Backyard Bushwacking

A little over a year ago Stacy and I bought a new tent at a charity auction for L's school. Our old tent was a three-man job, but really only slept two adults. The new one was advertised as a seven-man tent, so given the previous ratio I figured it could just about accommodate our family of four. We didn't get any camping in last summer, so the tent sat in our garage unopened all year. On Saturday afternoon, however, well over a year after we bought it, I decided to pull it out and see what it is we got.

The thing is huge! We're talking ginormous. The floor canvas covered our entire backyard with inches to spare; it was a feat of engineering to get it laid out between my raised garden on one side of the yard and the flower beds on the other. L and N, all worked up about the idea of backyard camping, buzzed about the deflated carcass like disturbed hornets, wanting to "help." I expect we hadn't hit the 30-minute mark before N started yanking on one of the main tent poles I'd laid out and snapped the center elastic string that held the jigsaw pieces together. It was around the 2-hour mark before I managed to finish clumsily restringing the pole in enough of a temporary fix to allow the building to proceed.

I've camped a lot in my "yoot" so I'm generally pretty adept at setting up a tent, but this monstrosity nearly beat me. It wasn't hard to figure out, just way too big and bulky for a single person to assemble. Lynne, Stacy's mom, happened to come by as I was struggling, and between her, Stacy and I we managed to get the thing erected. (Notice who I neglected to credit with "helping.") I understand a little better now why the Egyptians needed all those Israelites when building their pyramids.

Did I mention it is huge? Fully assembled, it stands literally 6 feet high. It has a central chamber with two little side wings on either end, and represents a significant increase in my home's overall square footage. If I didn't disassemble it soon I would be cited by the City of Los Angeles for building without a permit and my property taxes would go up.

The juvenile insects, now with a hive to claim as their own, proceeded to move in the vast bulk of their pillows, blankets and toys from their bedroom. Evidently toys you haven't touched in months suddenly seem a lot more exciting if you can play with them in a tent. To build on the roughing-it mood, we grilled hamburgers and hotdogs and ate at the picnic table by the tent. The frenzy of excited chitter-chatter from L and N throughout dinner and early evening seemed to weary adults to be unsustainable, but we were sorely mistaken. Soon it was pajama time and both kids proudly emerged with full-body footed pajamas. L's looked a little painfully stretched out and Stacy reminded me that she actually doesn't own any footed pajamas anymore and that those were N's and a little, umm, small.



While we waited eagerly for encroaching darkness, L, N and I concentrated on destocking the tent and restocking the house of excess toys and linens; Stacy went off to assemble the camping mainstay of s'mores - those are melted marshmallows, Hershey chocolate and graham crackers for all you uninitiated. I forbade the roasting of gooey, drippy marshmallows over my gas grill, so Stacy resorted to nuking them in the microwave. We discovered in this act that marshmallows and microwaves are not kindred spirits. After a prolonged nuke the chocolate melted into the pool of pleasantness we hoped for, but the marshmallow had no outwardly discernible change of state. I stressed the words "outwardly discernible" for a reason. On trying to eat one of these disturbingly white and puffy looking monstrosities, one finds that a change of state has indeed occurred, but not for the better. The formerly light and springing puff has now become a stiff, stringy, dough-like substance. As you would bite into the s'more, the transformed mallow would stretch and not break, and you got the distinct impression you were eating chocolate-covered mozzarella. A petrochemical disaster alarming enough to earn kudos from BP.

Eventually it was bedtime. Or at least tent-time. Sleep, as we all knew, was many, many hours away. We climbed into the tent, zipped up the door, and established our domains. Our family of four barely covered half the available floorspace. It seemed a little like sleeping in an empty and more sparsely decorated version of the Capitol rotunda. All open floors and soaring dome. (I'll need to install some statues of dead presidents around the perimeter next time.)








As it got dark we endured an hour and a half of the joy that only flashlights, 4-to-6-year-olds, and a tent can bring. After suitable battery drainage, the flashlights were confiscated and we settled down to try to go to sleep. After some last-minute appeals for water and a trip back in the house we settled down to try to go to sleep. After another 10 minutes of trying to wrestle a rediscovered camera from L and N we settled down to try to go to sleep.







