Parenting Under the Stars

It’s cooling off a bit. The air feels like it’s winding down after being revved up into a heat frenzy for most of the summer. It’s like it’s sighing like the deflating pool, intertubes and beach balls. The water noodles are put away in the the shed for the winter. Our grass looks happy, relieved that the parching season is over, happy it survived.

This is the perfect time of year for kids to enjoy being outdoors even if school has started. When it’s still light and warm in the late afternoons and evenings, why not try a new twist: homework at the picnic table or under a tree. It takes the sting out of the whole back-to-school routine and lets kids enjoy the waning summer hours. Popsicles and lemonade are great after school treats.

Then there’s outdoor reading, too. Our kids like to do their reading on the patio with the crickets as their companions. And I want them to stay outdoors as much as possible, before it’s impossible. Here in the west, we know that time is coming.

“Mom, did you see that full moon last night?” my son asked this morning.

“Yeah, it was beautiful. It was so bright you could probably try and read by it,” I answered.

“Hey! I’m going to try that tonight,” he announced.

“By the time the moon is high enough, you’ll probably be asleep.”

“No I won’t. I’m going to wait up for it, and do my reading then!”

Great, I think. He’s going to start his reading at 10 or 11 pm, making it hellish to try to wake him up the next morning. I guess I should just be glad he can see the moon through his bedroom windoow, and that it illuminates the mountains behind it. That he’s lucky enough to have such a scene to behold.

So there’s a couple things I’ve learned about having a VERY active kid in a cast. Perhaps I can mention a few and then be done with this segment.

First, life goes on.Let them participate. Let them go cheer on their sports teams. Let them go to practice. If they go to practice they may not be able to do everything but they are still learning the dynamics of the team and can listen to the coach. Nathan can’t run down the field, but he can move around a bit and left kick and do some drills. Hecan learn from watching his teammates play. He still feels like a part of the team. This helps assuage the pain of not being able to play during the games.

Second, let friends sign the cast. Especially teammates and close friends. Don’t take a sharpie to school and let EVERYONE write all over the cast. I mean really, a nine-year old’s leg is only so big. Hopefully they will write better comments than Nathan’s sisters did. One wrote, “I guess you really weren’t faking.” The other wrote, “Get well, soon, punk wad.” So much for sisterly love in our family.

One last thing, don’t wear your soccer cleats and shin guards in to the doctor. I noticed Nathan was wearing this as we were getting into the car to go get a second x-ray to see if the leg was healing properly. He reasoned that since we were on our way to practice afer the doctor, that he wanted to be ready! I told him to take them off until after the doctor. I didn’t want the doctor to know he was still playing quasi-forward at practices. So he wore flip flops into the doctor, then changed into cleats and shinguards, since that’s what his real life is.

If my son Nathan had a body cast, instead of a leg cast like he currently has, I have no doubt he’d still find a way to run around. In his condition, he can’t play soccer, but he still went to the first game on Saturday. He pestered the coach to let him play even though his ankle is broken. He wore his jersey proudly and fidgeted around, anxious to keep his team from losing 0-4.

Needless to say, we’ve been trying to occupy him. We’ve found a couple of fun family games that he seems to enjoy. Last night we sat around the picnic table and played ASAP, a quick-thinking card game. At one point he was standing on the table, yelling out his answer. This made his grandma nervous, who had come over for the evening. I know we’re all just a bit uneasy, worrying that he’s going to break his other leg.

Another game he loves is the award-winning Blokus. You can make it as full of stragegy as you like or creatively make your moves based on whim. I like the whim part; he prefers the stragegy. Neither one is right or wrong, just depends on your style.

We’re also reading The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford. What an engrossing, beautifully written book. I don’t think he’d be able to read it on his own. The language is sometimes a bit complicated. So we are enjoying spending the time reading it together. What I’ve been most impressed with is how loyal the animals are to each other and humans.

I continue my quest to occupy Nathan. So far so good. I welcome comments and suggestions.

