Camping with Toddlers

Our little family went camping last weekend, and this was our first campout this summer. We used to camp more, but Morgan is still too young to handle much time away from the comforts of her crib. I have to admit the experience exceeded my expectations for the little getaway. Camping with our "terrible toddler" was actually a lot of fun!

Seeing and experiencing nature through her eyes is probably one of the highlights of my summer. Morgan (23 months) is in her curious and mischevious stage right now, and everything around us was fascinating to her. Swimming in the lake is always a good time for her, but Morgan loved looking for bugs and playing around the tent just as much. The flies and mosquitos around our picnic table were enough to entertain her for quite awhile!

I worried the most about the fire when planning our trip, but it turned out to be no big deal. I can imagine the campfire was enticing, but Morgan knew it was hot and watched from a safe distance. She let Daddy cook the food, and thought he was pretty cool for sticking Mommy's pots in the flames.

Another worry we had was a bed. Last summer we used a pack-and-play for a crib inside our tent. This year we tried to do without. Morgan has never slept overnight outside of a crib, so this turned out to be our biggest challenge. She tossed and turned for several hours, but finally settled down to sleep on top of Mommy at about 1 am. If our tent wasn't so small, I think we would have gone with the pack-and-play option again.

In retrospect, I regret not taking Morgan camping more times this summer. We'll have to make another few weekend getaways before the weather gets too cold.

Moving!

We've sold our house (amazingly, we were already under contract after it was on the market a whopping 3 days)! I am plunging forward with my PhD plans at the University of Iowa, and we'll move there at the end of June. In the meantime, our house has to be empty and clean by June 2nd. I can officially say for 3-1/2 to 4 weeks in June we will not have a permanent address. Yikes! Our plan is to stay with family and have a "vacation" before we move. I'm sure Morgan will love staying with both sets of grandparents, and I'm just grateful our house sold so quickly :)

Because we're moving, the diaper business will also be moving. I'll start working through all the legalities of the move next week, and June will also be an interesting month for running that business.