Adventure……3 Weeks Ago

The last thing I posted was written while we were traveling to Family Camp.  Family Camp boasted a week of family fun in the outdoors.  No rush, no strict schedules – it was even compared to a cruise at one point.  Meals provided three times a day, entertainment and “excursions” an option but never a requirement.  I thought that meant that I might have a chance to do a little blogging.  When my phone lost any kind of service before we even reached the road that leads to the road to camp……..that idea kind of went out the window.  I have to say though, it was pretty wonderful not having any kind of access to the outside world.  I suppose they could have found me if they needed me, but you don’t realize what a slave to your phone you are until you are freed from it.  My phone became my 2in1 camera/alarm clock.  I think one of the best parts of being at camp again was that everyone was looking up all the time.  We sat on our little cabin porches and talked to the other families.  Rather than looking up people’s names on Facebook to see if you had gone to college with them or if you had any mutual friends, we had to actually ask…..outloud….in person……with words.

But before I share the highlights from that, I need to go back to our time in Branson the week before.  I realize I have no readers anymore and this blog is just my own little journal – but for my own memories, I am going to post about things that happened 3 weeks or so ago.

*This will be primarily a photographic essay*

Anyone who knows me even a little, knows that I am fond of things deemed nautical.  I love the ocean, horizontal stripes in navy and white and anything with a sail on it.  So when we arrived at Mumsey’s timeshare and I saw that it was themed after a little Nantucket village (nestled on Table Rock Lake rather than being an island right off of Cape Cod, but you get the picture).

There was even a “Crow’s Nest” up at the top! You could ride a little elevator up to it, which was very exciting but quickly became a real issue.  My children are pretty free range and one in particular is rather impulsive in her thinking at the moment.  I think we were in the condo for about 5 minutes before I had to lay down the law regarding the conditions of use regarding the elevator and/or the Crow’s Nest.  I may be closer to 40 than 4 now, but I’m not too old to see a perfect hide n’seek house when I see it.  As fun as that would have been, I could also see disaster.

For at least a few more years, the Crow’s Nest will be with adult supervision only.

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Our first full day, we went exploring.  We went to “Downtown Branson” and checked out Dick’s 5 and 10:

We played in the fountain:

Visited the fullest candy store I have ever seen.  I have been in larger candy stores, but the sheer volume that was packed into ever nook and cranny of this particular shop was crazy!

Sat on the hand of a giant gorilla statue:

And made an evening visit to Silver Dollar City, which by the way, if you have a child who loves the idea of living her life by the light of an oil lamp and wearing a bonnet – you have got to make the trek to this wonderful little theme park.  Side note, Mattie wanted to wear her “Laura Ingalls” dress sooooo bad but I had to tell her no.  Mainly, I was afraid she would be too hot, but honestly, I was a little embarrassed.  She would have looked precious, she wears her 1886 clothing well, but with the rest of us dressed like modern times and her not actually working there or anything……..I’m just not brave enough.  After we got there, she also admitted it probably wasn’t the best idea either…….because everyone would have wanted to take a picture with her and we wouldn’t have been able to ride any rides.  I don’t know about that, but whatever makes her feel better.

We tried to end our day with a pre-bedtime swim, but someone had pooped in the pool.  You can’t have everything though, right?

Other Things That Are Keeping Us Busy

While embarking on yet another very long drive today, I realized that I have been doing a few more things in addition to my daily worry over the world that my children and I are living in.  Originally, this started out as the summer without any real plan or direction.  Our planning for the summer usually starts booking sometime around March and since that’s when Poppy’s health really took a nose dive right around then, I made plans to have no plans, ready to be on call.  Having no plans set in stone, this allowed me to say yes to more things when the opportunity arose.  I think our “off the cuff” summer has actually been busier than those that have been so carefully thought out.

Mumsey came for a visit.  She painted my bathroom, and let me first say that I never asked her to – she just came with the idea in her head that she was going to do it.  Strangely enough, my mom finds a sort of therapeutic experience in painting walls.  I don’t think she would have been down to do my whole kitchen or sand down cabinets or anything, but a little tiny upstairs bathroom – that was something she could sink her teeth into.  I would like to say that I helped, but mainly I just sat on a stool talking to her and reminding her that she just broke her foot in April, so please be careful.  I also did the way high cutting work because I am a whopping two inches taller than her.

I haven’t put the light switch plated back on yet, they are still sitting with their screws on my dresser……waiting for her to come back again I guess.  Brandon has been on a kick lately about giving the deck a facelift (and a lift lift because since we have lived there, the deck has sunk about 6 inches).  He has been sanding every wooden surface outside – the play set, the tables and chairs, and eventually even got our free labor on board.

Not having a ton of plans has also meant that on those afternoons when we might usually be doing something else in the summer, Reese has been able to get that last little bit of wear out of some of his favorite costumes.  Reptile costume, you have been with us for about 3 years now.  You are now 3/4 length sleeved and capri pants on the boy, but he refuses to pass you down to the sister just yet.  July seems a weird time to be bonding with the stuffie costumes, but hey…..desperate times call for desperate measures.

