10 Things I learned While Camping This Weekend With A One-Year-Old: In the order in which I learned them.

1. Hey, this isn't so bad! All you need is someplace safe to stick the baby while you set everything up, and it will be fine! (we brought Abubabe with us and set it up as it was intended and it worked well).

2. The tent--which usually causes a HUGE FIGHT during set up--goes up very quickly if you simply do not read the instructions. Because the instructions are WRONG. No, really.

3. If your one-year-old decides she's had enough, she will sit in her little play yard jail and weep piteously.

4. If you allow your one-year-old to toddle happily around the outside of the play yard, she will be nearly as confined and will do laps contentedly around the outside--until she remembers she can crawl.

5. If you allow your one-year-old to toddle around the picnic table, however, she will very gently slip just the tiniest bit and end up whacking her cheek on the edge of the seat bench and even though she didn't hit it very hard it will begin to swell rapidly and fill with blood.

6. Your injured daughter will NOT understand why you need to apply some mad pressure to her boo boo to prevent a major hematoma from occurring on her face and will cry and cry and cry and you will feel HORRIBLE.

7. Ten minutes later she will not remember the injury and will demand to toddle around the table again.

8. If you are camping, your child will get filthy. And I mean FILTHY.

9. If you are patient, she will, eventually sleep outside. Well, in the tent, but you know what I mean.

10. If you decide after the trip is done that you really aren't ready to go home, and choose to instead stay at a dog-friendly hotel overnight, but you are out of clothes for you and the baby and your husband so you have to go to the nearest store to do a bit of shopping, and that store happens to be a Walmart, you will totally blend in with your filthy camping clothes and your baby with a black eye. No one even blinks.

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Full photos of the trip here. It really went very well.

Comments

[Mia]

That is hilarous - I got a nice chuckle.

Nice tent!

[Bobbi]

So glad it went well!

Somehow, the first thing that came to my mind was, "if she is so filthy, why the need for a bib?" but I also know that I would do that too... :)

Thanks for sharing these!

[Val Clark]

Sounds like everyone had fun. On the dirty front, no wonder Mom always made us pack our "old" clothes for camping, and we had to go to the showers EVERY night instead of every other like at home! My parents did not tackle the camping thing until I was about 5 years old & I'm the youngest but there were 4 kids. We went 2 or 3 times a month from Friday after work until Sunday afternoon. Oh, the fun times!

[Sarah]

You stayed at a hotel?! Where? Did you do any hiking?

[Jeannette]

the tiny baby teeth are so adorable! brought back memories!

[Marianne]

You are such a great writer!

I love the photos and the one of hammer and his rock just cracks me up.

I cried the first time my baby got a boo boo on his face. What is it with these kids who want to walk, explore the world and such nonsense?????

[Cindi]

Sounds like it was a great weekend even with the black eye.

Just a suggestion for next time. I found a great solution to the dirty baby problem. A large dishpan or Rubbermaid container filled with water and sitting in the son makes an amazing bathtub, or water play spot.

Cindi

[Jo-Ann]

I am so glad it went well. I am so jealous.....
If I can get baby A to stop trying to kill himself it might work. R is ready and really starting to listen.

Glad you had fun!!

[Tiffany]

I am not brave enough to try camping with the baby yet - even though I know she will love it! We attempted to go camping in Utah with a pop up trailer when she was around one year old. But we did not make it, long story short the pop up camper flipped luckily we landed on a HUGE median with lots of grass (1/4 miles wide) and the car did not flip but the tires came of the rims. Ended that trip with a stay in a cheesy hotel.

[Rosemary Grace]

How fun. Poor contusion-ed baby! Somewhere there is a photo of me and the boy down the street with matching black eyes. He was making fun of mine, so I shoved him off the couch I'd fallen off to put the smile on the other side of his head. We were 2. I must have been a vengeful toddler.

[Leslie]

Camping with a baby! How fun is that?!

[ladykuri]

OMG too cute! It sounds like you guys had a great time too. I love dirty babies, that just means they're having fun ;)

Don't worry about the injury, my daughter gave herself a huge black eye (like, the real thing, all around it and bloodshot and all) when she was barely mobile. The darling doofus daddy didn't think about the fact that she could *move* and left her on our bed with me while I was asleep "just to grab the phone". She took a header off the side going after the cat and smacked it on the nightstand :( Luckily the nightstand has a rounded lip!

[Kelley]

I love Wal-Mart for that same reason. Whenever I'm feeling any sort of self-loathing coming on, I either go to this Cowboy bar or Wal-Mart, because no matter how bad I look or feel, I'm usually cracking the top 5% of hotties at either place ;)

Glad to hear that the camping went relatively well. You are braver than I ever was, my son was almost three the first time we took him camping.

[RainbowW]

the whole point of going to wal mart is to watch the white trash. if you ever want to learn how to get puke out of a suede jacket ... wal mart at 3am. somebody will tell you.

[SandyC]

Brave of you to do WalMart. I've only been in one once and I'd put it up there with Dunkin Donuts. At 3 am. While tripping.

[KelliAmanda]

The Wal-mart comment is right on...glad you survived and enjoyed the camping trip!

[Garnigal]

Love #8. My parents still tell the story of the first time they took me camping. I was only 6 months old, so they took the bassinet for me to sleep in. But I'd decided to start pulling myself up.

Baskets are not intended to hold up chubby little girls. I tumbled end over end in the dirt. Apparently I was covered in fine black grit from my toes to my eyebrows.

[SusieJ]

Sounds like you had a GREAT time. :D

[Heatherg]

Remember, I started reading you because i had googled "camping blog" or something like that and one of your old entries came up.....and been here ever since.

Because "my name is heatherg and i'm a camping whore"

We started all our kids camping at about 11 months and now they are champs and cant wait to go! Its an awesome hobby to instill in them and it only gets easier as they grow......

[Kristin]

I hope Tori's cheek is feeling better! We tried to put ice on the Boy's accidental fat lip the other day. We might as well have been trying to do an eyebrow waxing on an agitated cat.

[jayme]

Hey Cecily. Love your blog. I've been reading it since we started having trouble conceiving our second child. Four years and counting...

Anyway, I think this is the first time that I've commented. I just wanted to say that I loved the camping pictures. I can't wait to take our daughter on a camping trip.

[Sierra]

I am so happy that you ventured out with the little one. Camping is a blast and I started my baby on it at 4 mos. However, just before she turned one we moved to the Arctic, camping just isn't the same up here and I have this fear of being eaten, so we save the camping for vacations. Glad things went well for you, these expereinces will be fond memories for your whole family.

[It's Me... Maven]

and that store happens to be a Walmart, you will totally blend in with your filthy camping clothes and your baby with a black eye. No one even blinks.

The only thing that is lacking is the visual of an overly-full diaper!