The Great Family Adventure

This weekend, we went on our first family camping trip ever.  My husband loves the whole woodsman thing, and the two of us have been camping together several times, but for whatever reason, we've never taken E with us.   So when the stars aligned and I realized I had a three-day weekend (meaning I was on-call Thursday night with a post-call day Friday and no weekend obligations...) in the balmy month of March, we immediately decided to plan an outing. 

Our call schedule comes out several months in advance, so we'd been hotly anticipating this weekend for at least 2 months.  As the date drew nearer, the weather seemed to be getting more and more spring-like, and the situation seemed like it would be ideal.

We (or rather, I) picked our destination: a state park 2 hours south of our home, with well-defined woodsy trails and even a cave (really just a dent in the rock, by my cave standards) to explore.  And, most importantly, with showers and bathrooms at the tent sites.  Rustic is all well and good, but a lady has to draw a line somewhere.

We even invited my parents to go along, and they rented a cabin in anticipation of the event.  I admit to some jealousy, for I was slightly distraught when I realized that due to a series of misinterpreted conversations/arguments, my husband had decided against bringing our air mattress.

On the big day, I got home at about 7 AM, and we planned to leave soon after lunch.  We packed up (my son asked: "can I pack a survival bag, Mom?) and premedicated our carsick-prone pooch.  A hitch arose when E couldn't find his beloved compass.  We searched high and low for it, and he remained quite surprisingly composed throughout.  Eventually, when it was time to meet my parents for lunch, I decided to pull the plug on the compass-hunt.

"I'm sorry we couldn't find your compass."
"It's ok," he replied, "It's just a compass."

I was slightly flabbergasted.  He's usually pretty good about not complaining when losing things, but not when it's adventure time and he's packed a survival bag and it's his COMPASS he's lost, of all things!  I suppose good attitudes do pay off at times, because my mom happened to have a compass stowed away in her bag and when we met for lunch and outlined the mystery of the missing compass, she was happy to lend hers in its place.

A slight argument ensued between myself and my loving spouse when we arrived at the park and began to search for a camping site.  What had not been mentioned on all the websites I referenced to choose this park was that D would find the close confines and overpopulation of the sites-with-bathrooms too much for his idea of proper nature-living.  And I, in my turn, would find the properly secluded and view-equipped camping sites much too far away from facilities, and far too sparsely wooded and passing-car-viewable for any other (HIGHLY undesirable) options.  We compromised eventually (meaning he lost his view and I my short stroll to a toilet).

Our tent up within a short amount of time, and our site laid out to my exacting standards, my husband immediately gather axe and machete and took himself off to the woods to begin extracting fuel for our dinner-fire.  This is his favorite part of camping, as I've discovered over the years we've known each other.  Where other poor fools would be content with a simple, merrily burning flame, my husband's idea of a fire is more akin to that of a blacksmith's.  Or a pyromaniac's.

It turned out well for us in the end, however, since the weather was colder than we had expected, and we needed the fire for its actual warmth, not just its cooking potential.

The first night we played Frisbee and catch in the clearing next to our campsite, which was lovely, since I haven't played either since we moved for residency.  My playing days have become quite rare, for some reason...

The next day, after a delicious fire-grilled breakfast, we set off on our trekking-through-the-woods.  We scrambled over trails, squeezed through/up/down/across natural chimneys, shimmied across flat rock faces and generally had a good old time.  My parents taught E to rappel (and he shrieked with terror and fury the whole time, and then later named it his "third favorite thing" of the trip...of course), I got way too much leaf dust under my contacts, the dogs dragged my husband to and fro across the trail, and my mother picked up other people's trash.  We watched two young men (yes, I realize that makes me sound old, but they were older than teens and younger than I am, so what the heck do you want me to call them?!) scale the cliffs (ok, so maybe they weren't cliffs, but they were freaking high) freehand and I informed E that were he to ever engage in such activities, he was NOT to inform me.  Just watching these two strangers made me feel extremely unwell.  I could imagine the sound it would make when they cracked their skulls open and almost vomited.  I didn't used to be so squeamish.  I blame motherhood.  It also made me afraid of heights.

My parents left later that day so my mom could catch a plane, and we entertained ourselves that evening by telling stories around the fire.  I started the story, and then at a moment of import, D would take over, with multiple suggestions from E (who refused outright to actually tell the story, however).  It involved two knights named Catastrophe and Broomstick Pants, a troll named Groll, and three wise snakes named Pride, Fortune, and Fame.  Don't ask.  It was hilarious.

