this was a BIG weekend.
yesterday:
it was a very rushed morning. i dropped mr smear off at school, then took the light rail to the hospital mall where i picked up a bunch of stuff for the camping, especially the two bags of large vegan marshmallows. i carried the shopping home, then spent the next while helping gd knead the six large challot, including one giant challah-peño.
between rising/baking sessions, i rushed out to pick mr smear up from school, stopping at the office on the way to pick up my sunglasses which i hadn't been sure if i'd left there by mistake. i only had a few minutes to get out of there, so of course it was on me to discover that the alarm hadn't been set the night before and that there was some kind of issue with it... i managed to shift that off to my CEO before heading out again, arriving a few minutes late to meet mr smear at the station and take a walk to yuka monsters.
we picked up our copy of the day everything changed, then jumped on a light rail to return home, help gd with the last of the challot, and furiously pack everything. it was far later than planned when i finally went to pick up the car, return to load it, and get me and mr smear on our way to the "fairy forest".
mr smear was very excited about riding up front for the first time in his life, and he did a pretty good job as navigator keeping track of waze and relaying data. it's also been years since it was just the two of us in a car together, so we blasted his playlist, and overall it was a good ride.
minus us leaving the three coconut waters i'd bought for the trip in the fridge at home :/
the camp site was really nice. the tent we rented was way bigger than expected (it said "two man", but we could easily have fit four full-sized mattresses in there with space for bags). the tap water was potable, though it didn't taste very good, so mr smear didn't drink enough :/
in general, the class kids have a good energy together and for the most part mr smear gets along with them. with a couple of them better than the rest, which is positive.
one of the parents - a linguist - started telling mr smear that he didn't need to learn hebrew, which upset me... i tried to remain polite while making it very clear that she was doing something inappropriate, but she just didn't give a shit and it wasn't until this morning that an opportunity presented to share a bit of mr smear's history and make it clear that we (finally) actually have a handle on the language issue...
dinner was quite an occasion, gd's challot were a great success, and challah-peño received a lot of welcome praise. afterwards, mr smear's new friend's dad set up a gas stove so that we could toast marshmallows, which for mr smear was an amazing experience, while for me it was a mixture of excitement and trauma trying to fairly dole out a limited number of marshmallows to a swarm of greedy kids of various ages and cuteness levels.
and then, we realized that that whole time there'd been another family nearby with lots of marshmallows - non-vegan ones - so they could have handled a lot of the load instead :/
mr smear and i hit the sleeping bags relatively early (normal bedtime for him), and he was very excited to not be going to sleep alone. we both fell asleep pretty quickly.
i must have woken up half an hour to an hour later. the sleeping bags we bought are good. and warm. and i suddenly realized that i hadn't showered, and that i'd needed to shower. and then the restlessness settled in, and it wasn't until very late (i'm guessing around 2/3am according to what i heard later) when everyone else had finally gone to sleep that i finally managed to fall asleep again.
today:
so mr smear had a great night's sleep; me, not so much.
we got up with the sun, brushed our teeth, and i somehow succeeded in coercing mr smear to come shower with me. i explained to him that if there wasn't hot water, i'd be going first and have to suffer the longest, and when we entered the stalls we discovered that there wasn't any hot water, and i understood what all the previous evening's screams had all been about.
but the weather was good, so the moment i'd dried off the sun began heating me up. mr smear did not want to get in - i mean, neither did i, really - but he eventually did it and got through it, and once he was dry he also felt amazing.
great success!
i'm quite proud of myself for taking the towels back to the car and using them to ensure that the front seats and steering wheel weren't hellishly hot when we left - not only did that work well, but the towels were also bone dry by then.
he convinced me to start our day with hal's kettle-fried jalapeño chips, then it was breakfast / coffee / him and his friend inventing an activity that involved eating painful things (including the chips) that none of the other kids went for, then a pass-the-parcel game which he eventually joined (and took away a squishy-ball prize he was excited about), and then we assembled for a hike.
it was a much tougher hike than i expected, but it was good, and we got through it. it took a little while to break camp - mostly due to helping other parents and getting into a conversation about age-appropriate gaming - and then we were off.
our biggest issue on the way home was that the UX of the car radio is awful, and we couldn't charge the phone and listen to music simultaneously. so we charged it for the first half, and listened to music for the second half, and by the time we arrived home we were both exhausted, hot, and hungry.
the rest of the afternoon was spent showering, eating, and resting (or napping, in my case), dinner and more of twins was good, and then bedtime was a bit rough because last night reset all the bedtime ritual progress we've made 🤦
anyway, it was overall a fantastic first camping experience for mr smear, and an excellent bonding weekend for both of us, and hopefully i'll catch up on some sleep tonight.