Once you have children there’s a good chance that things you will never be fully emotionally prepared to deal with will happen to you.
Like camping.
With only a couple of weeks left until the end of the summer (I know. Messenger, remember?), it's important to discuss some of the summer season's disturbing rituals.
Like camping.
When the idea of camping is first pitched to you by your family, you’ll feel shaken. As you stew in it, you’ll remind yourself that being outside of your comfort zone brings growth. That may be true, but it doesn’t apply to camping.
Here are some things that WILL happen to you as you camp. There’s not much you can do about any of them, but knowledge is power.
As pack for your outdoor adventure, you will realize you have no idea what people wear when camping. A guiding principle will emerge: What do I own that is both comfortable and ugly? When you arrive at your destination you’ll discover that while some people were relying on the same principle as you, others definitely weren’t.
Learn to accept that camping and your hair are not sympatico. Nature offers no sockets to plug your flat iron. Did you think of that when you agreed to go camping, genius?
Fact: Weather is bad for your hair. Do you. It's not like you have a choice.
You arrived at the camp site eight minutes ago and have no selfies to show for it. Doesn't that pretty much defeat the purpose? Camp sites have poor signals to match your outfit and hair. Neither of which you can Instagram because there are no bars on your phone.
Just like there's no "I" in team, there's no "TV" in nature. At home you're constantly engaged in intellectually stimulating activities like Netflixing, DVRing, On-Demanding and traditional mainstream watching. You also keep physically active by fighting over the remote with your kids. The lifestyle that you've worked so hard on is about to be taken away from you at camping. Take a long hard look at your husband and ask him if that's where he sees your life going.
Prepare to share your space and oxygen with species that belong on the Discovery Channel. Don't get excited, they were already discovered, documented and Latergrammed by previous camping enthusiasts. Why don't you hang out in the tent for a bit? There's not nearly as many of them in there.
As you set foot in the shower, you'll discover that despite the partition between you and the next stall you are involved in a non-consensual water preservation act where you get to share water with the individual next door via the non-partitioned parts. You shall subsequently decide that the cleaner option would be to not shower for the next two days.
I'm sorry to break it to you, Mom, but you ARE the wildlife. Ever wonder why you've yet to meet a single deer when the signage clearly suggests that the woods around you are crawling with them? Ever notice how loud your kids are? So does nature.
Food.
Getting your period - the universe's way of saying 'enough'.
Thunderstorms - how quickly can you pack and de-camp? If your answer exceeds the estimated storm time ask yourself "how emotionally invested am I in my husband's camping equipment?" You know what to do.
RELATED: Camping With Kids: How To Feed Them When You Don't Have An Oven
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