Corwin is heading out for a big camping trip tomorrow to the Upper Peninsula. The troop had a get together last night to get everything packed, so all the boys had to have their equipment assembled. I told Corwin to start getting ready on Wednesday so that if something didn’t go right or there was missing equipment, we would still have plenty of time to fix it.
Of course, Corwin didn’t get started until yesterday around noon. Still, Corwin (with some … encouragement … from us) managed to get everything in place before the evening packing.
Meanwhile, Charles and I are headed off this evening for two nights of camping. This will be Charles’ first experience at camping and he seems fairly upbeat about it. Unfortunately, Charles’ den is rather thin and so it’s not really been an option to send him out with a crew. I decided that we would try the “Parent and Pal” experience first, to get him started.
Alice: Mom, I saw the guinea pig sneeze!
Mom: [patronizingly] Yes, Alice.
Alice: I saw the snot come out of its nose!
Mom: Oh.
Alice: Yes it came out of its nose and back!
Mom: That’s nice Alice.
Today was Mom and my 20th wedding anniversary. We didn’t do much, just went out for dinner without the kids. Mom got some very nice flowers too, not sure who they were from.
Corwin came back from Grandma’s at some point, I am not quite sure when exactly. But he’s back.
POset has been an inside cat for years, although not for much reason beyond she just didn’t seem to like going outside. However, as she has become increasingly infirm over the last few months, she has also acquired a much stronger desire to enjoy the great outdoors. She’s spent a couple nights outside because of it as we don’t think to check for her being inside as it hasn’t been an issue since we moved here. We are letting her have her last hurrah as I don’t think POset is going to survive for much longer. After her first night out in a storm she didn’t groom herself for a couple of days, until Mom took pity and brushed her out. POset is getting skinnier as well and she was never a hefty cat to start with. The only real problem has been Polynomial. POset has learned to open the screen doors and leaves them open just enough for Poly to force the rest of the way and get out. Still, we’re a bit reluctant to lock the doors because it’s a pain for us and it’s been so nice out this summer that I feel guilty about keeping POset inside, even if she has acquired the habit of hanging out in the middle of the street or ducking in to the neighbor’s garage.
On Sunday we went out in the afternoon to the County Fair. It was a very nice day, warm but not too hot with bright sunshine. Oddly, the fair was more crowded than normal.
Alice did a couple of the kiddy rides. Corwin and Charles did the Ferris Wheel, the whirling swings, and bumper cars. Mom persuaded Corwin to go on the Octopus Twister again. I gave Corwin some money to waste on the midway games. He liked the BB machine gun, although he didn’t manage to clear all the target (he got fairy close). He won a prize at one of the games, a small stuffed penguin, which Charles and Alice immediately started fighting over.
The kids had some cotton candy (truly what they like best about the fair). We also got them lemon shake ups, one each because it would be wrong to share.
We went off to look at the kid’s third cousin’s pig but they had only numbers, not names, so we couldn’t tell which was theirs. It was fun and the kids had a good time although Corwin was going on “can’t we leave yet?” around the time Mom decided to head on home.
Last night we went out to see G-Force on the opening weekend because we have guinea pigs. Mom said we couldn’t actually take the guinea pigs to the movie but the kids were willing to go anyway. I thought it was an OK movie. The kids quite liked it though.
We went through three buckets of popcorn which the kids also quite liked.
Charles is now free of his string camp.
Last night the band played at a local introductory community contra dance. Mom tried t convince Alice to dance but Alice initially refused. Somehow, though, Mom got her out on the floor (probaby by threatening to leave her sitting with me) and Alice found it to be very fun. Charles seemed to have a tolerable time although he had to pluck with his middle finger because he had a huge blister on his index finger from plucking during the week.
This morning we went to the official final concert for the band. I thought I wasn’t going to get a picture of Charles playing but eventually they got to songs he knew. The first was a set of four songs the composition group had written at camp which Charles seemed to enjoy playing. So I think that overall it was a positive experience for him.
Mom went to a meeting at Alice’s dance studio where the proprietors had parents talk about the wonders of having your child learn to dance. One mother, whose daughter was the top student there until she graduated, talked about how wonderful that was, although it had required the daughter to make some hard choices and give up most other activities (such as soccer) in order to focus on dance. The daughter was seven at the time. Mom wasn’t sure that this would work out quite as well for Alice.
