babycamp part 1

Day 2
It hasn’t been as heinous as we expected. We spent a long time getting here yesterday, stopping to say goodbye to Gran and Pop, stopping by the lake house for something we forgot, shopping for last minute necessities at Wal-Mart, stopping at Sike’s and Kohn’s mall for baby Teva sandals, checking out the Florida welcome center, and then getting stopped by every other red light in Panama City. We had hopes of setting up camp while it was still daylight, but we had no such luck. Fortunately, Dave and Ellen and Chloe arrived before we did, and Dave rigged a super light from a tree in our campsite. Setting up was easy, and we had a FABULOUS seafood dinner at Montego Bay restaurant. Dennis and Chloe were pinnacles of baby cuteness at dinner, totally charming our waitress (and, by the way, the most kid-friendly waitress we’ve ever had the pleasure of tipping—babies’ food came out first and quickly, and she brought crackers for them to share before the food came without us even asking). Dennis offered Chloe his crackers a number of times, and sometimes she took one. Sometimes it was pre-tasted, sometimes it was a fresh cracker. They tried to get each others’ sippy cups. They shared their dinners, hers was fish, and his was grilled cheese, and both babies liked everything. They were happy and sweet and talkative (and grabby).

After dinner we retreated to camp while Chloe and family shopped at Wal-Mart. We turned in and Dennis and David went to sleep pretty easily. I had difficulty because some campers in the site next to ours arrived after midnight and set up. David and I each got 4 hours of sleep, but they were a different 4 hours (him: 12am to 4am, me: 2am to 6am). Dennis slept from 11 to 6, with one wake up at 3am where it occurred to him that he was not in his crib, not in his room, and not even in his home state, so he cried for 2 minutes. I picked him up to comfort him and he pretty much went limp in my arms as he fell back to sleep. He woke up all happy and adorable this morning, smiling through his breakfast, waving at the other campers on his morning wagon ride… We met his godmother for breakfast at Mike’s Diner (another FABULOUS eatery) and then shopped for a screen house to set up at our campsite, sort of like a big 10 X 15 baby kennel. Worked great! Babies were contained. The sand, however, was not. We spent the day hot and dirty, trying another wagon ride to get a breeze going, and eventually deciding to swim in the lagoon. Water temp was nice, water grossness factor was not so nice. Dennis loved floating in his baby float, though, and it was hard to get him out of the water long enough to walk to the Gulf beach side. Chloe napped through the lagoon. If you asked her, she would deny that she was ever there. She woke up when we hit the beach, though, and she and Dennis had the best time playing in the sand, digging in it, crawling through it, licking the sand toys, ‘helping’ their daddies make castles. Then we took a dip in the considerably colder water, and Dennis had reached his limit. It was too cold to sit in the float, but it was perfectly fine for us to occasionally bend down and hold him out where he could reach out and pat and splash the water (convenient for him, backbreaking for us). We followed this with more sand playing and a game of pizza Frisbee (Frisbee looks just like a pepperoni pizza), then a rinse, back to camp, and (YES!) showers. Dennis sacked out before he even dried out (but after I excavated him from an extremely poopy swim diaper). We tried to wake him to join us for a spaghetti dinner, but he decided to stay asleep even sitting up, so we let him. It was a full, fun day. We break camp and head north tomorrow, but I’m sure we’ll squeeze in some fun along the way.