This past Friday night, my little Cub Scout den had an overnighter in tents.
A little background Our church is on a hill here. We have a nice sized property. Our actual church building is just south of center in the property. We have a small parking lot to the south and a rather large one to the north. The main road is west. Just behind the south parking lot (to the east) is the house we live in. It is a split level and only the top story is the parsonage. The lower level has a rec. room, the church kitchen, a couple of storage rooms, & a couple of bathrooms. Behind the actual church are a small building with the secretary and pastor's offices and a backyard to the house. Behind the large north parking lot is a playground and a basketball court. To the north of the very large parking lot is a large lot of land covered with grass. This past fall, it was my den's service project for one of the Webelo's pins to make a fire pit ring on the east side of that field. Our purpose was to have it used by both the church and the Scout groups that meet in the building.
So, this past week, our den camped around the fire circle on the grass. It went pretty good. But, it was interesting and had, of course, a few unexpected moments.
The first actually came a couple weeks ago when I found out that my oldest son's troop, which meets on Fridays at the church, would be having a Court of Honor that night. This raised a conflict as my son would be receiving a rank badge and a couple of our leaders were getting special district (area) awards.
No problem - one of our den dads had started a wood craft project last month with the boys - they could finish it while my family went inside to watch the other program. The project was a huge wood shield with a water balloon launcher behind it. The plan was that, after finishing the project, they would test it. Should keep them busy.
Well, the Court of Honor got started quite late, so I didn't get to watch all of it, but the launcher did keep the boys occupied for a while. They did get a lot of running in, which was hopefully going to help them go to sleep faster later on.
Our next activity was to get the fire built and going. Then we roasted some marshmellows - always lots of fun. The only problem I had there was the desire by the boys to, instead of roasting and eating the food product, catch the marshmellow on fire and watch it fall into the flames and burn a gruesome death. I'm afraid the den leader (me) was a bit of a spoil sport on this as this makes a very icky mess in the ashes, and well - what a waste of really yummy marshmellows!
Following the marshmellows, we settled down in chairs around the fire with some cocoa and told stories. Yes, the boys wanted scary ghost stories - no, that spoil sport den leader wouldn't let them. Now in my defense, I have at least 2 boys with more then enough imagination who would not sleep a wink if we got started on scary stories. But, we did tell funny stories and had a fun time.
Finally, it was almost 10 o'clock and time to do the final potty stop (across the basketball court, the playground and backyard, and in the bottom of the house) and climb into sleeping bags and go to sleep. I confess this is where I was most concerned about our event - chatty giggly boys who won't settle down and go to sleep. We had 2 boys with dads who had their own tents. My son slept in a tent with me. Then, there were 2 boys who a sharing a tent next to mine with no adult. They were my concern. Both of them can tend to get a little hyper.
But...everyone went to sleep right away! It was nice. I read for a bit and turned my flashlight off between 11 & 11:30. Then, as I'm praying, the weight of having those 2 boys in the tent next to me being my responsibility kind of settled on me. I was quite thankful they had behaved well about going to bed and to sleep. I closed my eyes and dosed off.
Now, remember that weight of responsibility? This makes one sleep a bit lighter with ears perked a bit to any unusual sounds. At around midnight, I awoke to the sound of a zipper. I had the impression someone had left a tent and walked toward the house. I didn't jump up and look out to see who it was, as if it was one of the dads, that would be a tad embarrassing, but instead, waited. And waited. After about 15 mintues, I looked out my flap toward the house.
Sidenote: my oldest son, after his own troop meeting had a couple of buddies over to spend the night. As a treat, Dad let them sleep downstairs on couches in the rec. room and watch a movie til late.
So, I peek out toward the house and see a) through the downstairs picture window, my son and his friends are still watching a move and b) through the very small window, the light in the boy's bathroom is on. Well, I'll just keep waiting. I mean, it could be a dad who is having some library time or something and I sure don't want to go investigate that. I also have doubts about what woke me. I've been known to have dreams that seem realistic in the past or I could have heard somebody going back into their tent.