Mumsey was also here for Reese’s 8th birthday.  This year, with having no real plans, we were able to plan to have his birthday on the actual day.  That hasn’t happened since the kid was born I don’t think.  As you may know, July is a very busy month and just doesn’t usually lend itself to scheduling a kid’s birthday party very well.  Quite often, his festivities fall around sometime in August.  But this year, on July the 8th when the boy turned 8 – we were able to have his Golden Birthday on the big day.  He requested having his closest friends (minus the two who were on vacation) go to the movies with him to watch “The Secret Life of Pets”. His next request was to have Chick-Fil-A nuggets, lemonade and sweet tea along with beans and slaw from his favorite barbecue place here in Memphis.  He is a very specific kid, that Reese.

We ate golden cake surrounded by golden balloons, while the kids played outside on this old hammock that has been mistreated by children for far to long.  One of these days, I expect it to just come undone, to start popping threads and refusing to put up with their abuse for a minute longer.  They swing in far higher and far harder than any relaxing hammock was meant to be swung.  They exceed the weight limit always, piling on a last 6 kids at a time.  Either it will fall apart in protest or throw a little body out in and that broken arm is going to finally happen. But for this birthday, it kept its patience for another day.

Brandon and I were able to go on a date for our anniversary – a month late, but we haven’t been on time for anything in years. And then last Sunday morning, Mums and the kids and I headed off to the Ozarks for a few days in Branson, MO.  This was definitely not on the agenda back in March, or even at the very first of June…..but when you have no other plans……..

I will tell you all about that later though.  Right now, I am typing as we are driving on yet another adventure and my husband is listening to a podcast that is way more interesting that what I am trying to write here.  Have a great Sunday, watch the race and eat some ice cream.  Today is National Ice Cream Day just in case you weren’t already aware.

Falling Behind

I had a friend tell me the other day that I had been falling behind on my blog.

She is right.

I had a long drive yesterday, relatively to myself, and I really tried to wrap my mind around just why that is.  When this blog was first born, my children were far less self-sufficient and it seems like I had to feed them more often.  They also made more messes and far more laundry…..so why does it feel like I had more time then than I do now?  The only thing I have been able to come up with is that though the physical demands my children place upon me may have decreased by a bit, ( I haven’t fed anyone in the middle of the night for a good 3 years now……except myself…..on a rare occasion…..there may have been pie involved) the mental requirements have grown by leaps and bounds.  Gone are the days of us staying put. I have schedules to remember – they go places and require services.  I have to get them to their lessons and practices and appointments, remember what they are supposed to be doing for these lessons and practices and appointments and make sure they have whatever they need for said activities.  In some ways, I feel like I am learning how to play the piano all over again and I will also be starting both 2nd and 6th grade in the fall.  This will be my fifth experience with 2nd grade – I attended myself back in ‘8? and taught it for two years so I think Reese and I are going to do really well.

But its not just the secretarial and chauffeur duties that have increased, its even the communication.  Gone are the days when my children’s questions can just be answered with something like, “Oh that’s just the way God made (fill in the blank)” or even the greatest answer of all time “Because…..”.  Too often, especially lately, my children’s questions have resulted in me telling them about things that even I don’t really even understand, and I certainly wasn’t ready to tell them about.  Somewhere, Mattie has learned that when the flags are flown at half mast, that means someone has died or in memory of some significant event.  I suppose she learned this in school, that’s why we send her there, but this summer I have really wished that maybe she hadn’t retained as much knowledge.  “Mama, why are the flags flying at half mast?” This is questions that unfortunately “because” just won’t answer.  The answers to these questions have not been able to be just words tossed into the back seat as we drive along. There have been words like, “shootings, hate-crimes, babies drowning and alligators, discrimination, prejudice and death”. So, so much death.  Just this past weekend, a young man my kids went to school with passed away in a car accident.  How do you explain that to your kids? He was here, he wasn’t sick and he wasn’t old…….he just wasn’t wearing his seat belt. These are not conversations where “because” will suffice as an answer.

My parenting has become much more cerebral since starting this blog.  I sleep more and i probably go to the bathroom more by myself, but I definitely have to think about my plan of attack for raising these children WAY more.  They are asking questions, hard questions, and they are developing personalities and attitudes that need to be molded into positive traits rather than the type that will land them in jail.  And the hormones are coming. A few have already arrived and set up camp.  But I know my days are numbered before things get real.  So Neely, if you wonder why I have fallen behind on my blogging, its because I am curled up in my closet in the fetal position praying that God will keep the Puberty Express away for just a little bit long.  I hear the whistle blowing, the lights are flashing, its inevitable. The attitude and teeny tiny boobies that have already attacked Mattie are way more than enough for me to handle as it is.  But please, Lord – keep her little just a tiny bit longer.

So much thinking, explaining, and trying to make them into kind people who others will want to have around when they are adults…..they are also staying up significantly later here in the summer and don’t nap during the day…..maybe that’s where all my free time has actually gone! Either way, I think I figured out what has been going one.

