Second test hang in the back yard!

[Tbull55]

Well I had a chance to do a second test hang in my back yard over the weekend.
To back up a bit my first test was the night before, but had to bail a couple hours into the test due to my daughter waking up and my wife trying to get her back to bed while not disturbing our 10 month old son, I had to lend a hand. No biggie, I slept for a couple hours.

Onto the 2nd test hang.
My daughter was supposed to stay with her grandparents for the night, I assumed I could get a full night! Ha! We all know what you get when you assume........... a 3 year old girl calling you at 11:00 wanting to come home!

So, I decided instead of bailing on the whole project, I would see if my daughter wanted to hang with me in the ENO double nest. Of course she said yes (she loves the Ham-Mock) so we got home, had all the potty breaks out of the way, got all loaded into the hammock and both of us were laying on top of my 0 degree slumber jack sleeping bag (I plan on using as under quilt) and using a 0 degree mummy bag as a top quilt.

The TQ got fairly warm pretty qiuck due to the temps only getting into the mid 70's. We shed the TQ but kept it in the Mock and covered with a small fleece blanket.

Low and behold ahuge problem brought the whole test to a screeching halt and quickly!!!

my daughter realized that she had forgotten her DOLL!!!!

I let her climb out, handed her a flashlight and told her to hurry and grab her doll from just inside the back sliding door.

Guess what?

She could not get the sliding door open. Yep, the same door she has open and closed hundreds of times! Oh well, I got out and helped her open the door. I decided to take her for a potty break one last time. We grabbed the doll then back out to the Ham-Mock!

We got reloaded, adjusted, and snuggled up when the freakin house A/C unit fired up and scared the bajeezitz out of her. I washed away all fears and comforted her quickly.

To my surprise she was out like a light in a minute or two! i was not far behind! i'm pretty sure the gentle swaying is what does it to me

about an hour and a half later I awoke to the stinging little bite of the Florida state bird, the MOSQUITO!!, then I heard one doing a fly by on my ears, I swatted a few times and all seemed to settle down.

then I realized they had only retreated to get back up and form an attack plan!! Goodness did they ever come after us. I decided to abort and carry her to the mosquito free zone in her room.

I quickly broke our backyard camp and was asleep in my bed!

Lessons learned:
1) double nest did well with my 3 year old and myself in it.
2) mummy bag as TQ, will work
3) tough to lay on top of sleeping bag and not have it bunch up under you
4) need to go ahead and try to rig sleeping bag as UQ
5) NEED BUG NET!!
6) noticed that when I woke up due to dive bombing, I was feeling like I wanted to shift sleeping position, not sure how I would have done it with her next to me.
7) need cooler weather
8) realized my daughter really does love the Ham-Mock!

Any suggestions from the pro's? I'm sure I left gaps in the story, feels free to ask!

Thanks for reading my ramble!

Sorry no pics!

Tbull

[bigbamaguy]

Great story bull..............love that the doll catastrophy was averted!!!!!! I found that young ladies of your daughters age are little heat machines, or atleast my daughter was at that age. You will definitely need a bugnet, here in Alabama we have a distant cousin to the Florida State bird (mosquito, the little blood suckers!!!!!), it is the only way I can camp most of the year. Looks like you did fine for the time you had in the ham-mock, I suggest moving her to your chest and then making your moves in the hammock and then slide her in back beside you.............

[NCPatrick]

Good job getting the testing done that you did get to do... it's not easy when on "Dad duty" (which is all the time), but you pulled off the task very well.