Michigan Traditions

Well if you've lived in Michigan longer than a year you probably have noticed that starting Memorial Day weekend and every weekend until Labor Day there are a lot of RVs, travel trailers, and campers being pulled all over the state. You may even notice tents on the roofs of cars as they all go "Up North" for the weekend. Well this weekend I joined the pack. (I usually don't camp on the holiday weekends because of the crowds and traffic. Or I at least travel on off days so I'm not with the majority of the traffic.) But this time I left my house aroun 1:00 on Friday (I didn't hit traffic until Chelsea), and came home Monday and left again at 1:00. Traffic wasn't too bad but it was definitely higher volumes. Granted the price of gas may have scared some people away.

So anyway, I went to Greenwood Acres and camped with my sister and her family and her in-laws and their familys. We had 3 campsites all together and 20 people all together. Me the boys and Lacey, Dan and their boys were all in one camper. This meant we had 3 toddlers and 1 infant in one camper. Which in turn meant that we adults probably only slept in 2 hour chunks the whole weekend.

First I'll talk about the nights then I'll explain the fun stuff we did.

Night 1: Friday night. Lacey and I were trying to figure out how to get my travel beds to fit in a space that barely fit two pack-n-plays last year. (The travel beds have a bigger foot print) Because where we had to put them would block the hallway to the bathroom we decided to nix the travel beds and put them in the lower bed of the bunk beds. It is a full size bed so there is plenty of room for them and it should be okay. (I should mention here that Alex and Trevor still sleep in cribs at home and they usually are in a corner or pressed up against the rail somewhere when we check on them at night...) So we laid them down to go to sleep and the novelty of being able to move and look out a window caused them to stay up for a couple of hours. I went in there and tried to let them sleep in bed with me, then I tried to go to their bed, then I tried to sleep on the upper bunk bed... I just didn't know what was going to work. I ended up sleeping in my bed, they were in their bed. Some time in the night Brennan cried and woke up (apparently I only heard a couple of times but I was told he woke up 5 or 6 times). Then around 2 or 3 am we all heard a THUMP - WHANNNNNN. So I went in and took Alex back to my bed and checked on Trevor. He was taking up the entire bed???? So I'm pretty sure he pushed Alex out. He probably just wanted to cuddle though.

Night 2: We think that Brennan actually got sun poisoning while we were at our family reunion. Which was outside at a metropark. He was just a miserable baby and only wanted to be held, he did not want to be alone. He also had a 101.4 degree temp. So he woke up a lot. I still didn't try to do anything to prevent Alex and Trevor from falling out of bed. So sometime in the night I heard a whoosh sound and then crying. Trevor had fallen into a hole that was created by the mattress, a cupboard, and my bags. His legs and arms were up and he looked like a turtle. He never opened his eyes while he was crying or when I moved him. I just picked him up and put him back into bed. But then a couple of hours later there was a loud Thump (noticably a head hitting the floor) and then Alex started crying. I picked him up and put him in my bed again. This time I'm pretty sure neither of them pushed each other out of bed though becasue they were in opposite corners when I checked on them.

Sunday morning I woke up to Alex pressing his thumb against my cheek. (That is sign language for mommy). Then when I woke up he kept pointing to me and signing mommy (on himself). How could I be upset at that???

Night 3: I finally got smart and got out the Travel beds again. I put Trevor in the bed and rolled a blanket next to the side to help keep him in. I put Alex on the floor so that he wouldn't have far to fall if he rolled out of the bed. (which he did. I would've left him but he was blocking the hallway to the bathroom.) I changed the boys into their pjs and took them for a walk trying to get them to fall asleep then I was going to just put them in bed. It was over an hour walk and Trevor fell asleep just fine but Alex was still wide awake and ready to go. He did not want to go to sleep. I put Trevor in his bed and brought Alex out with me at the Campfire. He was squirming and kicking and giggling so much, he was really fighting to stay awake. Lacey held him for awhile and he calmed down but when I got him back he started all over again. When I did get him calmed down enough to go to bed he immediately jumped up when I laid him down. He was looking all around him. So I pointed to Trevor and told Alex, "Trevor is sleeping up there. It's okay you need to go to sleep too." He then laid down and went right to sleep. It's so cute when you know they are concerned for one another. It began to rain that night and I woke up and started thinking, "I should've but the stroller away, I should've put their toys away, I should've put all our chairs away." My brain wouldn't shut down. Then Trevor woke up at 6:30 am screaming, I think because he couldn't find Alex who was on the floor. I put them in bed with me and tried to keep them quite because everyone else was still sleeping but at around 7:00 they started wrestling and giggling and there was no stopping them....