The euphoria of getting a cast on and telling people about his injury has worn off. My son has started to realize his limitations, and he’s a kid who doesn’t like limitations of any sort. Yesterday was the first day of school in a cast. The main problem at school was what to do at recess. He’s usually the organizer for schoolyard soccer and other games like steal the flag and flag football. He said he was “so bored” while all the other kids were playing. He was practically in tears over this.

My husband helped him think of how he could play frisbee golf without running (can’t picture it myself, actually) and he went to school today armed with equipment to make recess tolerable. When I suggested marbles, he looked at me like I was marbles. He doesn’t want to do sit down things at recess. He wants to move. DUH! So my suggestion to find his sister was met with consternation. “All she does is sit around and talk!” he whined. That’s what I’d do if I was at recess. But I’m an XX and he’s an XY and apprently the two are worlds apart. I learn this more every day that I am a mother to this boy and a wife to my husband.

I looked around for ideas of things to do with kids in casts. This website had ideas on how to take care of your injury and had links to fun games to play online. I’ll suggest to my son that he may want to check that out if he wants.

The other thing I did to make his life tolerable was order a Zimm Zamm from the Vermont Country Store. They have very cool items from the past. I remember hitting my Zimm Zamm for hours. It’s essentially a tether tennis game. The beauty of it is you only have to move your upper body to play.

I hope it gets here soon.

Hi there.

My nine-year old son fractured the growth plate in his ankle bone over the weekend. The pain of his ankle is nothing compared to the pain of sitting out the soccer season. The boy lives for the sport. He got a green cast to match the green on his uniform that he will wear on the sidelines to cheer his team on.

I won’t try to think about what the coaches said. One said, “I”m so depressed. He has the best kicking leg on the team.” The other said, “That makes me want to cry!” Join the crying club.

We will try to make it better for him by letting him go to games to support the “Raptors.” We will hope that it heals quickly and that he won’t have to sit out the whole season. Right now having a neon green cast is sort of cool. But when I have to tranquilize him at the game because he’s so anxious to get in there and play, well, then . . .

Any advice from readers on how you’ve helped your very active child survive an injury? I would welcome all comments, please!

Whew! All my kids were gone out the door by 7:50 this morning. This is the first time I’ve been home alone during the day for the past 16 years! For six whole hours. What am I going to do with myself? This is definitely a bizarre feeling that’s going to take some getting used to. At least I can get back into blog mode after being seriously sidetracked by vacations, birthdays, camping trips, and family reunions over the past month.

Speaking of family reunions, we had an amazing one at my Uncle’s ranch last week. There was so much to do–sand volleyball, horseshoes, horseback riding, swimming, tubing, canoeing, stargazing and hanging out on the front porch. One of the highlights for the little kids was gunnysack racing. It was wonderful to have an old fashioned game to play. It’s sort of a lost art and that’s a shame because it’s so fun. Everyone can do it, including me! Including my 2-year old niece who was adorable. She kept saying “I hop like a bunny!” and her little round body would bob up and down like a buoy in the water before she wiped out.

Use OLD pillowcases if you can’t find gunnysacks.

I survived the church family campout at Jordan Pines.I even slept well on my mostly flat airbed. I was warm and cozy under my 30-year old flannel lined sleeping bag that my Dad bought me when I was a kid. Compared to having my babies’ middle-of-the-night screams echoing through the campground–which is how it used to be for many years–it was a rousing success. I actually woke up not feeling drugged, achy or extraordinarily cranky, like I’d been run over by a semi. I felt even sort of refreshed.

How is this possible? The kids are growing up, and I tell you, it gets better every day. That, plus I got to read a lot of Eclipse instead of socializing. I kind of felt bad just sort of sitting in the car reading while other families were arriving, but when they would see me reading, they’d say, “Oh, what part are you at?” and “Oh, I wish I were reading it right now!” One woman spent the entire campout excluding meals holed up in the tent reading. She’d made a deal with her husband that she’d go if she could read and he would take care of the kids. So I guess I wasn’t such a freak show.

