Kiwi Tent Family
It’s Sunday morning and I’m writing from a cafe in Glenorchy. We have the day off so after having a barbecue with Al last night we drove about 30 minutes to the nearest town..Glenorchy…as the crow flies it’s just directly across the river from Al’s place. I was looking for a break from sleeping in the bus and wanted to get a little normalcy from the nearby town. I borrowed a tent from Sarah and set up at a nice campground in town…my tent was right next to this compound of a tent with a family of 4 kids, a dog, and two parents. When I was setting up the tent there was a baby crying during the early evening..the father told me they would get him to be quiet before tonight…I said “it’s no problem at all! I know how it goes!”….but do I? After watching some live music down the street that night it was time for bed…the baby is crying again….I can’t find my headphones so I sit with it for a second…the baby stops after about 10 minutes…throughout the night there were about 8 crying/screaming sessions…I was right next to them…no sound barrier…I felt like I was apart of the family. I was feeling irritated most of the time, but then I had to remind myself that I’m sure the parents aren’t wishing for this either…It’s just what babies do…after a few cry sessions I realized that this wasn’t a baby…it was more like a 4 year old throwing tantrums…you could hear the mom and dad trying to get him to relax with little lullabies…in their New Zealand accent…pretty cute actually… I googled how parents get their toddlers to stop crying in the middle of the night and it seems that there is no full proof way to get them to stop. It is just part of raising kids…okay that makes sense…So now I’m thinking…well maybe taking your family of young children camping knowing they aren’t liking it and they will be disrupting sleep of the entire campground..that you could get one of the many motel/hotels around…I can see they can probably afford it by the looks of their setup. But who I am to judge..I don’t know the situation…So since I’m awake anyways I'm playing in my head who to blame or what could they have done differently…am I being too nice by trying to find sympathy for the parents?
The family wakes up as soon as the sun rises and the older siblings are playing with the young ones…the crying ones…the older siblings are getting the younger ones to say silly phrases and the babies are saying whatever they tell them too.. One of the kids says “ I was warm because I was snuggling with Mom all night in the sleeping bag” the other says “Well I was warmer because I was sleeping in the sleeping bag with daddy all night”….You hear the dad pitching different ideas on what they should do today and they are all throwing out different suggestions. Its a happy family in a tent…I love it…I want that one day…I know there will be long nights, but its gotta be a small…small price to pay in exchange for the family and love that they get to have…kids don’t stay small forever. I can’t imagine how that mother and father must feel with the family they created together. I think I will try a little more aware of my surroundings as a parent though…because that was a long night of lack of sleep for many of us that night…idk what the right answer is for a situation like that…anyways
