Camping Adventures

We are going camping tomorrow. It will be our first official family trip and we are all excited. But it didn't start that way...

For the last few days I have been prepping Aid. Because I know my son, I know he needs a bit of preparation time, some time to adjust to an new idea. But he has been completely anti camping. Thought it sounded "horrible" as he explained why he didn't want to go.

He got a bit more excited when we bought our new tent! But that too was fleeting when he realized that we were not just camping in our backyard, but in the woods. Which are "too spooky."

So I have been on a mission to try and sell the camping trip. We told his teacher about it at school. We bought little flashlights and lanterns just for them. We pulled out any books about camping that we could find. I even tried to explain the beauty of the smore.

Finally I tried bribery. What about a new book to bring camping with you? And you can pick out some chips! Yes! I am not above bribery and thought that as long as I got him there with relatively minimal incident he would love it as we do. No go. He picked out his camping book, but then proceeded to yell at me the entire rest of the Costco trip. I was mean, life was unfair, I am just a little bumble bee anyway (!?!). He got his new camping book taken away from him and I forgot the chips. It was a challenging store trip.

But Bob had set up the tent. So Aid walked in to see our cool new tent in the backyard. He sprinted past me and within moments had moved all of his pillows into the tent as well as his dinosaurs and books. He ran in and gave me a hug and said, "Thank you for letting us go camping mom! It's going to be a great adventure."

He can be a little difficult. I found myself hysterically laughing in the kitchen. I have spent the last few days in 5 year old hell arguing over this trip and now it's going to be a great adventure?!!!

When as a mother can you officially begin just responding with "I told you so."