Mom tells me that Corwin is spending most of his time at Grandma’s reading books and hanging out on Facebook. He has a number of friends there now, all of them also physical friends (such as the Gang Of Four). Some kids he hasn’t seen in years sent friend invitations to him, such as Megan. Corwin didn’t want to be friends with girls, even virtually, but Mom and I coerced in to accepting the invitations.
This is a splinter from the back porch I pulled out of Alice’s foot the other day, a splinter which was buried all the way in so I had to dig it out. Despite that, she broke down in tears when I asked her to wear sandals on the back porch. She claimed she wouldn’t cry or struggle if she got another one but Mom and I weren’t sufficiently trusting to believe her.
One thing that Mom said about the guinea pigs that tweaked my interest was that guinea pigs like dandelion greens. I tested it out and yes indeed, guinea pigs will chow down with gusto on dandelion greens. I had visions of the kids totally denuding the yard of dandelions in their joy at feeding the guinea pigs. No more dandelion patrol for me!
Alas, it only took one or two gatherings for the joy to pale. Alice complains that she can’t pull up an entire dandelion by herself but she doesn’t like to pick the leaves one by one. So it looks like we won’t be ruthlessly exhausting our local dandelion resources. I still pick some though, because the guinea pigs really do seem to find them extra tasty.
Mom had scheduled us for a reduce boy footprint this month. Last week we kept our Corwin exposure down with Boy Scout camp. This week Charles is at string band camp during the day. On Tuesday, Corwin is being shipped off to Grandma’s house for a few days. In early August Corwin will be heading out for another week of camping in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Charles will be banished exiled privileged to visit Grandma (who is way too smart to have more than one of the spawn at a time).
What is the point of pets if they don’t require a large project?
Mom has decided that the original cage for the guinea pigs is fine for now, but they should really have something much grander. Mom recruited Charles to the cause, letting him make a drawing of what a good guinea pig storage facility should look like. The end result was a two story mansion. Mom decided to try and build it as designed.
What you see here is the outer frame of the new GPM. Mom is busy sawing away to get the internal framing ready. Charles has blown hot and cold on the project. He enjoyed doing the drawings, but then didn’t much like the initial frame assembly, until the near the end when he became enthused again.
Alice spends her time prancing around the worksite while Mom gets ulcers worrying about her getting splinters or smashing the frame to bits by swinging on one of the cross beams.
Corwin had Keith and Josh over to visit. They all had fun with the guinea pigs, sitting and watching television with them (the g’piggies seem to like TV). Corwin almost let one of them escape in to the depths of the couch but manage to stop the g’piggy before it was too late.
So far, only Mom has experience guinea pig containment failure, She’s been peed on twice and pooped on once so far.
We got Corwin back today. After crushing his spirit on Wednesday, we didn’t hear anything from him again until he was back home. It rained Tuesday and Wednesday night and this apparently cleared out the bugs enough for Corwin to survive. Corwin didn’t seem to appreciate that this was the best week of camping weather I have ever seen in summer — highs in the low 80s, cool at night, non-oppressive humidity, sunny days, only rain at night and only night of heavy rain.
Corwin’s memory is that the morning after the rain, he got up early and managed to collapse his side of the tent and ended up sitting in the rain for an hour or so under a tarp until it stopped. What I remember is when I visited him at lunch and everyone gathered for food, the astringent odor of unwashed boy. Friday lunch must have really been something.
I went to help the rocket club with a launch for an aeronautical engineering camp at the university. Mom had a business meeting so poor Charles was forced to hang out with Dad. The launch went on for quite a while but Charles was very patient. One of the rocket guys brought peanuts so the time wasn’t completely wasted. There was a creek with water right next to the field but there was a fence so Charles didn’t want to play (it was also cold — Charles spent some of his time in the van warming up).
The guinea pigs enjoying the great outdoors while their cage is cleaned. The big pile of clover was donated by Charles.
Corwin called home Monday night, very upset at being stuck at camp. The problem seemed to be that they were using local canvas tents which do not have bottoms so the local insects could keep the boys company during the night. I say “seemed” because Corwin was even less communicative than normal, except for wanting to come home early. I wasn’t willing to let him do that but I did agree to drive out the next day (Tuesday) for moral support and to bring him a couple of things he had forgotten. He liked the things I brought but not the “time with Dad”. I arrived just before lunch and went with him to the lunch hall. After 10 minutes or so of watching him eat without responding to any of my conversational gambits I decided I had accomplished as much as possible.
