Sunday, April 06, 2008

Lesson Learned

It was just me and kids this weekend and I promised them we'd sleep in the tent since all of us forgot about it last weekend. Not ideal considering Mike and I usually trade off so one of us gets a decent night's sleep in a bed.

Cal's friend Tanner spent the night on Friday and I figured if we all slept in the tent Friday night I might be able to beg off on Saturday night. Or at least sneak out to my bed once Duncan and Cal were asleep.

Being spring, our weather is all over the place. One day it's in the 40s, the next in the 70s. Friday was one of the cooler days. Our temp when we crawled into the tent was 50 (10 C) with expected lows at night in the 40s. E thinks I'm a wimp but that's cold to us. I had the tent stuffed with plenty of blankets for us to sleep on and to cover with. Unfortunately it wasn't enough.

The two little boys were warm and toasty in the middle (with Max at their feet). They were even extremely sweaty around 12:30 when I had to crawl out of the tent to pee. Sweaty? How the hell could they be sweaty? I was freezing!

I crawled back into bed and dozed until 2:00 when I had to pee again. Damn cold. Cal snuggled up to me at some point. He was cold now, of course. I reached down to make sure he was covered and touched wet. He had his own little urge to pee from the cold but hadn't woken up to do it. I certainly didn't want to wake everyone up, get the pee blankets out, clean up Cal and then put us back to bed. I was cold enough as it was and after that ordeal I'd be even colder. Not to mention dealing with a bunch of now cold kids. So I went back to sleep.

Now I use the term "sleep" loosely. I do believe I achieved nothing beyond a doze all night. My feet, encased in wool socks, never did warm up and if my feet aren't warm my body isn't warm. I ended up leaving the tent around 6:30 (pee again) and decided to spend the rest of my time in my own bed. It was wonderful. Thankfully that night convinced both boys that we need to wait for warmer weather to sleep in the tent.

Tamara

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