Seventy billion pieces of washing, 70 billion toilet runs and gallon upon gallon of food. No, you’re not running a boarding school or managing a small country. It’s called ‘camping’ with kids – four, to be precise.
If you have one child, you might be blessed with a mere 20 billion washing load, only one midnight toilet run (aka pee behind a bush or if it’s really dark, next to the tent…but always keep a plastic bottle or cooking pot at hand just in case) and maybe not gallons of food but the truth of the matter is that camping’s a biyatch, no matter the quantity of child. You’ll be building, serving, ferrying and feeding until sun down. Sound like a normal ‘day in the life’? It’s not. It’s harder…because you have no reprieve; there’s no hot bath with a glass of wine and bubbles or a comfy couch and a book.
Plucking your eyes out sounds more appealing – right? True. But before you leave your plans out at night to be devoured by wolves in the hope that something better comes along…well, just don’t. Not yet. Because camping offers something else; not rest (hells no) but joy. Real joy – as in; not the kind that makes you happy and smiley all day long. Rather, the kind that flows through the fibre of your being, infesting your soul with contentment. That kind.
As parents, we know full well that deep-seated joy doesn’t come easy. Children are tough from the get-go; getting them into the world is a fight, getting them to sleep is a fight, getting them to listen is a fight but we love them, desperately, madly, deeply, and in spite of ‘the fight’ they make us deliriously happy. Watching them play and run and imagine – freely – is magical; joyful. There is just something about being in nature that swells the heart.
Also; good friends, whisky, fire, marshmallows and coffee (all at once, if possible) make everything OK (even packing up a stupid tent).
It’s amazing how some of the worst moments become the best memories. The boys and I have spent the week pouring over “old” photos of family holidays (was never INSANE enough to attempt camping with them dude) and laughing hysterically at the time I twisted my ankle at the top of a mountain and we had less than an hour to get down before the reserve closed for the night so I slid down on my while D carried both boys on his back … and how Big at eighteen months are a bucket full of beach sand (we did try to stop him – repeatedly) and spent most of the night in the bath being hosed down as an ocean of it flowed out of him … and and and. You’re right. Pure joy. Just resist the temptation to slit your wrists before it blossoms.