Camp…..or Not Camp, That is the Question

We packed up Mattie’s suitcase on a Friday afternoon.  She had a checklist and I had a heavy heart.  She would be gone Sunday to Sunday and I was internally fretting about just how many pairs of underwear I should pack her. Thoughts flashed through my head of being her age and going to camp, how her Aunt Steph had to ride double on a horse and ended up ruining a pair of shorts and panties because she wasn’t sitting on the actual saddle.  Little bit of advice, never ride on the back of a sweaty horse if you like your pants.  As a mom, how am I supposed to plan for these sorts of things?  So I think I packed her about 24 and then took her firmly by the shoulders, looked her right in the eye and told her in a very stern parent voice, “If you stain your pants riding horses, insist on sitting in a saddle the next day! Do you understand me? This is serious stuff her Mattie and before I send you off all alone into the wilderness with strangers, I need to make sure that you understand!”

Sadly for Mattie and the rest of our children, Aunt Steph and I had a rather colorful childhood with several “What in the heck?” situations that have left us being concerned and often fretful of some very peculiar scenarios.

Her suitcase was packed – everything carefully picked out, her name written on everything, including her bug spray, in black sharpie marker. Ready or not, here she came!

Mattie had been talking about going to camp for a year – ever since her bestie Luke went last summer.  I had gone to camp when I was her age and loved every second of it.  I loved it so much that during college, I spent the summer working down at the water front at a beautiful camp in Florida.  I knew she was going to have an awesome time.  I also knew that the other two kids were pretty stoked about having a Mattie sabbatical.  But I also knew that no one sends their 4-year-old to camp, and in so many ways it feels like Mattie should still be just 4.

This whole parenting thing can just be so darn bittersweet!

I have heard that a mother’s tears have a direct line to God’s ears.  I firmly believe this, but in this particular case I feel like maybe the outcome was a bit extreme.

Mattie never ended up at camp this summer.  A few hours after the bag was packed and my tears were shed regarding my child that insisted on growing up, we received a text from a friend.  She was heading to camp to pick up her son, camp had been cancelled due to a horrible norovirus outbreak (that would be diarrhea, nausea and vomiting – all while being confined to little cabins in the woods in the heat of summer in Dixie.)  I guess the CDC had been called and the TN Department of Health, it had been decided that the only way to truly eradicate this virus was to send everyone home.  The campers parents were all notified and everyone retrieved by late Friday night. The staff members who were well enough, spent all day Sunday disinfecting and then the gates of Indian Creek Camp were locked.

We were notified late Friday night via email and then received an actual phone call Saturday afternoon.  They were extremely apologetic, something tells me that not every parent was pleased with this news.  The girl wasn’t happy……that is an understatement.  The girl was completely devastated and then decided that there must be some sort of conspiracy going on and a prejudice against kids in this area between the ages of 10-12. That night, I said a little prayer, thanking God that I wasn’t going to have to send my baby off……but sending the plague really wasn’t necessary.  Truth be told, I don’t for a minute believe that God caused any bit of that vomit-fest, actually I am more of the belief that He answered my prayers before I even prayed them.  As upset as she was about not being able to go, I can only imagine how her little heart would be broken if I had to go up and get her after only a day or two…….or if she had got sick.  Here I was concerned with things like horse sweat on her khakis and I hadn’t even entertained the thought of a camp-wide outbreak.  You better believe that one will be swirling around in my head this time next year!

We had planned to drive to Nashville after church on Saturday to spend a little time with Nene and Papa – not only are they only about an hour from camp (we are 4+) and this way we wouldn’t have to drive as far on Sunday (had we been actually going to camp), but we also hadn’t seen them for a while and Father’s Day seemed as good of a day as any to hang out with my dad.  Mattie was still pretty bummed about her “change of plans”  – but by 3:00 on Sunday (when she should have been checking in for her week of the great outdoors and was instead enjoying a delicious meal and an extended visit with these guys)

Camp seemed to be the farthest thing from her mind.

And when we arrived home and immediately went straight into a viewing party of the NBA finals with our “framily” the Halls……camp wasn’t mentioned again. Turns out Mattie can be easily distracted and the thought of missing out on something that the rest of us might be enjoying, is a bigger deal than missing out on something she’s never done before.

While Mattie was going to be gone, I had plans to get a lot of things done – cleaning, writing, getting caught up on all those things that I completely forgot about during the months of April and May (I had purchased graduation cards and never sent them, birthday gifts and cards have been riding around in my car for weeks…..there are still Easter themed dishes up in my dining room.)  Mattie’s retreat was going to be a retreat for all of us…..but it wasn’t meant to be.  Instead we were probably busier than ever because her daddy felt especially bad that she was missing such a crucial life event and insisted on trying his hardest to make it up to her.  For the first time in forever, he was home in what felt like the middle of the day (5:30)! He took her to go paint pottery (crafts), they all went and practiced their baseball skills one evening, there was some crazy dress up and  even an daddy/daughter kayaking event.

Who else can say, “My kid’s camp got cancelled this year due to the vomit apocalypse?” Honestly, I should have known that something like this would happen. I don’t know if I should be looking forward to Family Camp coming up in a few weeks, or fearing it. Have a lovely weekend and make sure to wash your hands really well.