Life's Milestones, Part Two

I know that I promised a camping-trip recap on Monday, but I didn't quite make it. Better late than never, that's what I always say.

This camping trip, besides being our first of the season, (and actually, we missed what I consider the actual start of the camping season. Summertime camping is not my favorite. Bugs, you know.) was also our first trip with both Sam the Best Dog Ever and Penny the Wonder Puppy, and with Maddie the Kindergarten Graduate.

Milestones, people, milestones.

I have to say, Penny did not make a very good showing for her first trip. There was lots of barking and biting and running in circles and biting and barking some more. It was exhausting, I tell you.

I've said it before, and it's still true -- she's lucky that she's so cute.

I reminded myself (and Todd) several times throughout the weekend that Sam was not exactly The Best Dog Ever on his first few camping trips, either. Who could forget The Great Clifty Falls Skunk Incident?

Maddie was quite the trooper, though. She brought all her birthday present camping gear and was generally ready to partake in all the camping activities, including hiking, fishing, swimming, campfire cooking, and LOSING TEETH.

Losing teeth is not a normal camping activity in your family, you say? Well, you've obviously never been camping with a six-year-old.

The event occurred during the swimming portion of the trip. Things had been going, well, swimmingly, when Maddie met another little girl right about the time that the baby pool cleared out. The two of them decided to make that little pool into their private, 12-inch deep spa. Since the pool was approximately six feet away from my chair and my book, this seemed okay.

That is, until I heard the screams.

I LOST MY TOOTH! I LOST MY TOOTH! ILOSTMYTOOTHILOSTMYTOOTH!

Well. I found this to be a bit alarming. Not nearly as alarming as the . . .

Ahem: I must interrupt here. Maddie, if by some chance you are reading this, you might want to stop right now and pick it up nearer the end.

. . . MAJOR AMOUNTS OF BLOOD GUSHING OUT HER MOUTH. Sheesh. I do not remember my own baby teeth causing such trauma. Turns out, not only had she knocked out the tooth (which was already loose, by the way, so keep your shorts on), but she had, as her new friend helpfully put it, "busted her lip."

So, after our new friend retrieved the now freshly chlorinated tooth from the pool ("I found it!" she cheerfully cried. Quite the resourceful kid, that one.) we headed to the bathroom, where I cleaned her up as the automatic paper towel dispenser spit out piece after piece of paper towel.

Seeing as how I do not have children of my own, and never actually made it past Brownies myself, I bundled her up lickety-split and took her to my own resident Eagle Scout, Todd, who confirmed that she did not need stitches, just a visit from the Tooth Fairy.

(Maddie, you can resume reading now, if you're still around.)

Luckily, that was the most traumatic event of the camping trip. We managed to recover quite nicely, and went on to make the most classic of campfire meals: hobo stew and roasted marshmallows.

She lived, and her mother even says she might want to go again sometime. In case you need proof of her living, I present to you her first ever Camping Trip Portrait, taken post-tooth-incident:




She even went on to catch a fish:




I call that a success.