As I lay in the tent I noticed several things I hadn't noticed before.

1) We live in a city. You can forget that inside a sealed up house. There were fire engines howling and neighbors talking and a freeway one mile away that sounds like a long-winded demon constantly exhaling.

2) The ground has gotten significantly harder over the last ten years or so. I'm not quite sure how this is possible, but I'm convinced it has. I know I certainly haven't, and you'd think that would compensate for it somewhat, but it doesn't.

3) Everyone in my family snores. Verbal testimony indicates I'm included in this group.

And then the fun started. At precisely 11:00pm L woke up and started screaming. Inconsolable. I thought she was still asleep, caught up in a bad dream, but Stacy said it was probably her stomach bothering her and that when she did this she usually threw up. She and I were out of the tent in seconds flat. Back in the house her crying was the choking, sputtering sort that allows for no discussion of any kind. I couldn't get any confirmation on what was wrong. I did get a negative head shake that eliminated her tummy as being a problem, but that was it. After ten minutes or so lying on her bed, she calmed down but still couldn't/wouldn't tell me what was wrong. I asked her if she wanted to go back out in the tent and she nodded affirmatively. We reentered the tent and I explained my lack of diagnosis to Stacy; N was still snoring not having budged through L's extremis. (I think he's pretty used to it.) We settled back in, but within another 10 minutes she was crying again - once more all choking and snorting. We marched back inside, again with no indication of what was wrong; this time I was getting angry.

I left her to cry it out on her bed and plopped on the couch to wait it out. Eventually she softened and I went back to her room again. She was a little more talkative now, but she still said she didn't know what was wrong. I asked if she wanted to cuddle on the couch and she nodded enthusiastically that she did. I carried her out there and we lay there together for a while until she started crying again. She wasn't as overcome this time as before and I was able to talk with her. It wasn't her tummy she said, it was her leg. "What's wrong?" I asked. "Is it bruised? Is the pain sharp or is it an ache?"

All she could said was "I dunno!" through her tears. First it was one leg, then she started complaining about the other. I rubber her legs, secretly looking for tender spots. She neither winced nor indicated that the rubbing was helping. Now her foot was feeling funny. I started rubbing her foot, but it was difficult because her footed pajamas were so tight that I... wait a minute... Her footed pajamas were so tight... Hmmmm.

"L," I said. I think your pajamas might be a little too tight for you. I think they are cutting off the circulation to your legs. Can we take them off? Oh no. That wasn't up for discussion, because N had on footed pajamas, so she needed them. I thought through this a bit, then I had an idea.

"L," I suggested, "What if I said you could wear a pair of Daddy's pajamas?" Her eyes got big as if they were saying "Really?!?" But all she did was nod quickly. I left her on the couch and fished through my drawers. I came back out and made my offer, "L, you can wear these striped pajamas, or these that have bears on them, or these - these have mooses on them! There was no hesitation, as I knew there wouldn't be; the trembling hand shot out to point at the moose pajamas. We quickly peeled my daughter and robed her in moose. Even with the drawstring fully tightened they were genie pants on her. I had to wrap the string around her middle and tie it in the back. A Georgia Tech T-shirt completed the outfit.

We lay back down on the couch and I proceeded to rub her legs. "Feel any better?" I asked. Not willing to give up the drama too quickly, she responded a little. But soon both legs were good enough that we could risk the 6-inch walk across the yard to regain the tent.

The rest of the night went peacefully, if not particularly comfortably. Other than the early morning nails of a neighborhood tomcat who thought the tent canvas the perfect sharpening implement, all went smoothly. (Well, not for the cat. He received a belt through the tent wall that sent him spiralling into the clivia patch. He didn't come back.) On Sunday morning I emerged from the tent stiff and unrested around 5:00 am. L was up and in the house by 6:00. She seemed none the worse for the wear. Stacy and N dragged it out, as is usually the case inside too.

Later in the day Stacy came up to me to relate an L story. For some reason they had been talking about who they loved. L had professed her love for N and for Mommy. "But," related Stacy, "I really love Daddy, because he helped me last night."

I immediately when out and set the tent back up.