We have been camping with the same family every year for the last 11 years, since our youngest, Leo, was 2 months old. This means we have quite a few funny stories. Camping with toddlers leads to some hilarious moments. When we recently went away, we were chatting about some of these, and I knew I had to write them up for you. Don’t judge us too harshly; we’re good parents really, but these stories don’t show us at our best!

When the children were very young, getting them to sleep was a bit of a challenge. We would take it in turns to settle them before sitting out in the fading light drinking something, usually alcoholic! One evening, when our littles – Abbie, 2 and Leo, 1 – were just about asleep, we sat out in the awning to listen for Abbie to settle before we snuck in to get the wine out of the fridge. Finally, all seemed quiet, and a sneaky peep through the window showed two sleeping toddlers. Sean went to open the door, but though the handle turned, the door wouldn’t open. Of course I had to try too, but no, the door was stuck. We realised that Abbie must have turned the latch on the bottom half of the door and locked herself and her brother in!

At this point, our friends had finished settling their kids too, and we all stood staring at the caravan, trying to work out how we were going to get in! Fortunately, the window to the ‘bathroom’ (really just a cupboard with a toilet in) was open. This was still quite high up, as you can see from the pictures! It wasn’t easy for Sean to get in and we were all laughing more than helping!

Another morning the kids were entertained watching a film in the caravan while we had our coffee outside. Abbie came out and told us there was a bird. We all said that was nice, they were watching the Lion King and she was right there were birds in that. She frowned and went back inside. A couple of minutes later one of the other kids came out and told us the same and said we should come and see. We’d all seen the Lion King numerous times and so weren’t overly excited about rushing in to look at Zazu on the TV! We said we’d come in a minute. Sarah drew the short straw and went to see! She dashed out a moment later saying there was an actual bird in the caravan! She then managed to catch the bird and release it back to the wild!

When Leo was younger, he had a nasty stomach issue, which meant he regularly would have a day of vomiting. Poor boy, he coped with it really well. This happened once when we were camping, and the best thing to do seemed to be to keep him isolated in the caravan and let him try to sleep it off. He was very sleepy and so slept a lot of the morning. By lunchtime, I brought him outside to sit on my lap, and he seemed to perk up, but being concerned in case it was a tummy bug, I took him back inside and he felt sick again. Sean came in and noticed there was a funny smell in the caravan. Sean has a very sensitive sense of smell, so I wasn’t really that surprised. Leo had been sick more than once, and so the smell was to be expected. But when one of the kids came in and said they smelt something funny too, we investigated a bit more. To our horror, we discovered that the leisure battery was leaking gas into the caravan! We’d essentially been poisoning Leo by leaving him in the gas-filled environment! Fortunately, a caravan serviceman was on site and quickly helped us to get rid of the battery, and I sat outside with Leo until he was feeling more normal!

There’s another poisoning incident, but I think that deserves a blog post all of its own!

There used to be a very tall and, let’s be honest, quite rickety slide at the campsite. This was the focus of much of the park fun. In the pictures below you can see Sarah, safely holding onto her daughter as she went down the slide, and also Sean kind-of holding Abbie. However, when Leo was old enough to go down at around two, he was a little scared to go and so Sean decided to help him. He did this by taking him up the steps and then holding him dangling at the top, before (much to my horror!) letting go and allowing him to whoosh down on his own! Needless to say he didn’t enjoy it! We still talk about this and wonder if it’s why Leo is so fearful of slides and often concerned about safety.

Next time I’ll elaborate on the poisoning!