Today was “family day” at camp. I asked Corwin before I left yesterday if he wanted his family to come out. He clutched his head with both hands and mewled piteously “I don’t know!”. After some “persuasion” he provided a semi-definite “I guess so”.
So this evening Charles and I went out to the camp. Alice had dance and really I don’t think it would have worked well in any case. Corwin was willing to hang out with us a bit and Charles was very patient. I tried to give Corwin pep talk as we left but the only reason he wanted us to come out was the chance that we would take him back with us. I tried the pep talk again but Corwin just walked off disappointed in my cruelty.
Oh well!
Charles has been agitating for getting some guinea pigs as pets for several months now. Finally, sometime in the last couple of weeks, Mom finally broke down. She tried to get Charles to agree to be happy for a while (originally until high school, but we tried to compromise on middle school) but it’s not clear Charles really agreed.
Mom went out on the Inter-Tubes and found an in-state guinea pig rescue operation which takes in abandoned guinea pigs and gives them to new homes. Mom looked at the selection and picked a trio of female guinea pigs named Smores, Fluffy, and Squeaky. It was a 2½ hour drive on which Mom, Charles, and Alice left about the same time I was dropping off Corwin. They successfully retrieved the guinea pigs and we are now infested with them. Mom also bought a cage, guinea pig food, bedding, water bottle, etc., so we are well equipped.
POset was indifferent, but Polynomial really really liked the guinea pigs. I don’t think she wants to eat them but they made her very excited. It was even worse if any of us held one of the guinea pig because then not only was there a small animal there, but someone else was getting human affection and Poly always wants a piece of that (I can hardly give Mom a hug without Poly trying to join in).
Charles seems to like the guinea pigs although as usual he’s not very demonstrative. Alice likes them as well although she’s not quite up to watching them without a helpful hovering parent. Corwin was very disappointed when he left that he wouldn’t get to see them for a week. The guinea pigs themselves seem nice, if a bit skittish. We can hope they get used to us but I doubt they’ll ever get used to Poly rubbing her nose on them and giving them big doggie licks.
We sent Corwin off for his first week of camping with the Boy Scouts this summer. He couldn’t remember when he was supposed to depart but eventually I found another parent who at home and knew when the kick off time was.
We spent much of Saturday pestering Corwin to get his stuff together. Corwin didn’t understand why we would want to do that instead of frantically searching for everything minutes before departure. “Be Prepared” just hasn’t sunk in yet.
The most fun was looking for Corwin’s mosquito netting which you really need at the camp site. We looked most of Saturday for it until Mom finally found it this morning. It had actually been put away in a box in Corwin’s closet which is why it was hard to find. Otherwise we didn’t have too much trouble locating the required items.
Alice was sent home from daycare today. She slammed her head into another child’s face and was acting somewhat dozy. I think they were worried about Alice having a concussion but the other kid didn’t even get a bloody nose so I didn’t think it could be particularly serious. Mom gave Alice some Tylenol and left her with me to keep an eye on. My first clue that she wasn’t seriously injured was when she asked me to pick her up by the ankles and swing her around like the pendulum in a clock1. When I pointed this out Alice was suddenly stricken with a headache once again. By the evening she wasn’t even bothering to act ill and had only a barely visible bruise on her forehead.
I wasn’t too surprised — head injuries are a family tradition.
1 Yet another thing I did to bug Alice when she was being difficult that it turned out to be a favorite thing to do.
Alice has her first loose tooth. One of her bottom front teeth is definitely loose and she’ll probably lose it in the next couple of weeks. Alice was very excited about it.
Mom has been pestering Corwin to get on Facebook. Two of his little friends (Josh and Jake) are there. Mom thinks that if Corwin is there they will bug Corwin instead of her. Corwin has not been very enthused but Mom has been relentless and I think he gave in today. She bugged me too but I am already on too many social networking websites that I never use, I don’t need another one.
