By Sonya Fladun
MY five-year-old wants to go camping and he’s been lobbying hard.
It’s not that I’m not open to new experiences; who would have thought I would grow to (sort of) enjoy kicking a soccer ball around in the freezing cold, practising Kung Fu Panda moves or playing cowboys, Indians and pirates and endless games of hide and seek (I’m really good at hiding; given half a chance, I can vanish for hours). 
I know lots of people like to go camping, but I’ve never really understood the attraction. I like hot and cold running water, loos that flush and ducted gas heating.
My mum was similarly averse to camping so the few experiences I remember were horrendous school camps; you know, where you were bussed off to some remote and hard-to-escape-from location, housed in drafty cabins on ancient bunks and where the girl in the bunk above had eaten way too many baked beans and snored to the point of justifiable homicide.
It inevitably rained. The showers were always cold. Going to the loo meant wading through ankle-deep mud and standing in a long queue with other freezing and homesick schoolgirls with chills in their bladders. 
I wouldn’t mind if we could do the whole great outdoor road trip thing in style, maybe one of those Winnebagos, with a queen-sized bed, television, microwave, espresso machine; you know all the comforts of home. Somehow, I don’t think that is what my little boy has in mind. He wants tents and cooking on the campfire. 
So, we’re talking compromise; a little tent in the backyard with a paddle pool for the lake, sausages cooked on the barbecue, possums providing some local wildlife and maybe dad providing the thrills in a grizzly bear costume. Then it’s just a matter of waiting until they doze off before picking them up and tucking them and us securely and comfortably in our warm beds.
I admit I’ll never be the world’s greatest outdoorsy Mum, but over the years I’ve learnt that comfort zones really are there for a reason.