Secondborn's Marvelous Weekend, Part One

Secondborn has been asking about sleeping outdoors in a tent in the backyard. So (entirely against my better judgement) I told him that he and I could camp in the back yard on Friday. I had hoped to spare Beautiful Wife and Firstborn, but... no, they got roped in too. Fortunately, we have two two-person tents. (I think they're technically three-person tents, but the official tent rating appear to be based on the presumption that you can merge your flesh with that of your tent-mates, and also that you can all lie there like mummies, with no need to stretch out or roll over.) So I came home from work to find that both tents had been set up in the back yard, and when bedtime rolled around we all went outside to "sleep".

I was fully prepared to sleep. I was absolutely exhausted, coming off a very long and stressful week, and completely ready to crash and burn. I warned Secondborn that when we got into the tent, he'd need to be still and quiet because I was going to read two pages of my book and start snoring.

It... didn't quite play out like that.

Tents are just cloth. They are the exact opposite of soundproof. So we listened to Beautiful Wife and Firstborn chatting quietly, until they got quiet. Secondborn settled down next to me... and then started trying to set up a nightlight. I told him not to bother, and he settled in. Then, just as I was falling asleep, he sat back up and started trying to play something on his tablet. I told him to put it down and go to sleep, and he settled again. I settled too, and was just starting to drift to sleep when he sat back up again. This time he was worried because we couldn't hear Firstborn and Beautiful Wife. "That," I told him with some asperity, "is because they're asleep."

Secondborn settled in again, and this time was quiet and still for a good half an hour. I'd missed my window for falling asleep by this point, so I was reading. (Space Unicorn Blues as it happens, and I highly recommend it.) Then the wind picked up a little, and started rustling the rain fly (which at first made me think we were maybe getting drizzled on, but no: no precipitation, just a bit of wind). That woke Secondborn up again, so I asked if he wanted a little bit of Melatonin. He agreed, and we went inside and did that, and then came back out and settled in the tent again.

It was now 11:15, and the child was A. still awake, and B. chatty.

But, I got him settled again, and the Melatonin did its work, and he finally really slept.

It still wasn't quiet outside; we're talking about the Metroplex on a Friday night, and it has a deep, steady roar composed of hundreds of engines carrying people around the city. But it was quiet enough. And while we hadn't put down mattresses, I had thrown a sleeping bag under us and the tent was set up on a nice stretch of smooth grass. I'd been worried that I might not be able to sleep on a (relatively) hard surface like that, but while I'm definitely older than I used to be I'm not old enough for that to be a problem. No, the real issue with getting comfortable is that I'm almost exactly as tall as the tent is long, which makes it impossible to sleep with my head on one arm and my legs fully extended. (Secondborn, of course, does not share this problem.) So there was a lot of shifting around and rolling over, and having my limbs in strange but not really uncomfortable positions. All in all, though, it wasn't bad; I was aware of those things, but I still managed to be asleep.

Sometime the next morning when it was starting to get light, I heard the door to the kitchen open and close. Beautiful Wife and Firstborn had retreated into the house. It had turned chilly in the early morning, and Secondborn was cuddled against my back and rapidly taking over my pillow. (I really should have seen that coming and had an extra blanket ready, but oh well.) We slept a little longer, and when it was bright enough that I couldn't sleep anymore I nudged Secondborn awake and we went inside to join them.

I went to the back room and slept a little bit longer on the bed. (Not all that much longer, really; I'd actually slept pretty well in the tent.) Secondborn, meanwhile, immediately dropped into his mother leftover (and still very hot) bath water to warm up.

Secondborn was thrilled, y'all. Not only had we Had An Adventure, but it was an adventure that he'd come up with and largely directed. Bonus points for the fact that it didn't start to rain until mid-morning, after we'd had a chance to haul in everything that had been in the tents. Double bonus points for the Beautiful Wife making scrambled eggs for the boys and bacon-sirloin and cheddar omelettes for us.

But the weekend wasn't over yet...