Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Camping with the Kids

I love my daughter. She is this fascinating little creature who, at 2 ½ is far more opinionated than I. Last week we went on vacation for a week tent camping in Moab, UT. It was seriously fantastic and wasn’t even really roughing it, because though we had a tent, my parents had a trailer, which Gwen slept in. Every evening the kids received baths thanks to my dad’s portable 110 gallon water-tank and every day we ate amazing quantities of food and did some really fun activities.
Gwen however, was only marginally pleased with her accommodations. She spent the latter half of the week complaining about where she slept, stating loudly that she’d like to go home now, say she didn’t like *insert activity here*, that her toenail paint was chipping, that her hair was in her eyes, she’d like her feet rubbed, she had an owie, that it was raining….the list goes on.
Coming from such a tiny person, Greg and I couldn’t help but be a bit amused as we strongly encouraged her to buck up and enjoy the time. However, I think this is probably only the beginning. *Ominous thunder roll* I also think it’s probably a good thing we started this now, rather than in another year.
When we were packing up camp, Gwen quickly changed her attitude and became our biggest cheerleader, displaying an impressive show of concentration as she sang the ‘Keep Trying’ song from Yo Gabba Gabba. Greg packed the tent and loaded the car to the vocal abilities of Gwen, singing:

“Keep trying! Keep Trying!
Don’t give up, never give up!
Keep trying! Keep trying!
Don’t give up, never give up!
Don’t stop, don’t give up, don’t stop, don’t give up!”

Repeat a few hundred times and you get the general idea.
Greg took it in stride, as did I, and Gwen proved to be very helpful gathering smaller items around camp and chucking them into the car as fast as she could.
Greg drove through the night to get us home, so we spent Saturday mostly relaxing and Sunday I tried to sleep in. Gwen had climbed into bed with me around 6am, and miraculously slept until 8. We both woke up and Gwen asked if I could rub her feet. I said sure, and grabbed a chubby foot to massage. She sat in silence for a second then told me to stop. She stretched her foot out in front of her, wiggled her toes, and studied them for 30 seconds.

She then sighed deeply and said, “You should repaint my toes, the sand took away my pretty polish”.
The more I parent, the more I tend to side with nature rather than nurture.

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