The best part was laying in the tent with a flashlight reading, completley absorbed in the tension between Edward and Jacob. First, I’d want her to love Edward more, then Jacob, and then I was so overwhelmed my my own emotions I couldn’t even make a decision on who I would love if it were me. Outside it was still and dark and perfect for staying up late to read. I loved it.

I don’t function too well in the mornings, but my friend, Nancy, who is little merry sunshine in the a.m., got up and helped Darren make breakfast for people. I woke up to start cutting up fruit, and it was already done! Thanks Nancy! I guess I shouldn’t have been such a crab on Friday about the whole thing.

People said it was the best breakfast ever. Here’s what we had in case you have a huge group of people to provide breakfast for.

We made our own sausage, egg, cheese biscuits on toasted English muffins. You toast the muffins on a grill and put a slice of cheese, a round sausage patty and some scrambled egg inside. Yum. People thought this was cool.

Then we had clementines, bananas, and melons to choose from.

We had hot chocolate, juice and milk to choose from.

We had assorted bagels with cream cheese or choice of jam, honey or peanut butter.

Everyone talked about the variety of things. Everyone could find something they liked. And the little kids loved that they had a choice in what to put on their bagels.

My husband and I are in charge of our church’s family campout tonight. I know I’m supposed to be all gung-ho and rah-rah go team about this, but I’m not. After our 11-day family vacation, I just don’t feel like pulling it all together for another outing. I just don’t feel like going at all. I want to stay home and read Eclipse in peace and quiet. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

It seems like I’m the only one who hasn’t devoured it yet. I’m only on page 300 of 600 and something pages. My 13-year old daughter spent 2 1/2 days holed up with it, and I haven’t had time to get into yet for an extended period of time. I’ve been buying food and distrubuting flyers for the campout.

I know I need to make memories with my family. I know some day (sooner than I think) I will be sad that they’re gone and I will be glad we did so many things together. But I am just having a hard time getting up for this. Thinking about food, clothes, camping gear and all the other junk I’m going to forget makes we want to just sit and write this blog and let the world go by.

The s’mores are waiting. The stars are waiting. The memories are waiting to be made. What am I waiting for? Besides a natural disaster to cancel the whole thing? Or instant sickness to overtake my body?

Hmmmmm.

The trees are what it’s all about in the Olympic Rainforest in Washington. Some are 300 feet tall and 23 feet around. I guess it’s also about the rain that makes them grow. The annual rainfall is 12-14 feet a year if you can imagine that!

My kids were in love with these massive trees. They just wanted to stay with them. It was almost as if they had become friends with these anicent, magnificent conifers. My two youngest were like little trolls, poking in and out of hollowed out sitka spruce and western hemlocks. They’d make a tree fort in one that had broken off, doling out rooms to each other and discussing battle strategy.

They played hide and seek and made an awful lot of noise. We wanted to get through the forest to get to the beach, but they just wanted to stay with the trees. The next day they wanted to return. “I want to go back to the trees,” my nine-year old son said. Everyone wished there was more time for the trees.

I got the feeling that everything was alive around me. Everything was growing, everything had a life and purpose. The ferns, the mosses, the shrubs, and of course, the trees, were breathing around us. We may have even gotten a great family Christmas photo out of it.

It’s all about the trees.

There were squeals of delight when my older girls learned we would be visiting Forks, WA this summer. Nestled between the Hoh Rain Forest and the Olympic Peninsula, they would get to visit the famed site of Stephenie Meyer’s phenomenal vampire novels, Twilight and New Moon..

The girls went camera happy, taking pictures of all the places from the books they loved. In between they were fighting over the latest Harry Potter novel in the back seat. I commented to my husband that so much of our trip was built around these amazing novels that have shaped so much of their growing up years. Samantha bought a hoodie that said “Got Rain? Forks, WA.” We were expecting that the stores in Forks might have capitalized on the popularity of the books that put them on the map, but there was no Edward and Bella merchandise to be found. That was disappointing to the girls.

They decided to take matters into their own hands. They set about collecting driftwood ands shells from Second Beach near La Push, WA, to take back to their friends. They would write “To so and so Love, Edward” on the driftwood. You could see the wheels turning in the minds of the budding entrepreneurs.