I forgot to write this up last week but on Tuesday evening I was a parental chaperone for a Boy Scout lock in (overnight social event). Part of it was going off to see a movie, ??Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian so naturally they watched the first one on DVD then hit the movie theater at 9:30. We didn’t get back until midnight. I thought “gosh, maybe we shouldn’t have gone so late” but the scouts were fully energized. There were 18 boys and I think 3 or 4 of them slept for a few hours. They played capture the flag outside until 2 or 3 AM when the cops showed up and told them to hold it down. I was dozing off by then so I missed that little adventure. I was able to contribute to the main point of parents, getting the scouts up and the area cleaned up by 7 AM. That’s about when the boys were slowing down.
We had an interesting, if not particularly fun Independence Day. The big event was naturally the parade. The Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts had decided to join forces as a large bike gang for the parade so we could make both the boys participate.
Mom got quite caught up in the whole enterprise deciding that since we never manage to park all that close anyway we would all ride bikes from the house to the parade. The low riding clouds spouting water on the landscape were going to slow her down. Nor were Corwin’s rather persistent and somewhat inventive efforts to delay things until it was too late to depart, nor Alice’s screams as she was placed on the Bike Buddy.
Naturally the debatable level of rain ceased as soon as we were on our way and turned in to a rather strong downpour. Of course, Corwin had argued with us about wearing a rain poncho. He declared he didn’t need it and wasn’t going to wear it or even take it along in a backpack but we, cruel villains that we are, forced it upon him. He grumpily refused to acknowledge the point.
Sadly, neither boy was up to Mom’s biking speed and I was detailed to watch them so the three of us fell further behind. About the time we were coming up on the first major intersection Corwin announced that he had lost his backpack, leaving it behind when he switched in to his poncho. It was a tough choice — if I sent him back to get it as appropriate, we might never arrive at the parade. So I went back for it while sending the boys ahead to a bus shelter.
Mom, meanwhile, was waiting for us at that intersection yet managed to remain completely undetected by the boys. She called to tell me this just as I arrived at Corwin’s abandoned backpack but refused to answer her phone when I called back. After a few minutes of that I gave up, got the backpack, got the boys, and headed on to the parade.
Eventually we arrived, rather damp, but at least at a place which had shelter from the rain. We waited there for a while but eventually the parade was canceled due to rain. Haha! We biked over to a coffee shop just a few blocks away and had hotty chocolates. Alice and Charles found that very amusing, although Alice tried to claim they were really called “hot” chocolates.
After a bit of relaxing Mom took Corwin with her to bike home and come back for the rest of us with the van. I thought about biking home anyway, as I was already totally soaked, but Mom wanted me to have a cell phone while I thought was already pushing my luck with it so we crammed the bikes in the back and headed out.
The fireworks ended up being canceled as well, which was fine with us by that time.
Mom was bothering Corwin today to clean up his desk so he could use his laptop on it. This had some tense moments until we sat down for supper.
Mom: Corwin, did you clean up your desk?
Corwin: YES!
Mom: Really clean it?
Corwin: Yes! I even put the books away so I can use my laptop on it.
Charles: Really? I have got to see this! [Charles scoots upstairs to]
Alice: Mom, did Corwin really clean up his desk?
Yet another thing Mom has been encouraging Corwin to do this summer is ride his bicycle around, particularly over to his friends house. She tells me that most of the Gang Of Four has formed an ad hoc bicycle gang, which Corwin misses out on because his house is not in the same neighborhood as the rest of the gang. They dropped by one day earlier this week. This only re-energized Mom’s importuning and eventually Corwin broke down and rode off to Jack’s house. He even remembered to take his cell phone!
Corwin’s soccer coach has been having evening exercise sessions which we have been sending Corwin to as he could use a lot mroe exercise. This evening Mom decided that I could use some exercise as well. Alice and I were sent out to verify Corwin was actually with the exercise group and not hiding in the park somewhere. I decided to take Alice on a different path, through the wooded area on trails rather than along the concrete loop. Alice didn’t like this much — she was very concerned about getting lost. Given that the woods are no more than 10 acres or so I wasn’t so concerned myself.
Despite our lack of navigational devices we managed to find Corwin and then make our way to the play area.
Alice: I want to swing.
Dad: OK.
Alice: You have to push me!
Dad: Why?
Alice: Because I need you to push me!
Dad: So, if we need you to do something, you should do it?
Alice: Yes.
Dad: Excellent.
Alice: Only for Mommy!
