“Camping! Camping! Camping!” Cried one “Yay! Let’s GO!” Hollered another. I sighed. Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE camping. I really do. I used to go all the time. That was in the before days though. Before the husband. Before the kids. Before the kids the kids brought home. Before. Oh how I miss the before. When loading the car with tent and blankets and a cooler of food was simple. Put the fishing poles and the little inflatable boat on top and off to the lake! Packing took maybe an hour in those days. Now it takes a full week, at least. Sometimes, even longer. Why Stanley won’t let me get a travel trailer I don’t know. I am perfectly capable of towing a trailer. Just because he is nervous of it, doesn’t mean I am. Men. I want a trailer. Everything would be all set up and ready to go all the time. We could decide at the last minute to go for the weekend and only pack a few clothes and some food. Be gone in an hour! None of this current insanity involved. It is insanity. Absolute insanity. Stan is yelling at the dog for pooping in the front yard, when it was Kurt who was supposed to take the dog for a poop before we loaded the cars. Yes, cars. We need to take two vehicles to be able to go anywhere off any distance away. Between our two kids and the three extra that seem to have moved in, the dog, the cat, us, and all our stuff. Yes, we take the cat. Camping. I know. Don’t judge me. It was all I could do to be able to leave the fish at home.

The rule when the kids were young was one friend each for family events. Dinners, trips, sleepovers and the like. One friend each keeps it fair. Kurt found Eddie and Fred. Twins. How can you separate twins? That kid always finds a loophole somewhere. I can’t really complain, he is very much my payback for everything I did to my parents when I was a kid. I totally understand my mother’s frustration with me now. Alli, on the other hand, is very much like Stan. Has zero interest in getting dirty or experiencing loud things. The fish are hers. Quiet and out of the way, they compliment her colour-coordinated bookshelf very nicely. I paid Kurt to read a poster to me last week, just to get him to read something! No really, please don’t judge me. Anyway, Kurt and the twins ride with Stan and his cat, Alli and Sarah ride with me and the dog. I have the inflatable boat and fishing poles on top, and the rest of the outdoorsy parts in the back of the SUV, Stan has the clothes and coolers in the back of his minivan. Yes, the van is his. He chose the minivan. On his own. “It has the best safety ratings!” He had said. At least one of us is good with that stuff. I have zero desire to look like the soccer mom stereotype. Stan embraces it. I am all good with that! Part of me wants to toss the dog into his van for the trip. That would entertain me, but Stan would have a meltdown over the safety risk factor and we would never get to leave. I am now standing at the driver’s door of the SUV tapping my foot in annoyance. We are LATE.

If there is one thing I cannot stand, it is being late. We have reserved a large camping space at a very busy government park again. I never trust these reservations. Some other arse that didn’t bother to reserve might show up and steal our spot. Stan isn’t interested in conflict, or me being in conflict, so he would just let them take it. I am NOT doing that again. He did that last spring break. I could’ve killed him. After hours of looking for another site in all the different parks, we wound up having to go home. The kids were super disappointed. I was very angry. Stan was in the dog house for weeks after that. He promised that would never happen again, so we are leaving earlier in the day to ensure it does not. We all agreed to be out the door and on the road at 10am. I had everything packed and loaded that I could last night. The food and kids entertainment was packed this morning and loaded by 9. I have been trying to herd all these humans and pets from the house into the vehicles for an hour now. I have no idea why this is so hard for them. All the hard stuff was done for them. All the packing and loading was done for them. All they have to do is “GET IN THE CARS!” Oops. That was my outside voice. Haha. Oh well. It seems to have worked! I won’t question it, or apologize for it. I smile at the girls sitting nicely in the back seat. They smile back. I put the SUV in drive and turn onto the road. Alli and Sarah are singing some camping song they made up and the dog seems to be enjoying it. We just might make it yet. “YAY! CAMPING!” The girls finish the song and burst into a fit of giggles. Okay. Maybe I don’t really miss the before all that much.