to get going. This trip was going to be epic!
After an almost 2 hour delay getting on the road, we finally pulled out of town only to make it about 2 hours before the screaming began. 60 minutes of mind-numbing, just-won't-stop-because-he-can't-get-out-of-his-car-seat screaming. After an hour, Riley wore himself out and fell asleep. He slept about 50 minutes and woke up about half an hour before we arrived and thought the last leg of the trip could use a little more screaming.
We FINALLY turned the corner to a beautiful coved beach and the sound of the crashing waves almost washed away the sound of the screams....almost. We pulled up to the registration building, I sprung a very cranky kid out of his car seat and despite stopping twice to check to see if he needed to be changed along the way (he didn't, bone dry nearly the whole way there), as soon as he sat on my lap, he overflowed his diaper and peed all down his legs, my legs, my purse (yup, that happened), and the paper card we had to hang from our rear view mirror for our camp site. Yay?
So first thing after pulling into our much smaller than expected campsite, we had a kid, mom, and her purse to clean up. It was now about 5:30pm. After everyone was semi-cleaned up it, Riley needed to be fed and Dan got started unpacking and setting up camp. The layout was so awkward so after swapping things around and working tirelessly to use all the daylight we could, we finally have most everything set up. It was now about 8:45 and time for us to eat. Dan makes a fire, and fed (again) a very ANGRY kiddo that has been in his high chair or car seat, nearly all day. Poor kid just wanted to get down and explore. We had planned on pizza for our first night. Dan, being the great planner that he is, had thought it would be a bit much to expect me/us to cook after driving and setting up and he suggested our first night we just grab something from town. So I headed into Ft. Bragg to get dinner just to discover that most every eating establishment closes at 9:00. Again....yay?
I pulled into Subway at 8:58 and just barely ordered a couple subs and headed back to camp. I thought Dan would have a very tired boy fed and down by the time I got back, but then it wouldn't have been a Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Camping trip now would it?
I encouraged Dan to go ahead and eat while I tried to get Ri down. It was now about 9:20...I had only a Meehos burrito (delish) and a 16 oz coffee (Dutch Bros. Bob Marley...amazing) all day and that was at about 12:30, so I was ready for food too. So the sooner he went down, the better. Into the tent we ventured, but ALL he wanted to do was play on the aerobed. After a minute or fighting it, he snuggled in nicely to our normal routine of cuddles and songs. I sang longer than normal to be sure he was super tired and gently placed him in the pack-n-play and literally crawled out the tent in an attempt to be as ninja-like as possible. You should know it was neither graceful or ninja like, not even a little bit.
It was now 10:15 and I headed to my chair, cozied up to the fire, meatball marinara sub in hand, it was FINALLY time to eat. As soon as I hit the chair, the wailing began, it's like he could see through the tent walls and timed it perfectly. Dan and I tapped out and he headed in so I could get a bite or two of food in me.
Sandwich almost to my mouth I hear it. All mothers of toddlers know the sound and know it well, followed by the "NO, NO, NO!" confirmation of dad. It was the sound of projectile vomit--in the tent. It was all over the pack-n-play, the foot of our bed, daddy, and down the front of a VERY tired VERY discontented little boy. There went my dreams of dinner. Up I jumped to take the puke covered kiddo so dad could stop the dripping from his arms. It's quite a visual, I know. Riley was so upset and still screaming it trigger a second round, this time covering the door of the tent, the tarp just outside the entrance, and created tiny little pools in the heel indents of dad's flip flops, you know since we wanted to keep the inside of the tent as clean as possible (no shoes allowed inside). Again, such dreams, I know.
Finally the vomiting stopped and I striped down a pukey toddler, wiped him down, and got him in a new set of jammies. But of course, now he's hungry. Our timeline puts us at about 11:00pm and Ri is now eating with me. Bite for me, bite for him, bite for me, bite for him. All while Dan (who started his day at 3am, worked, drove 5 hours with a child screaming for most of it, and then unloaded and set up camp) got the tent cleaned with nothing but baby wipes...it's all we had. He did a great job! But after all that trauma it was time for Dan to go shower because my very cleanliness-focused hubby was NOT ok with climbing into bed covered in remnants of dirt, sweat, ash, smoke, and puke.
So he left for the showers, Ri and I got ready for bed. Have you ever tried to take out contacts with a tired toddler's help, in the dark, in the woods? Yeah, me either, and I just hope that squirting out my contact container that landed in the dirt was going to be sufficient. Awesome.
We FINALLY were ready to climb in bed. Riley began to wail as I struggled with the stubborn zipper. As we headed back into the tent I assured him that he wouldn't be going back into the pack-n-play. But he didn't believe me. I was tirelessly shushing him because guess what? Camp sites are not soundproof (shocking, I know!). I felt so bad for our neighbors, it's now after midnight and Riley is screaming like a stranger just smacked his hand and took his stuffed giraffe.
I got him on the bed, which of course he now thinks is a great place to play (it wasn't). Tent walls are not structurally sound (wait? What!?) and Riley learned this lesson as he leaned face first against it and fell off the bed...TWICE (same spot too). Second time left him with a tiny shiner under his right eye. More screaming. We got settled after another few minutes. Silence. He was finally laying quiet and still next to me. YES! Victory. We were going to be able to do this. It was going to be tight with three of us on a queen size bed, but we would survive.
It was about 40 seconds of blissful victory. I heard the very familiar sound of my husband's steps coming down the gravel road behind our site (funny how I could have picked the sound of his steps out of a line up). The victory was nice while it lasted. Dan was back, as he got our fire safely out and a few items secured in our tubs, Ri was back up, so it was back to snuggling and singing to try to get him settled again.
