Andy and Belén Camping

Last weekend we went camping with our friends Scott and Laura and their son Aiden.  We were scheduled to leave town around 10AM but Laura called in the morning and said they had to take Aiden to the doctor because his pee was pink.  Around 9:30 she called and said that he was fine and had just eaten too many beets, but that he did have a cold and sore throat that the doctor detected after Laura expressed that Aiden had been fussy.  The doctor said that Aiden could still go camping but that we should keep the babies four feet apart which is apparently daycare standard when dealing with sick kids.  We were not concerned so we soon headed out of town.

When we arrived at the campground we had planned to camp in, we were able to get the last spot.  Unfortunately there was only one suitable place for tents so we had to put our tents right next to each other.  We could hear each other’s baby crying but it didn’t turn out to be too much of a big deal.

We immediately realized that despite the fact we were at a higher elevation in the woods, it was still stinkin’ hot.  We hung out for awhile and then Andy started preparing traditional Mexican tacos for dinner and I mixed up a chocolate cake for the Dutch oven.

That was only the beginning of the amazing food of which we consumed in large quantities all weekend long.  I am beginning to think that camping is our excuse to eat excessively.  For some reason you are always more hungry in the woods.  Scott and Laura made a wonderful Asian chicken salad for lunch on Saturday and then dinner was Dutch Oven enchiladas followed by an apple crisp for dessert.  Yummy.

On top of the delicious food, there was wonderful conversation to pass the hot day with topics ranging from parenting (a crowd favorite) to financial planning to careers to religion and of course family relations.  We addressed my philosophical question I have posed to myself lately about if you have an infinite capacity for love or if it is finite.  This question occurred because of the large amount of new love that was created when we had Belén, I wondered if I had to give up love for other people.  We agreed that you can grow love but time is another matter and that certain people do fall out of your lives because of a fixed amount of time in the day.

Through our conversations I came up with my working theory on parenting that there are three types of parenting styles:

1. 
   

   1) do what the kid wants (within reason, keeping his/her safety in mind)

2. 2) do what the kid needs

3. 3) do what the parents want and the kid is just along for the ride

We have friends in each category.  Some friends do whatever the kid wants.  Others give up everything to get the kid to bed by 6PM each night, essentially giving up their social life.  And finally the friends whose kid does not go to bed until 10:30PM at the earliest so the parents can stay out with their friends.  I would like to think that there is another category that is a combination of these things and that we can fall into that, but I do feel guilty when we keep Belén out too late or do too much of 3).

Between the heat and Aiden being sick, the babies did not sleep well during the day but they were pretty good at night.  I had what Andy calls my “mommy radar” on and would essentially wake up the minute Belén made a peep and start feeding her.  He would wake up and think that I had woke her up to feed since he didn’t hear anything.  We joked with Scott and Laura that the two babies seemed to be in cahoots as when one of them would get fussy the other one seemed to join in.

Belén got a lot of use out of her “adventure hat” which is short for its long name, “French Foreign Legion Adventure Hat”.  Andy took her on a couple of hikes and the hat was perfect for blocking the sun.  She is now quite used to both sunscreen and mosquito repellent and seems fine with both of them thank goodness.

All in all it was a fun weekend camping in Idaho’s wilderness.

When we arrived back home, I caught up on the Tour de France stages we missed while camping.  Lance finished third which is quite amazing after being away from the sport for nearly four years.  Next year he will have a new team, Team RadioShack and I am very interested to see who is on the roster.  I also look forward to following two other American cyclists, Christian Vandevelde and Tyler Ferrar as I think they have a lot of future potential, especially Ferrar in the sprints.

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