Boys off to camp
I spent most of last week trying to finalize Graham, Parker and Duncan's trip to camp. Sunday afternoon, we finally dropped them off. We scrimped and saved on lots of things, some necessities just to send them. Before you go thinking that I have gone all altruistic on you, realize that 5 days with no little boys in the house means QUIET. No "He {insert verb here} my {insert noun here}!" screams for hours on end. After having 4 kids, I really don't care who broke it, stole it etc. I just want quiet. Fairness has taken a backseat to quiet. It may go against my Libertarian soul, but dang, there is a limit to what I can listen to 24/7.
I spent much of last week, and a ridiculous amount of Saturday shopping for supplies. Bug repellent x3, sunscreen x3, duffel bags x3, fishing poles and tackle x3, toiletries x3, disposable cameras x3, etc. I had Steve shave their little heads Saturday night. He did a pretty good job. This way, no brushes of combs required! We have to argue with boys with what looks like peacock feathers on the backs of their heads every morning, "Did you brush your hair?" {Knowing full well that no brush has been within 5 feet of the child} and the child will always reply "Yes." Duh! How stupid do they think we are? They are all pillow grinders. They all grind their heads into their pillows really leaving their hair in a funky state. {This is extremely humorous if we make them take their showers right before bed.}
Sunday, after church we came home to finish packing the last few things. Like the things in the dryer. (No one would REALLY look under the bed for dirty socks and underwear until the loads I washed turned up woefully insufficient numbers of socks and undies.) I sat around with a Sharpie marker labeling everything. I was deciding which towels to mark, the towels that I wouldn't miss too much if they missed the trip home. The bad thing there is that I had done a thinning of the linens a while back, sigh. Oh well, if they come home, they come home, if not, it's one fewer thing to wash. Steve was overseeing the final counts into the duffel bags and backpacks.
Well, we piled all of the camp gear for 3 boys into the Mighty Festiva. (Yes, we own a bigger vehicle, my Plymouth Grand Voyager, and I suppose that trips with a ton of gear sound like the time to use mom's van, but the mileage really stinks, and the Festiva gets 44 mpg, so we just squeezed everyone and everything into the car.) We drove off to camp. We hadn't been able to make it to the camp preview tour due to some other commitment, probably paper routes, so this was our first look at the camp. Boy howdy! It was huge, and looked really cool. We knew that there was pool swimming and lake swimming, but the lake had some cool stuff in it. They had this inflatable iceberg with rock climbing holds on the one side, and I was told that there is a slide on the other side. Cool! I wanna play too! They had what looked like a raft in the lake, but I was told that it is a lake trampoline. instead of diving into the water, they bounce, bounce, bounce off into the water. Once again, that looked cool.
As we have 4 boys, they see way too much of each other. On the forms when they asked if there was anyone that they wanted to bunk WITH, I did it in reverse. I asked that they bunk separately, so that they could get a brief respite from each other. I figure that they need it as much as we do. Well, they didn't know anyone there. We checked them in, we were early enough that they got to choose bunks. All 3 chose top bunks, of course. They were getting situated, and all seemed to be going fine. When we were ready to leave, Duncan, my 6 year old shocked me. He came up to Steve and said, "I want to go with YOOUUU!" What is this? Homesickness or a touch of fear from the child who loves to take off in some random direction to seek out new life, new civilizations? HE wanted to skip camp? Hey, I know that he's young, but I thought that somewhere along the line the plug-in for fear had not been installed in this boy. I'd certainly never seen it before! Once they said that they could get suited up for pool swimming, he was getting better. He suited up, and started the long walk to the pool. We walked over that way. When he got there he went over and talked to the life guard first, then he went over by Graham, our 11 year old, and got in with him. Graham even seemed to be nice to him.
I don't know what's going on at camp, but I assume that all is well. They had such a long list of activities, and I did let the boys pick their own list of top interests. They ought to have fun this week.