That night I thought I was going to freeze to death.  The temperature dropped to about 35 degrees and the boys were monopolizing the two dogs.  In addition, I simply could not get comfortable, because my legs froze whenever I was supine, and when lying on either side, the bruises on my hip bones (due to the aforementioned absence of the air mattress) precluded comfort, much less sleep.

And then, right when I'd finally gotten warm, the sun rose and one of our dogs apparently decided this meant she was also ready to get up.  Which she announed to us by promptly jumping on our heads.  Now, she's not heavy, but she's not graceful and she's not very smart.  So repeated commands to stop and get down meant that she only doubled her efforts, since obviously we were incompletely understanding her needs.  I finally wrenched myself out of my sleeping bag so that I could put both of the dogs outside.  And having braved the icy elements in a t-shirt and jeans, I crawled back into the tent only to discover that one of the little mongrels had taken advantage of the warmth and my inattention to urinate on the INSIDE of my sleeping bag.  Yes, it was that kind of a morning.  So I abandoned ship and instead shared my son's sleeping bag.

However, lying there, I thought I heard our Min Pin ruffling around behind the tent.  Considering that I'd staked the dogs out in the front of the tent, I thought this was probably not good.  They had already taken off once during our trip (not because they escaped, but I shan't mention who let them off the leashes...), and I was not looking forward to chasing them down the road again (only to catch them right in front of a very displeased park ranger).

After watching me listen carefully, trying to convince myself that I was wrong without having to extricate myself from warmth once again, my son sighed and said "Mom, I can tell that this is making you anxious, so I'll go check."

Yes, that's my son.

After surviving this horrendous awakening, and finally emerging at about 9 AM to 44 degrees Farenheit, we decided to cut our losses and surrender the weekend.  We came home after breakfast, took showers, put on clean clothing and ate food that had not been prepared over a fire (at least not in our house).

So not entirely a trouble-free series of events.  But when asked about it, my son declared himself well-pleased with his first camping experience.  And that's what matters.

That, and remembering to pack the air mattress next time.

Family Dinners

We have a horrible, terrible habit of eating dinner in front of the TV.

My mother would be appalled.  My family never, ever ate in front of the TV.  If we were allowed to even just read while we were eating, it was for a snack or a solitary breakfast.  And even that was rare.  Mealtimes were sacred.

Unfortunately, because I'm usually exhausted by the time I get home these days, all I want to do is stuff my face with food and watch some mindless TV.  So we slid into a very bad habit.  At first, it was an occasional special event, and we'd joke how we were eating "American style tonight".  And then it became a special event to NOT eat dinner that way.

When I'm by myself, I have no problem with TV dining.  But it's different when it comes to eating with your seven-year-old son.  I'd like to him to have some brain cells left by the time he's looking at colleges.

So I put my foot down.  And we've been doing really well. We even instituted a family ritual that I adopted from the famous dooce: we take turns saying one bad thing that happened that day, one good thing, and one thing we're grateful for.  

Examples:
- My parents joined us the other night and my father said the one bad thing that had happened to him was that a boa constrictor had strangled him while he was cleaning out the pool.
- D's one good thing is that he took our #2 dog, Isis, on a car ride in the beautiful spring weather (our #1 dog gets horribly carsick, so he was confined to the homestead).


- What E is grateful for: dinner.

Training

My son's birthday is in a month or so, hence we've been discussing birthday party plans well in advance.  Hey, these things are our biggest shindigs all year long, we like to be prepared.

Anyway, we were driving back from picking E up from his religious ed class yesterday, when we started tossing bday ideas around. I was saying something about how he's seven, and D started teasing him and saying he's already eight, and we went back and forth (like we tend to do), so D turned to E and said "Well, are you seven or eight?"

E replied calmly, "Technically, I'm seven, but I'm trained to be nine."

Interior Design

We bought a house. More on that later.

My point is, E is getting his first room that we can totally renovate the way he (meaning he and I) want it.

So the other day, we were going over paint colors, and I was trying to reconcile his idea of a cool bedroom with my idea of a bedroom I could go into every day and not have a seizure.

We eventually picked a nice grassy green with one wall being a different as-yet-undetermined color.

Subsequently, he is obsessed with the idea of a "future wall".  (And if you can figure that out, you watch too much HGTV.)

Much like his previous obsession with backsplashes and his unending sorrow that we had none.  Until now...