Finally, around 1:00, (no, don't ask why I waited that long. When you're really tired, you don't think clearly) I take a last look and see that though the t.v. is turned off in the rec. room, the light is still on. This irritates me a bit as my son has a baseball game on Saturday, and he does need some sleep. The bathroom light is also still on. (Big sigh) My looking out the flap at this time awakens my son in the tent with me. He announces that he now needs to use the restroom - just the excuse I need to go investigate.
We march to the house and I find that I indeed having been dreaming about tent zippers and nobody from our camping group is in the house. While my camping boy is doing his thing, I invetigate the rec room and find that both my other boy's friends are sound asleep and he is just laying on a couch with the light on. I don't know why he has left the light on, but I promptly turn it off, kiss him goodnight once again and tell him to please get some sleep. My other son is finished with his business and we proceed back to our tents where all is quiet. My boy goes right back to sleep and I scold myself for being so anxious and drift back off to sleep....
only to hear again a zipper. This time it is accompanied by the sounds of rummaging though a back pack. So, I peek out and sure enough, one of the boys next door is poking his upper body out of their tent going through his back pack. I ask him - F, what are you doing?
"Looking for something."
"Do you need some help?"
"No"
"What are you looking for?"
"Just something."
So, I wait - every few moments he looks up to see if I'm still watching. Just as I'm about to climb out and ascertain what he needs, he finds it and crawls back into his tent. He quiets down pretty quickly. I look at my time piece and see it is 2:00. I lay down once again, thankfully sleep comes quickly again...
and wake yet again. This time it is not a zipper, but rather the sound of a sleeping bag outside. I poke my head out and there is F again. Only this time he is fully clothed and rolling up his sleeping bag outside his tent.
"F, what are you doing?"
He looks up quite startled.
"Oh, I'm wide awake, so I thought I'd sit out here and read for awhile."
"Um, F, it is only about 2:30 in the morning. I really want you to get back in your tent and try to go back to sleep."
This shocks him.
"It's only 2:30??"
Yes, I assure him - so, back he goes into his tent. I look and see it is actually 2:50 in the morning. This time he does not settle down right away and I hear him and his sleeping bag moving about for quite sometime. As I'm once again about to get up and go investigate, he finally quiets down. I found out the next morning that one of the other dads did wake up during this incident. Neither of us know how the other boy in the tent slept through it all. :)
This time, I am able to go to sleep for a longer period of time. Right up to 5:30 when I awaken to someone walking around my tent. I pop open that flap again and find - the other boy, A, with a walking stick from the next tent. I do know he is an early riser typically and he confirms this and lets me know he is just marching around the camp site to get his exercise. I understand, I tell him, but since it is so early for the rest of us, could he please read book in his tent for a while? Yes, he happily agrees and scrambles back in.
I can get a good hour in, I tell my self as I snuggle back in my bag. I close my eyes....
"Mom! Mom!" my son is shaking me awake a bit paniked. As I look up at him, he points by my head where a spider is crawling along the wall. With a sigh, I grab a bandage of some sort from the 1st aid kit, stick the spider, wrap it, and set it firmly under one of my shoes. It is 6:00.
I did get to sleep another hour. When I awoke at 7, I gave it up. Originally, we were going to be adventurous and cook pancakes on a camp stove - you know, 1 at a time. But, I'm too tired and I'm feeling a bit crabby, so I go home, get my electric griddle and make them in the fellowship hall. While I'm doing this, A's dad arrives and bless his heart, he brings us all Starbucks coffee. Another dad doesn't like coffee, so I ended up with 2 lattes. Yes, I needed them!
After breakfast, we packed everything up and won't meet again til next fall. I'm glad we did it, and I certainly could have had worse problems. I don't know that we'll do it again. Well, if we do, I think I'll insist on a parent for each boy - then I'll only have to deal with my own observant kiddo and spiders. :)