Ahhh... the great indoors

Ahhhhh….camping, the freedom, the wide open spaces, the distant hooting of the lesser grass owl, the unmistakable sound of………….the bathroom door slamming. Yip, you read right, the bathroom door slamming. Let me explain.

Cody woke up this morning feeling very autistic. He made his way to the couch and glued himself to the TV. We usually take these “zone out” times as a chance to get some stuff done, but this time, 5min was all we got. I blame our short break on Ty Pennington and his home makeover team. It was He and his inconsiderate team who decided to build a camping room for a young girl whose family had lost everything in a tornado. I have two issues with this. Firstly, since the girls’ family had lost their house, they had been living with neighbors in a caravan. Surely she was sick and tired of camping. Secondly, did he not anticipate Cody’s total infatuation with the camping room concept?

Well it was too late to change his mind, as his repeated “I LOVE CAMPING ROOMS” confirmed. As any parents with an autistic child can attest to, you just have to pick your battles and this was one skirmish I was just not up for. So a camping room it was to be.
Luckily we’re an outdoorsy family and all the necessary equipment was close at hand. I dragged myself out to the shed and returned with our tent and two folding chairs. The chairs were a breeze to set up and with Cody watching I was looking like the great outdoorsman I had told him I was. I effortlessly slipped the tent out of its bag and with one flick opened it out on the floor. I could see the awe and admiration in my sons’ eyes as I reached for the poles. It was at this point that my new found hero status started to crumble. The main reason for my fall from grace was the phrase, “insert upright A2 into crossbar CB 4 using clip X7 to unite aforementioned upright.” Who wrote this line of instruction, a Chinese autistic kid with dyslexia? It must have been someone with autism, because Cody managed to put the tent up faster then my “cool dad” points were plummeting.

Now I have a serious question, why is it that when we go camping the tent is never quite big enough for us and our stuff, but when you put it up at home it doubles in size. It is huge, filling up Codys whole room. The neighbors must think we have been placed under quarantine for some contagious equatorial condition. So here we are with a tent filling up Codys entire room and he turns to me and asks, “Can you get my train set out the cupboard”. AAAARRRRGGGG……….”No trains Cody, its bedtime, jump into your sleeping bag”. Surprisingly there was no argument, into the tent he crawled and slipped into his sleeping bag. I said goodnight and turned to leave when this angelic little voice says,”you got to sleep with me daddy ………….there might be bears”.

If I survive the bears I’ll report back tomorrow on our night under the LEDs

Take care and laugh a little.