This weekend, I bit off a bit more than this Gimpy Momma can or should chew. I signed up to take the kidlets to an overnight camp with the preschool Little Miss attended last year. I know, a bit strange, but the venue is AMAZING. We went last year, and staying in a facility on the beach in South Lake Tahoe is divine, plus it is enclosed, has multiple play areas for the kids, and it is attended by a bunch of parents that watch out for eachother’s kids.
What I didn’t factor into the equation was me being pretty gimpy still, and trying to manage a toddler in this space. Trying to make sure he didn’t kill himself while stumbling around and trying not to tear my ACL graft was a bit nerve wracking.
What kept replaying in my mind was that my physical therapist had warned me my graft is weakest right now. He also said he had a patient tear his ACL graft in sand. So what was I doing? I lot of walking on sand with a lot of rocks, trying to carry 30 pounds of wriggling toddler, lecturing myself in my head that this was NOT a good idea.
And then there were the sleeping arrangements. The kids and I ended up getting placed in the same room as a family of 4. I had arranged to bunk up with this family, but we all thought we were getting separate rooms. Not so. The other family was a husband and wife with two kids, a girl of 5 and a boy of 2.
Have you ever tried to sleep 4 kids ages 5 and 2 in one room? No fun. Add to that the other two year old woke up almost every hour on the hour, in turn waking up the other 3 kids. None of us got much sleep.
Our wake-up call came at 5:30am, when we woke to the cries of “Daddy, monster under bed! Daddy, monster under bed!” I didn’t move, assuming it was the other 2 year old. But no, the other mom in the room said that child was sleeping in bed with his Dad, who confirmed it wasn’t him crying.
It was Little Man. My child of few words… That speaks mainly in grunts and pointing, and never says more than one word at a time. That child is the one who woke us all at an unGodly hour speaking a complete sentence!
And of course, the sun was coming up, so all four of the kids were up for good. I quickly got up and dressed my kids, shuttling them out the door and to the dining hall, where I knew I could keep them contained and fed until breakfast (a long 2 hours away). Plus, I knew there was coffee there.
Sounds miserable, right? Why on earth would I do this to myself?
Because even when you’re waking up at 5:30am, seeing this first thing in the morning is simply breath-taking.
Plus, the food there is amazing as well. All locally grown, organic, freshly prepared, I ate like a queen. And all of it was worth the misery (mostly) after I got to spend three peaceful hours on the beach with my kidlets on Sunday morning. The water was smooth as glass, Little Man generously stayed close to me making it his mission to throw all of the rocks on the beach into the water, and I got to sit back and enjoy this amazing lake. My kids are so lucky to be growing up close to Tahoe. I didn’t see this magnificent lake until I was 21.
We left camp after lunch (oh, what a lunch it was!). The kids promptly fell asleep in the car, and when I got home, I transferred them to their beds, where they slept another 3 hours. I caught up on sleep, and once everyone got the sand and dirt washed off of them, we were pretty well recovered from our miserable night of sleep.
