I’m pretty sure that if we’d never left the US, we would have taken the kids camping by now, at least once, even if we’d only gone as far as the wilds of Grandpa’s backyard.  As it is, we haven’t yet, not really.  But we have gotten a fair bit of practice, having sleepovers in the tent in the living room.

It’s a habit we got out of over the winter.  Mostly, I think, because the boys are now sharing a room, so now every night is kind of a sleepover for them.  But last weekend, the boys requested another campout sleepover in the living room, and Dan camped out with them.  This past weekend, they wanted to do it again, and I took a turn.

It was really great fun, and it made me sorry we’ve gotten out of the habit.  After our usual Friday night movie night (which has sometimes turned into Friday night TV night, because it’s a constant struggle to find appropriate yet engaging movies for a 2 and 4 year old), for which we did as camping themed TV shows, we got the tent all ready.  The boys snuggled up in their sleeping bags (actually fleece lined buntings intended for the stroller — I wish I had one myself) and we got out the iPad to do some stargazing.  We looked up stars and planets and imagined what it would be like to actually be camping outside.  Then the boys curled up for sleep and I got myself situated on the couch.

Not surprisingly, it took a while for them to settle down (because camping is fun!) but they did, and drifted off peacefully, although I realized, prior to falling asleep myself, that both boys had wiggled out of their “sleeping bags” and out of the tent entirely — they were actually cuddled up together out on the carpet.  But they were happy.  Liam woke once in the middle of the night unsure of where he was, but I helped him get back into the tent, back into his sleeping bag, and back to sleep.

We had a great night.  And waking up to my boys snoozing peacefully in their tent was pretty fantastic.  I’m glad we’ve revived the living room campouts.