You know how it is, sleeping in a tent, in the middle of the woods, on the rock hard ground. Very enjoyable. It takes turning over about 100 times before you finally find the right spot. Ahhhh, sweet sleep, come to me.
Alright. So that was me the other night. I finally fall asleep...you know, after I have convinced my two boys that they need to turn off the flashlights..or at least put them in their sleeping bags so that everyone else in the tent can sleep. Finally...I doze...off...to......sleep.
Until about 3am when my daughter decides to wake up and declare that she wants to change her clothes because the PJs she has on, "...just aren't right." Huh? We are camping. It is 3am. You have got to be kidding me. Not tonight!
"I am not going to sleep. I am going to sit here and not lay down," she says, after about 10 minutes of reasoning with her.
"Fine. I am going to sleep. Have fun being awake alone." I sleepily reply.
"No-one in this family loves me. You all hate me. You don't like me." First it starts as a whisper, then slowly increases in volume as she realizes I am not responding.
Finally she says, "Mom, I am hungry. I need something to eat."
"No. It is the middle of the night and you are not going to eat. All the food is put away so that the bears don't get into it."
Dead silence follows.
Sheepishly she says, "You didn't tell me there were bears."
Now I was on to something. "There are bears. But they will only come here if there is food left out. That is why we don't have food in the tent."
Then, for good measure, I add, "We also need to be quiet at night so they won't hear us and come looking in our camp for food."
"Okay, Mama. I'm going to go to sleep now," she whispers.
The fear factor...who knew?
11 comments:
Whatever works…
I couldn't help but smile as I read this. Brilliant idea, my friend, brilliant!
Oh that is so classic!! I'm going to have to remember that!
Ah, I love the mommy mind games we play on our kids :). At least you got to go back to sleep!
Love it! Wish that worked on Alyssa. Last time we went camping she just got louder and louder! Maybe that's why we haven't gone this year!
We have never gone camping where we needed to worry about bears...But, I will totally use it if needed!
Love your blog!
Pure evil...good strategy!
Hey, whatever works to quiet a tantrum, right??
Oh hilarious! The fear factor indeed. Also the stories required in order to get out of any tricky situation.
Too funny! I have had to use the fear factor as a last ditch effort when all else failed.
LOL I think I've had that conversation! We went camping a few weeks ago and had middle of the night fun as well. Gotta love the sleep deprivation.
hilarious!!!!!!! we have mountain lions around here, i'll have to remember this...
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