I spent all Friday morning keeping Cora from eating the soil surrounding Rupert the house plant, reminding Quinn that kicking her sister, tossing magna tiles like footballs and throwing temper tantrums in the kitchen are not allowed and packing for a campout that the kids and I had been looking forward to all week. The tents and sleeping bags were borrowed, the {junk}food was purchased, new batteries were in all of the flashlights and the van was full of gas but alas, at 2 pm I received a call from James with the sad news that he was staffed on a new deal and couldn't make the trip. I was super bummed but knew the kids would feel it even deeper and was not looking forward to that after-school conversation. I'm so deeply, truly grateful for James' amazing job but geez, work sure gets in the way sometimes.
I sat for a few minutes under a dark cloud trying to invent a suitable Plan B to no avail, but then I remembered that I am strong, capable and independent and why waste energy being bummed when you can instead use that energy to take your four babies camping with all their church friends?! And so that's what I did.
The camping adventure was held at Castaic Lake, a short hour north of Los Angeles and totally hidden from the freeway. The I-5 is our route back to Sac, and even after so many trips I didn't know Castaic Lake even existed! The tent went up easily thanks to a few friends who took pity on the crazy camping Mama and the evening was spent eating delicious food, roasting marshmallows and hiking up hills for pretty views of sage brush, wildflowers and the sparkling lake. The kids couldn't have smiled bigger as they surrounded their buddies by the campfire and they came home to tell their Daddy handfuls of reasons why this was the "greatest weekend of their lives!"
The realist in me wants to also let you know that in total I slept an hour on a broken air mattress with no blankets and there were approximately 100 times during the night that I cursed my confidence in camping without James. The wind was whipping around Castaic Lake and even with stakes and ropes supporting our tent it sounded like a hurricane and beat against our faces for frigid hours. We were not alone in this problem, the wind completely broke a few of my friends' tents and drove others to escape the elements and sleep in their vehicles. Quinn spent much of the night screaming in confusion, Everett kept having nightmares that he was falling off a cliff, Talmage was worried about being blown away and cranky when anyone moved in the tent in the middle of the night and poor Coco needed bottles and diaper changes and cuddles all night long to keep her satisfied. It was eventful and I checked my phone a trillion times (only to be repeatedly disappointed that time was passing like a snail) and at 5:45 we were all up and at 'em taking down the tent and eating smuggled cherry PopTarts. It may take us a week to recover and we may never camp again, but overall it was a fun story to tell and I feel empowered by doing something really hard and rocking it. And hey, we survived and like I said the kids were on cloud 9 so I'd file that under "we rocked it!"
Mother's Day weekend was probably the greatest time for this campout to happen. You see, there are so many qualities I lack and ways I fail as a mother. I really hate making dinner. I'm the worst at doing arts and crafts. I need to read more with Quinn, check Evie's homework and listen deeper to T's stories from school. I'm pretty strict about messy rooms and manners and let's just say my frown line is deeper than my smile lines these days. I want to do and be better in 100 different ways.
But there are some things that I am really good at, and this weekend reminded me again what they are. I'm awesome at taking my kids on adventures and making fun memories. I don't let my fear get in the way and I go and do and experience even if it's not easy and even if it's slightly crazy. I hope this weekend taught my kids that even when things don't go as expected (the work and the wind, respectively) we can take control of our realities and still create something lovely--and I think I'm pretty good at doing that as a Mom. Oh yes, and we can't forget that I rock at buying camp-food; people knew who to come for for Cheetos and red vines and all manners of sweets!
I'm grateful in life for little moments that feel like a sweet pat on the back from on High. Moments where you realize that you're not perfect, but you're pretty darn great despite all you lack--and this campout was one of them.
Here we are in front of our awesome home for the night!
Don't ask me how many marshmallows this chick consumed because I plead the 5th!
If you look at the tip-top of that hill you'll see a line of kids hiking like army ants, and if you look at the bottom of that hill you'll see the little Quinny ant that sadly got left behind.
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