My advice to parents who want to take their very young kids camping...

...don't. Hellz no. Unless you are a glutton for punishment, like K and I.

Back in our childless days, K and I camped a lot. We loved waking up to crisp, morning air (think Maxwell House commercial, the one where the couple emerges from the tent looking well-rested, smiling at the prospect of having the best cup of instant coffee ever). And at night, we love lingering by the campfire under the stars, sipping on wine, feeling completely at peace.

K and I had not camped since EB was born over six years ago. But lately, EB started talking about camping quite a bit. We suspected that BBoy was a bit on the young side, but we didn't want to deny EB the experience, so we decided to give it a try.

So what went wrong, you ask? It wasn't one particular thing but a slew of little, annoying things. First, it was the prep process. Since we had not used our equipment in so long, it took us days to get everything ready: take the equipment out of the attic, air it out, figure out what was missing, struggle to remember how to setup the tent, pack up the food items, etc, etc, etc. And since we were only camping for one night, our whole preparation-to-play ratio was completely off-kilter.

Regardless, everything looked very promising on the day of our trip. We loaded up the car and drove for an hour in sunny, 68-degree weather. We sang during the car ride, played "I spy," and upon arrival, took a few happy, silly pictures so we would be able to prove remember later just how much fun we were having.

We are having FUN, I say!

For dinner, I  made Frito pie with our portable gas burner, but I had forgotten how hot the burner could get. Within a matter of minutes, I ended up charring the ground beef, thereby infusing our Frito pie with an essence of cigarette ashes--it was quite the exquisite dish. While I was burning making our dinner, K was busy pitching our tent and getting everything ready (again, the prep-to-play ratio thing). During this time, EB decided to gather firewood and basically ignored BBoy. Poor BBoy wanted to keep up with EB, but his little legs weren't coordinated enough to negotiate the branches that were sticking out all over the place. He kept falling and breaking into frustrated tears and tantrums.

The one time that EB decided to pay attention to BBoy was
to torment him with her yellow flashlight

Charred dinner--complete. Tents--pitched.
The kids look happy, but Mom and; Dad need wine...

Our nerves were rattled, so after we were done with dinner and s'mores,  we got the kids in the tent and prayed for them to quickly drift off to sleep. For awhile, we heard giggles coming from the tent, and as K and I sipped on our wine in front of an open fire, we felt our nerves calm. All was good.

But then 15 minutes later: "Mommmmmm....B keeps on jumping on my head!"
Another five minutes pass: "Mmmmoooommmm...his butt is in my face!"
1 minute later: "Mommmm! I just want to go to sleep!
1 minute later: Tears from both kids.

K and I sighed, put out the fire, and turned in. We managed to separate the kids, calm them, and eventually, all of us slowly drifted off to sleep. Only to wake up in the middle of the night with our air mattress sinking to the ground. K and I wanted to pump up the mattress, but since the kids seem to sleep through it just fine, we decided to rough it. K and I barely slept from that point--we felt the hard, cold earth against our backs, which made the 42-degree air feel even that much colder.

The next morning, we decided to go for a quick hike. Both K and I were like zombies, which made us ill-equiped to handle the tantrums that the kids decided to throw during our hike. At that point, we knew that we were done; it was time to pack it up.

We got home that afternoon exhausted and cranky, with a car-full of equipment and dirty pots/pans/utensils to be put away (again, the prep-to-play ratio complaint). To top it off, EB received a little send-off gift--a tick that decided to burrow itself under her arm (would would've thought that ticks would thrive in sub-50 degree weather....)

So in summary, here are our learnings from the excursion:

• Camping truly makes for a fun family trip. Just wait until all of your kid(s) are old enough to be reasoned with, say 6, 10 or 35 years old.
• If you are going camping, make it longer than one night. Otherwise, the amount of time spent on packing, planning, putting up and taking down a camp site would not be worth the short visit.
• Make sure your air mattress is full and leak-free. Otherwise, you will have a rather cold night.
• No matter how cold it is, spray your kids down with DEET before sending them out to the woods.
• And bring more than one bottle of wine. It makes the camping trip better.