1 post tagged “kids”

This past weekend, we had The Camping Trip That Wasn't.  One of my friends from high school organized a camping trip.  We were headed for a campground in upstate New York, six adults and my friend's three-year-old, and everyone was quite stoked.  It would have been my first "real" camping trip (my only other camp experience involved Girl Souts, my troop leader's backyard, and spraining my ankle by tripping on a tent peg) so I was all bouncy and asking R "Hey, how do you pee in the woods?  Do you need to bring toilet paper and a baggie?"

We were all meeting up Friday night -- three of us were coming from Long Island, and the other three from Manhattan.  R and I had even purchased a tent, sleeping bags, and a lantern for the event -- we were prepared, baby -- so we were blissfully determined to be blissfully ignorant and ignore the weather, which was calling for some rain showers. 

Late Friday afternoon, however, we got the call:  "Major rain and thunderstorms all weekend.  We're switching to Plan B.  Abandon your tents!"  "Plan B" involved our friend's mother's "getaway" cabin in the Poconos -- very rustic, on the border of a huge state park, but not quite the "roughing it" weekend we'd envisioned.

We had a thunderstorm and monsoon-level rain within three hours after we'd arrived, so we knew we'd made the right decision.  It pretty much stayed that way all weekend -- we didn't even get to see the park.  It was still fun, though, as we all got to reconnect and chat.  We cooked, we drank, we played poker and Trivial Pursuit.  It was all good -- and thank heavens for the getaway cabin, for which we were all eternally grateful.

I did come to a realization over the weekend, and it's one that I need to think on.  A lot.  See, R and I have discussed getting pregnant.  No, we're not married (yet), but I'm 38.  If we're to have a child together, we need to start pretty much NOW. 

Being around my friend's child, though, has made me really worried.  'Bella was great -- she played equally well with adults and on her own, made friends with everyone, no temper tantrums, no fussing.  But it really drove home to me that when you have a child, you're pretty much around them all the time.  Which, yes, no duh, but...

Example:  we were all playing poker, while 'Bella was playing with her toys.  I lost and dumped out, so I was asked to go take 'Bella "on the boat" (the stairs).  :)  I was happy to do that, but after about 20 minutes or so, I really wanted to get back to the grownups and see what everyone was laughing about (and see if R had any chips left).   I liked Bella, but I wanted to hang with the adults, so we wound up going back to the table where everyone was together. 

This freaked me out a little.  I should be able to spend more than 20 minutes playing with a child!  But...suppose I can't?  Suppose I'm lousy at it?  Where do I get the patience from?  How do you sit through your 500th episode of "Blues Clues" without going nuts?  And what happens when you can't understand what they're saying?

Meep?