Bed vs. Tent...hmmm

The Great Idea!!

My cute little girls had this great idea to go camp in the back yard...it started with them innocently packing a bag and some toys and with their hats on they ventured on in the back yard littering their belongings across the grass and enjoying their afternoon. They asked if I could set up the tent but I was just starting dinner so it was impossible for me to help. So once daddy got home, their charming selves got daddy quickly to set it up and they had their home away from home.

Everything was fine until they asked, just before bedtime, to sleep in there. Dad had said no because he had to work and I BRILLIANTLY thought, "Well, if they are gonna do it tonight's the night - we gotta start them on their school schedule - no biggie I will sleep with them."

So I get them all set up, I lay several blankets down as a cushion and got the girls tucked in with lots of layers...it was getting chilly and was going to rain...still I thought this was a good idea.

So a couple hours later I crawled in the tent and layed between them to share a great peaceful moment with my girls. I envisioned waking up with them in the tent, cuddling and creating a memory that will last forever...well it certainly will.

I knew fairly quickly that tonight was not gonna be a fun night...it felt like laying on cement. I realize 34 is not old...but Oh my GOODNESS...I woke up an hour later with my body SCREAMING in pain!!! I tried many different positions - I would doze off a minute here and a minute there only to wake up with a DIFFERENT part of my body screaming.

Then is started raining...usually the tranquil raindrops on a tent is soothing...well not this time. I am not sure if the rain was unusually large or if the fact that my body felt like I had red hot needles all over it affected my hearing...but tranquil it was not.

So FINALLY at 3am with my back, hips, shoulders and arms in an immeasurable amount of pain I wake up both my girls and BEG, yes I said BEG, to come inside to sleep and that daddy would do the tent thing with them this weekend which THANK YOU GOD - he had already promised. So after a lot of begging they agree and we get to bed.

My bed -- AHHH...however my body hurt so much that I could not sleep. I felt tortured. But finally just as I started to succumb to sleep I hear and feel little hands on my feet. Lindsey was crying. She had a bad dream...I am not sure how you can have a bad dream in what felt only like 15.4 seconds but none the less she crawled into bed. And of course she could not sleep. So that means she keeps mommy up. I doze here in there between the the little moves and hands holding my face and then I hear another sound. Emily...came into our bed. So now there are 4 of us in a queen size bed. NOT comfortable. But we are trying to make it work and Lindsey still being scared wants to sleep on my stomach. So I let her. Makes more room in the bed.

By now I am so tired and so sore that I could not stay still long enough to doze. I was twitching and moving every minute or so. But I could hear finally after 2 hours that Lindsey was falling into a deep sleep. So at 5 am I slowly roll her off me and she WOKE up..I gave her a body pillow to snuggle with and I went into her room to sleep on her bed. Finally SLEEP. 15 minutes later she comes in crying...so she crawls in bed with me again in HER room and we sleep immediately. Suddenly the phone yanks me away...I fall out of bed...LITERALLY and in a disoriented state find the phone.

It is 8am. So I got a few hours of sleep. I decide to go back to sleep and sleep as long as the girls will sleep. I look into my room and no Lindsey, I look in her bed, no Lindsey. I then look all over the house and no Lindsey. I go back to her room and turn on the light and finally I see her in Emily's bed....I realized I had no memory of her sleeping with me - I was so sleep deprived that it took several minutes to piece the night back together. I went and caught a few more ZZZ's in the recliner only to be woken up 20 minutes later by...yup you guessed it LINDSEY!!! I love that girl!

So unless you are under 25...do not sleep in a tent without a mattress. And if you already know that daddy is gonna do it this weekend...DON'T OFFER TO DO IT! Make a SPECIAL memory some way else. But that's just me.

-- Laura ;0)