I could hear Dan was in one part of the camp site so when I kept hearing another set of footprints out the backside of the tent, I called Dan over to investigate. It was a raccoon....and a big one at that! Dan successfully scared it away, secured our food supply, and joined us. It was now about 12:15am.
Another hour and 15 minutes later, guess who was still awake? But not just awake, awake and defiantly screaming at every directive to be quiet and still, laughing, playing, up and down, crying kind of awake. NOTHING WORKED!! Not ignoring his disobedience, not comforting him when he was crying, not singing, not cuddling, not letting him pick where he wanted to lay down, not giving him extra toys and blankets to sleep with. NOTHING was getting this kid to sleep. Not being in our bed, not a bottle of milk, not being in the pack-n-play. Again, remember our campsite, NOT soundproof. I felt like a failure as a mother and a camper. It was a pretty defeating combination.
So at 1:40am, for the sake of our exhausted son, my exhausted husband, and our neighbors (except for the loud group of drunk guys who were old enough to know they were being inconsiderate), I loaded up the diaper bag, 3 blankets, and Riley into the truck. I did my best to leave quietly but my inexperience at backing up a large truck up a steep gravel drive was exposed as we peeled out....repeatedly. It was probably good I had the truck, as earlier Dan joked the neighbors would probably want to form a mob and either arrive in our campsite with torches and pitchforks demanding our screamer, or they'd just come and slash our tires. Guys, it was THAT bad!
Riley and I were on the road. It was a very dark, very curvy, very misty, eerie road. It took him no more than 4 miles to fall fast asleep. So I drove a few extra, flipped a U-y on the highway and headed back for camp. There was a small pullout dirt area just at the end of the road we took get to our campsite and that was where Riley and I stayed. I pulled in, cracked the windows so we didn't get too stuffy and so I could listen to the ocean waves as I attempted to fall asleep. I was suddenly feeling more vulnerable than tired being a woman alone with her child sleeping on the side of the road like a homeless person, but I soon got over that just about the time I realized I had forgotten my pillow. Awesome.
Thankfully we were warm enough inside that Ri only needed 1 of the 2 blankets I brought for him and that became my sub-par pillow. Somewhere between 2:15 - 2:30 I finally fell asleep. Somewhere around 3am I was startled awake by a noise in the bushes, somewhere around 4am I was woken by Riley trying to get comfortable again, and then....Charlie Horse! Ever get one of those in your hamstring sitting in the front seat of a truck and remain completely silent and mostly still because you really don't want to wake the finally sleeping child behind you? Good times.
5am rolled around and Ri was not having it anymore. I pull him out of his car seat and he collapses immediately to my chest and was OUT. We "slept" (I use that word loosely) like this until 6:45, then the position he insisted on was too challenging for me to fall back to sleep so I just sat there listening to the ocean thankful the night was over. In the meantime, why not take a couple selfies to document our misadventure?
At 7:20 he rolled around some more and that was my cue for some MUCH needed Starbucks. Back to the car seat he went and into town we headed. Looking like a sleep deprived mombie (that's a zombie mom, if you weren't sure), I opted for going in so I could avoid using the Porta potty later. Can't tell you how many dirty looks I got as I attempted to keep a still sleepy kiddo from destroying Starbucks like Godzilla destroying Tokyo. Like 6. Sheesh people, recognize the effort. But in keeping with the whole homeless vibe of our evening they probably thought something similar of us based on our appearance. Nope, just us non-campers needing caffeine, nothing to see here people.
Soon I realized I had missed a call. Dan had no reception at the campsite but I knew it had to be him calling from the registration office. It was after 8:00 I knew he had to be worried. Poor guy. Wife leaves with his kid in the middle of the night to drive around and then can't reach her in the morning. He was nervous. We got in touch, he knew we were safe and Starbucks was a mere 15 minutes away. All was right with the world, coffee kinda does that.
We returned to camp and Dan shared how the raccoon that had cased our place last night had returned after Riley and I left. He had gotten into our plastic dry food box and surprisingly, into the ice chest as little dirty paw prints were left behind as evidence....not to mention the croutons and bag of salad topper were left trailing up the drive....maybe he was Hanzel in the forest creatures rendition of Hanzel and Gretel.
We soon began to pack up camp and yet again a very cranky boy did NOT want to be in his high chair, but what can ya do? We just wanted out of there. We attempted a peace offering with our immediate neighbors....an unopened 2.5 gallon jug of water we'd no longer need since we'd no longer be camping, but they were leaving that morning too, so they passed but assured us Riley did not ruin their night.
So onto the next most immediate site, they were happy to accept and we're the KINDEST NEATEST family. I'm telling you if we were staying, they probably would have invited us to join them for breakfast. They wanted to meet Riley and asked that I bring him over before we left. When we didn't come back fast enough, grandpa came with his two daughters to say hello. One of them was a preemie mom like me, so that was fun to swap stories. She brought me a bottle of Children's Motrin and Benadryl in case Riley needed it, and the other daughter gave Dan a small pouch of chocolate coins for Riley. So our kid keeps you up until after 1:30 in the morning and you bring us stuff? Coolest family!!
We were finally loaded and ready to head out. We stopped to check out and Dan went in to explain why were leaving 2 days early and she made a call to someone with more power and she was able to approve a 2 day refund of our already paid, non-refundable site. They were great!! Our first experience of camping with an almost 2 year old was unforgettable to say the least.
We were faced with a choice. We had been handed a whole basket of lemons. Dan wanted to just call it a loss and head home. He was still so tired, so was I, but I really didn't want our trip to end on such a Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad note. I wanted to make lemonade. So we were on the hunt for a hotel...I was heart-set on redeeming this trip.
The only other picture taken that fateful night.
