It’s 10 pm and I just realized I left the kids pajamas in a suitcase in an outside compartment of the camper. It’s our first full day in AZ and I’m exhausted, so I say, “We’re sleeping in our underwear.” The boys are fine with that decision and we squirm into our sleeping bags and are asleep in minutes.
Later that night, I wake up to someone sleeping under my legs. I move my legs out from under whoever it is and go back to sleep. 20 minutes later, I feel more bones bumping under my bones—he’s pushing his way under my sleeping bag again! I reach down and I feel the cold bare back of my 4 year old. He’s lost his sleeping bag and freezing and trying to use mine. I reach down to grab him and bump my head on the ceiling (not much headroom in that bed above the driver seat). I dig him out from under my legs and pull him into line and put a sleeping bag over him.
As I let myself fall back to sleep, my shoulder is really aching. And for the first time I realize that this bed is hard—really hard– like a freaking board hard. I feel where the boys are sleeping and it is soft. My section is like a rock covered in carpet. I reach to see what the other side is like and it is soft. I put it in upside down! Too tired and cold to deal with it now, I go back to sleep.
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All the way to the KOA, Colebrook was upset that I didn’t let him go shopping. Nana gave him $20 at a store in TC to buy something for the trip, but he could not find anything, so he decided to save it for AZ. Since we landed, he hasn’t talked about anything else.
I do my best to get him to forget about it. But he’s pouting as we arrive at the campground. I see every kind of cacti in the yard around the campground entrance and remember Colebrook’s been asking to see a cactus since we landed as well. I talk up the cacti to get CB to forget about his $20. It didn’t work. He stayed in the camper sulking.
Hawthorn and I leave the camper and go check in. As I talked to the cashier, H disappears. Then, a few minutes later loudly comes into the little store scratching at his fingers. “Ouch, Ouch Ouch.” All that talking up Cacti sure peaked someone’s interest! As I am pulling needles out of Hawthorn, I say to Colebrook, “There is a 24 hour megastore just down the road. After we go swimming, and cook dinner and get the camper set up; it will be late, but if you still want to get something we can?” Swimming was great. The kids were happy and splashing as I watched from the hot tub. Then they were playing jump games in the hot tub as I watched them from the pool. I really needed a break from them.
We finish dinner. It is 8. Colebrook is looking at me. “Ok, Colebrook, do you want to go?” And so we did. And we stared at the same Lego sets in Apache Junction that he couldn’t decide on in Traverse City two days previous.
