My post for our travels to Lake Michigan last weekend are up on my travel blog Across the Never Sky.
My sister and I always have a great time, and I’m going to miss her a lot while she’s in North Dakota for the next month. M will miss her cousin Audrey like crazy, too. While we had a blast on the shores of Lake Michigan and at the water park at Michigan’s Adventure, we also learned a few things about ourselves along the way.
- M is afraid of heights right now. She scream-cried when she was walking up a ramp with only ropes to hang on to, and then at the amusement park, she gave me a flat-out NO when we got to the rides, even the kid rides with babies on them. I forced her to go on some flying contraption with me and she held me in a death grip the entire time, saying “too scary mommy!” the whole way. Then I made her get on the ferris wheel with me, and again she just wanted to know when we could get down. The fear of heights also kept her from the bigger slides at the water park, although I got her on a few smaller ones and she loved them after trying them. I wonder how long this will last or if it’s a lifelong phobia starting here?? She was so wild at age 2 I think I’ve scared the dickens out of her in order to get her to be more careful.
- I hate tent camping. This is no revelation… I’ve never loved tents. But I thought I could start to dig it after loving campground life in Niagara. First of all, my “self-inflating” mattress did NOT inflate. My sister’s air mattress would not stay hard. It poured rain all night, and I was sleeping on the hard ground, getting wet, feeling damp, and just UGH. Awful. Cabins for me, cabins every time.
Mother of All Things 
We tent camp at wheatland twice a year and I hate it. Last fall, we ended up with a faulty mattress and I was begging neighbors for spare blankets to put under us. Someone suggested I just get a tent an suv or van and do that for our move and I was all hell no.
My girl has recently become afraid of heights and everything else too, I think it’s just a phase though. At least I hope so, I love my wild child.
I ponied up the money for an aerobed for tent camping, and I bring a memory foam topper. It makes tent camping bearable!
There is an age when they begin to realize there is danger which they didn’t understand before. It is cognitive development. Not fun for you but important for her. It will change again.