Frigid Memories

The kids are out of school today and I'm leaving at 2 pm for a Women's Retreat. Deanna was invited to a Spend-the-Night birthday party for one of her friends. They were going to sleep in a tent in the backyard.

When I got up this morning and saw the rain, it reminded me of a time I took the girls from Deanna's class camping. The goal was to teach them how to prepare a campsite and pitch a tent. I decided to keep it simple by camping in a friend's backyard - friends that have several acres and a pecan orchard but are only a few blocks from our school. They also have a fire ring - the man was an Eagle Scout. He kept a large supply of firewood and taught us funny camp songs as we sat around in the evening, roasting marshmallows and telling stories.

Our family friend, Ken, who was an Eagle Scout and Scout Master for years came along to check on us. We quite successfully pitched two tents, but the temperature was dropping by the minute. Another Mom was there with me. I was going to sleep in one tent with half the girls, she was in the other. As we were putting out sleeping bags, I discovered some of the girls only had play sleeping bags that were for indoor use, only. I knew they were going to be in trouble. It was getting COLD! Ken also recognized that there was huge potential for failure and disappeared, only to reappear with a dozen or so sheets.

"You'll be amazed how much insulation these sheets will give you," he told the skeptical me. In each girl's sleeping bag he laid down a sheet, then folded it over. They were to climb between the two sheets before zipping up their sleeping bags.

We realized that the coldness would seep in through the ground, so we took every blanket we could muster and used them to insulate the floor of the tent. Some of us had inflatable mats, which were a great insulator, getting us up off the ground, but I was particularly worried about the girls without mats. I had forgotten that our tent, our nice, large, two-room family tent, was a summer-only tent and the top half was netting. If we could have shut it down tight, I thought we might be able to keep some body heat inside, but there was no chance of that. We just needed to make sure our body heat didn't escape our sleeping bags.

My children all have good 20 degree sleeping bags that are supposed to keep them warm to that temperature. I wasn't so sure about some of the other bags in the tents. I had told the girls to bring warm clothes for sleeping and to dress in layers. We made sure everyone had hats and gloves and we all slept with them on. Most of us slept with as many layers a possible. When we finally said goodnight and zipped up the flaps, settling down to try and sleep, we all knew we were in for a tough night. I saw it as an adventure. I wasn't so sure about the girls.

I was amazed how much one little sheet could insulate. During the night, I turned in my bag and the sheet fell off my legs. In the dark, half asleep, I couldn't quite get the sheet put right again and the part of my legs that was exposed was MUCH colder. Around 6 am, I got up to take the girls to the bathroom (my friends also have a mother-in-law cottage that comes in handy for things like bathrooms) and decided we needed to warm up by the fire. I stoked it and piled on the firewood. Then I took some hot coals, placed them between two cement blocks, and started breakfast.

About an hour later, our Host appeared in the yard, carrying a cup of coffee for me. He was coming out to rebuild our fire and was surprised I already had it roaring and was halfway done cooking breakfast. Once the fire had begun crackling, girls had appeared from the other tent and everyone was fully awake by around 6:30, so we were all sitting around the fire enjoying its warmth when he walked up with News.

"It hit 31 degrees last night. You girls camped out in below freezing weather. I'm proud of you!"

I fully expected groans and comments about how they could tell because they were so cold. Instead, the girls shouted, whooped, and the comments amounted to, "I can't wait to get back to school on Monday and tell the BOYS!"

The girls had accomplished something the boys had not yet done. They had camped out, all of them together, in below freezing weather. Each of them saw this as some kind of a badge for which they all had bragging rights. I couldn't help but laugh. They DID see this as an adventure. Whooh!

Anyway, the rain this morning reminded me of that story, although there wasn't any rain that night - just cold, oh, so cold. I hope the girls are having fun and I hope they all made it through the night in the tent. I hope they had breakfast over a campfire this morning, although I doubt it. The Mom who's house it's at doesn't really enjoy camping. I suspect she's making a big breakfast right now of eggs and juice - inside, over the stove.

I loved those camping days with the girls. I'm not sure how many more there will be, now that they're in middle school. But I was determined to make sure they all had some camping experience and knew the basics. I think I accomplished that over their years in Elementary.

And now, I must go and pack. Reminiscing needs to end for now so I can focus on laying out the clothes to take and finishing the grocery list so Don can do the shopping while I'm gone.

I'm saying an extra prayer for each of those girls this morning that mean so much to me. I love each and everyone of them and am secretly a little jealous that some other mother had them last night and I missed out on camping with them.

But we have memories!