Why is everyone crying? I thought this was supposed to be fun?

How one quick camping trip almost broke my will to travel with my kid

What could be better than a camper, a kid, a momma, and a beautiful location? Nothing, am I right?

A good friend of mine invited us to go camping with them up near Walden, CO . It's a relatively short drive from Denver, and we had the new camper, and our tandem kayak, and we were ready for an adventure! Make sure you always have Personal Floatation Devices (PFDs) for water adventures! Here are the ones we have and use: adult, youth, child.

My mistake was deciding that I could make the 3 hour drive, set up an unfamiliar camper, feed the kid, get him to sleep, and then hang out with my friend, all after work on Friday.

The drive went well, it was getting dark, but hey, I'm a capable solo parent and I have #womanstrength so everything will be fine... right? The first tears fell (these ones weren't mine.... yet) when we pulled into the camping area and had to maneuver the truck and camper into a suitable position. By now, the kid was hungry, which we all know is a precursor to full on exorcist level madness. Parking a camper (for the first time) is hard enough without a screaming child in the truck, but I got it done.

After a quick and completely unsatisfactory dinner of cold Subway sandwiches, we were ready to wind down for bed... right? Reader, the kid was going nutso. He was screaming and flailing and crying and kicking. And I was not in my best gentle parenting mom form. I yelled back, I did. I'm not proud, but I did. I left the camper to get some air and reset, I could feel my blood boiling. How were we ever going to have fun together if we couldn't get through ONE night. I was spiraling into negativity and now the tears were mine, too.

While I took some deep breaths I listened to my kiddo cry and call for me and I remembered a quote I'd seen --->

I felt myself react to that... I was absolutely fueling the chaos, I was so frustrated, so mad, that I couldn't see the truth right in front of me. My kid was beyond tired, in an unfamiliar camper, in the middle of nowhere and his little body was in crisis. After a couple more deep breaths, I went back in and grabbed him up in a big hug and apologized for yelling.

Side note: it is really important to get comfortable apologizing to our kids. I like the way that Aha! Parenting talks about apologizing.

It took about 10 minutes for him to fall fast asleep with me holding him.

The rest of our trip, two days and another night, was so much better. We kayaked in the lake together, we lounged in the shade with friends, we ate tasty hotdogs, we slept like logs.

There were still some tears, thankfully no more of mine, but they were of the "why can't I have only s'more's for dinner?" variety, which are much easier to handle.

It was reaffirming that the trip was worth it, and we should do it again (not just light the camper on fire and stay home forever).

I have to keep reminding myself that the hard parts are just that, parts, of the whole journey.

Now I know that if we are going to be traveling anywhere, we are going to do it in the bright and early hours of the day, for his sanity and my own.

All this to say, not every part of every adventure is going to be amazing, and traveling with your kid can expose some fault lines in your parenting, but it is still worth it. I hope your adventures take you far and wide, and challenge you in lots of ways, even the not so fun ways, like kid meltdown management.

Anne Walsh,

A kind of good parent, TheKidGoes