Some other Highlights of the weekend:

The boys became very attached to me. They really like it when I'm around, and every time I walked away Alex would scream and do his sign language for Mommy. Everyone around him would tell him that mommy will be right back but as soon as I came into sight again he'd come running for me. I don't know if that's a highlight, but being the working parent it makes me feel good that they still know I'm their mommy.

Trevor became very attached to Dan, Lacey's father in law. They went on walks with each other, and talked about all the dogs that were around and pointed out cars and bicycles. They had a good time and at least one child felt secure with someone other than me.

Lacey brings this big jumper thing. The boys had it at their first birthday party too, but they now are getting used to playing on it by themselves. They learned how to get from the slide to the otherside to get back in and go down the slide too. We just had to be careful because some of the big kids don't know how to play gently while the toddlers are in there.

Dan took Alex and Trevor on the golf cart for a little ride. Others were with them and he said Alex did pretty well, he just made a few hiccup crying sounds. But when they were back Alex came running for me signing mommy again. I can imagine that Alex will be saying Mommy non stop when he figures out how to use his tongue and can say Mommy. He says it constantly already with his sign language.

On Saturday Lacey and took the boys to the Myers' family reunion. That's our mom's family. A couple of our uncles live out of state and they were both in town so everybody got together. It was really nice to see everyone. I haven't seen my Uncle Chris or Uncle Paul in a few years. I would've like to have seen some more of my cousins but it was still a good time. The boys were outside all day so they crashed that night so it was a bonus for us. Plus my boys got two 1 hour naps that day driving to and from the reunion. That helped the crabbiness. Alex and Trevor were had a really good time playing with balls and chasing each other and my parents. They also got free bike helmets. Some one dropped them off at the office while we were there so we got them next size helmets and Lacey got some for her boys and her nieces and nephew. She was a hero when we got back.

Sunday my parent came to visit us. My dad somehow managed to get the entire weekend off. He also has 4th of July week off. It's his last year of work and he's finally getting the good holiday vacations. He also has a set last day of work for his retirement. Dec. 23rd, 2008 and counting. Anyway, they came over for the day and played with the boys. Because Lacey, Dan and I weren't getting much sleep (see above) Lacey and I were thinking of pawning the boys off on them when they got there. But Alex still wouldn't leave my hip and Brennan had his sun poisoning and wouldn't leave Lacey. But 1 kid each is better than 2 each...

Early Monday morning it started pouring while we were sleeping. I woke up to it because I wasn't sleeping very soundly the whole weekend (see above...) and all I could think about was that I should've started packing the night before because my stroller, chairs and all the boys' toys were outside. Luckily, the temperature rose very quickly the next morning and it got very steamy. I only had to put things in the sun for about 5 minutes and it was dry. The boys were still crabby so Lacey and I took a walk to the store and got some ice and all of them fell asleep. Everyone else at this point was at Bob Evans for breakfast so our campsites were quite for once so they stayed asleep for awhile. Then I let them play for awhile we at lunch and went home. For awhile the boys stayed up and Trevor was actually filipping through a book and making noises like he was reading it. It was really cute but by the time I got my phone out to record it he stopped grabbed his blankie and almost immediately went to sleep. It was a long weekend for them. But we had a great time.

Here's a picture when my parents took the boys. Alex is in the blue and he's doing his sign for Mommy. I'm only about 5 campsites away from this tank.

I'm not sure why the tank is there but we were at Greenwood acres which apparently, I'm told, was the location for the Michigan Woodstock that was held the year after the "Woodstock". It's a huge campground with a couple of golf courses and 1100 campsites. And I'm pretty sure all or at least most have full hook ups for RVs and campers. It's really nice to be able to take a shower where you know who's been in it.