The camping trip begins

Ok, so here are some compounding factors in the Wissingers' lives that made the camping trip set up for disaster:

*On Wednesday, I went to get my blood drawn to see if my Vitamin D was low. I had to wait a long time and then Leo cried the whole way home. You know how these things go. We got home and Sophia escaped to a neighbor's house. I called my mom to see if Maeve could just come over for a little while so I could lie down with Leo. Sure, she said, and came right over. While Maeve was picking out a movie, my mom was bouncing Leo on her knee: "You know there are white patches in his mouth, right?" Thrush. He had thrush AGAIN. AGAIN. HOW?? So that meant a trip over to the pharmacy for more nystatin and I debated what I was going to do about me. I had no symptoms...but to develop them while camping sounded nightmarish. I called Thursday and got a prescription for myself.

*Mike's car broke on the way home from work Wednesday. Something with the clutch. When people who know cars talk to people like us, who do not know cars, it sounds like this: "Kapata kapata clutch kapata expensive kapata kapata." The car was towed and Mike told our mechanic that we were leaving town and he'd get back with him Monday.

*So Thursday was the packing day. The frantic packing day. It doesn't matter how early I start this process. It always takes forever. It was also hot. The forecast for where we were going said, essentially, "HOT." Ah well. There's a lake with a beach. The kids will be fine. But this is the first time we've camped with Leo, and it was hard to make everything fit into the van with that one extra space taken. Oy. Why do we take so much stuff? How does that happen?

*We left on time but had to run to Target to pick up my prescription (because I started, yes, getting thrush symptoms Wednesday night). We got on the road for real at 4:50. And promptly hit traffic on the way out of town. In St. Louis currently, one of the main highways is closed for rebuilding, so rerouted traffic is thick everywhere. We were taking 40 out west to where it becomes 61 and taking that north. It was stop and go from the 270 interchange all the way to where 61 starts (at the I-70 interchange, I mean). My van doesn't handle 97 degree weather well and so we had the heat on and the windows down so that the engine didn't overheat. The whole time, the conversation went like this: "I CAN'T BELIEVE PEOPLE DO THIS EVERY DAY!" and then Mike would reply: "Yup."

*We got free of the traffic and stopped at a gas station. I nursed Leo and decided it wasn't going to be so awful (pain wise, I mean). "I'll sit at the picnic table and nurse him to sleep and play mah---" And that's when I realized, after we'd been stuck in traffic for almost 2 hours, that I'd forgotten the mah jongg set at home. Expletives were uttered. Neighbors were called. One neighbor wasn't coming up until Friday and he was going to bring his wife's set. No problem. It'll be ok.

*We stopped in Hannibal because I needed to get lemons, corn, and M&Ms (of course). Mike ran in. I nursed Leo yet again, but five minutes after Mike disappeared, Maeve announced she was going to wet herself if we didn't get to a bathroom immediately. So I got to drag all three kids into the Country Mart and hunt down a bathroom. Everything was fine and we got back on the road for the last half hour of the trip.

*Even though we weren't the last to leave Halliday, we were the last to arrive. At 9 o'clock and at the actual moment when dusk becomes dark. We got the two tents up (girls from all families were going to sleep in one tent, and the smaller children and adults in their own tents), got things organized ok, and collapsed by the fire.

It. Was. Hot.