Camping with a 3 year old

We had a Fan-Tab-U-Lous time camping over the long weekend.

We were back at FransTed, which was fortunate as boy toy had to work, then go help some other guys who couldn’t get there Frelling job done. Needles to say, we did not get on the road until 6pm, which means that we didn’t get up to the campground until almost 9pm.

It’s dark in the mountains, and pitching a still new tent that’s set up is just a wee bit more complicated than solving the Rubix cube, blindfolded, drunk and with your toes, in the cold, when your warm and snugglies are stuck in a bag you can’t open, and you have a 3 year old running around screaming I LOVE THIS, because he has just woken up from a 2 ½ hour nap, may be a challenge if you did not know your campground and site well.

Every morning Spotty Chop and I would walk down to the river to throw rocks. We also fished with sticks. Spotty caught “scary” fish that he made me eat. I landed a few hot dog fish that we could only look at, no eating mama.

We also played Lightning McQueen and Chick Hicks in the mini golf area. Usually I was Lightning and Chick Hicks chased me around and around. But sometimes I got to be Chick, I unfortunately never caught up with Lightning.

Every night we had sword fights. That’s right, I brought the swords that I bought at the Beach Boy concert and we had elaborate battles. He is getting pretty freaking good at it too. Spotty would even jump up onto one of the big rocks on the site and yell “HAHA” wave his sword and then jump down. Yelling “you can’t get me Darth Mall” or “save Padame”. Now this boy has never seen the movies, but he spent the first 6 months of his life sleeping under the original New Hope movie poster that hangs on my side of the bed, and he plays Star Wars Legos with his daddy…

Saturday we hung out at the campground. We played in the playground, boy toy and Spotty spent time on the swings and then moved to the see saw. I told them to get on one side and I would get on the other. So boy toy stood behind Spotty and used his massive heman strength to rocket me into the air, I would leave my seat and then come crashing back to earth sending Spotty up into the air, the two of us laughing like loons. Everyone around us was laughing like loons as well, especially when Spotty said “you look like a frog mama”. I of course needing to regain my dignity told Spotty to come around to my side and he and I would make dada look like a frog…So I try to push down with my arms, and then I lay on the see saw, I try to bounce….nothing. We cooked hot dogs over the fire and Spotty thought that was cool. But my favorite part of the night was when Spotty was sitting on my lap as we just sat by the fire and he looked up and said “oooooh mama, what are those?” and we looked up and said “those are the stars baby”. We are so accustom to seeing the beautiful NH night sky that we forgot what it was like to see it for the first time (or at least the first time he remembers). “WOW”.

Sunday we went to Santa’s Village. We went there 2 years ago for the first time and it was amazing to see how much he has changed since then. The very first thing he wanted to do was the log ride. He loved it so much that he and dada went right back on while I took pictures. What I didn’t realize until I got to the “photo shop” was that Spotty had his arms up while coming down the second time (I got a snow globe and 5x7 of that shot).

3 is a GREAT age to come here. They can ride on everything, and we did, twice. We rode on the skyway sleigh and saw other things that we had to do “they are my favorite”. He LOVED the great humbug adventure (think a low tech Buzz Lightning) We rode on that 4 or 5 times. The antique cars were a big hit as was the roller coaster. He and dada went on the bumper cars several times and apparently laughed every time they hit or were hit (I hate those frelling things). We got one of those souvenir cups, which is actually a good deal because you get free refills all day, and a souvenir, no need to buy anything else, unless you need to play the fire truck game (arcade shoot water into a hole to see who wins a prize) Spotty won a new pet toucan.

My very favorite part of the day? The reindeer carousel, why? Because the man running it was dressed in the official uniform of a red shirt, green pants. He was built…in a “jolly” manor and had a full white beard and white hair. We didn’t notice this until Spotty pulled on my pants and whispered “mama who is that?” and I looked up and laughed. The man looked at me and then saw Spotty hiding behind me and peeking out. He started to laugh. Spotty was just enthralled, couldn’t stop looking at him and turned super shy when he came over to say hi.

Perfect ending to a perfect trip. Can’t wait till July 4th!!!