At the last minute I threw the small two-person tent into the van. If nothing else, the kids can play in it, I thought. Once we got to our campsite we began putting up the tents, and Ryan asked if the little tent was "his." He was so excited when we told him he could sleep in it if he wanted to. He helped Daddy hammer the stakes in, and he put his blanket and buddy "Blue" in the tent with his sleeping bag, pad, and flashlight and then pretty much begged us to go to sleep for the next couple of hours! It took a long time for him to settle down that first night, but he did eventually go to sleep.
To my utter amazement (and motherly discomfort), he slept the whole night in the tent by himself! I would have bet money that he would get scared and want to come into our tent at some point during the night, but he never did. In the morning I told him how proud I was of him for being so brave. He informed me that he had gotten scared once because the shadows looked like six tornadoes, but he reminded himself that there are no tornadoes in Oregon and was able to go to sleep!
He slept by himself the other two nights as well, though the last night he ended up having a bad dream early in the morning (something about "floating hurricanes"...hmmm, I see a theme here), and we brought him into the tent with us. I was frankly a bit uncomfortable not having him within the confines of our tent, and I felt a twinge of sadness too as the reality of how fast he is growing up hit me. I'm proud he is overcoming some of his fears, but at the same time it forces me to see that he's just not my baby anymore.
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