Sunday night, after dropping the boys off, Steve and I went out to see a movie, any movie, as we were just too hot to go back home. The theater is always well air conditioned. We decided on "Match" with Will Smith. It was really cute. No big surprises, but I wasn't looking for that. I was looking to wind down after having a whole week of trying to get camp stuff together, etc. Now, all is quiet at the Jones house. Hmm, I could lose track of time really easily. Until tomorrow that is, when I have to roll 3 paper routes worth of papers, and walk 3 paper routes. Oh my, the cost of camp. I keep paying and paying. (But it's ok.)
I spent much of last week, and a ridiculous amount of Saturday shopping for supplies. Bug repellent x3, sunscreen x3, duffel bags x3, fishing poles and tackle x3, toiletries x3, disposable cameras x3, etc. I had Steve shave their little heads Saturday night. He did a pretty good job. This way, no brushes of combs required! We have to argue with boys with what looks like peacock feathers on the backs of their heads every morning, "Did you brush your hair?" {Knowing full well that no brush has been within 5 feet of the child} and the child will always reply "Yes." Duh! How stupid do they think we are? They are all pillow grinders. They all grind their heads into their pillows really leaving their hair in a funky state. {This is extremely humorous if we make them take their showers right before bed.}
Sunday, after church we came home to finish packing the last few things. Like the things in the dryer. (No one would REALLY look under the bed for dirty socks and underwear until the loads I washed turned up woefully insufficient numbers of socks and undies.) I sat around with a Sharpie marker labeling everything. I was deciding which towels to mark, the towels that I wouldn't miss too much if they missed the trip home. The bad thing there is that I had done a thinning of the linens a while back, sigh. Oh well, if they come home, they come home, if not, it's one fewer thing to wash. Steve was overseeing the final counts into the duffel bags and backpacks.
Well, we piled all of the camp gear for 3 boys into the Mighty Festiva. (Yes, we own a bigger vehicle, my Plymouth Grand Voyager, and I suppose that trips with a ton of gear sound like the time to use mom's van, but the mileage really stinks, and the Festiva gets 44 mpg, so we just squeezed everyone and everything into the car.) We drove off to camp. We hadn't been able to make it to the camp preview tour due to some other commitment, probably paper routes, so this was our first look at the camp. Boy howdy! It was huge, and looked really cool. We knew that there was pool swimming and lake swimming, but the lake had some cool stuff in it. They had this inflatable iceberg with rock climbing holds on the one side, and I was told that there is a slide on the other side. Cool! I wanna play too! They had what looked like a raft in the lake, but I was told that it is a lake trampoline. instead of diving into the water, they bounce, bounce, bounce off into the water. Once again, that looked cool.
As we have 4 boys, they see way too much of each other. On the forms when they asked if there was anyone that they wanted to bunk WITH, I did it in reverse. I asked that they bunk separately, so that they could get a brief respite from each other. I figure that they need it as much as we do. Well, they didn't know anyone there. We checked them in, we were early enough that they got to choose bunks. All 3 chose top bunks, of course. They were getting situated, and all seemed to be going fine. When we were ready to leave, Duncan, my 6 year old shocked me. He came up to Steve and said, "I want to go with YOOUUU!" What is this? Homesickness or a touch of fear from the child who loves to take off in some random direction to seek out new life, new civilizations? HE wanted to skip camp? Hey, I know that he's young, but I thought that somewhere along the line the plug-in for fear had not been installed in this boy. I'd certainly never seen it before! Once they said that they could get suited up for pool swimming, he was getting better. He suited up, and started the long walk to the pool. We walked over that way. When he got there he went over and talked to the life guard first, then he went over by Graham, our 11 year old, and got in with him. Graham even seemed to be nice to him.
I don't know what's going on at camp, but I assume that all is well. They had such a long list of activities, and I did let the boys pick their own list of top interests. They ought to have fun this week.
Sunday night, after dropping the boys off, Steve and I went out to see a movie, any movie, as we were just too hot to go back home. The theater is always well air conditioned. We decided on "Match" with Will Smith. It was really cute. No big surprises, but I wasn't looking for that. I was looking to wind down after having a whole week of trying to get camp stuff together, etc. Now, all is quiet at the Jones house. Hmm, I could lose track of time really easily. Until tomorrow that is, when I have to roll 3 paper routes worth of papers, and walk 3 paper routes. Oh my, the cost of camp. I keep paying and paying. (But it's ok.)