Family Circus

I wanted to get this one down before I forgot. Another Oliver incident that just confirms my opinion that small humans are the grossest entities on the planet.

Today Oliver spent an unusually long time sitting on the toilet, door open, singing away. When he was finished, he dismounted I should say, as he is rather small in relation to the toilet, and checked out the contents. With great enthusiasm he ran to the door of the bathroom, "Hey, guys. Check out the size of these logs!"
I thought someone was going to lose an eye or limb the way the children clawed past each other to be the first to the toilet. Oliver stood by, chest swelled, ready for compliments.
"Wow, those are huge."
"Look how many there are!"
Just as I came around the corner and hollered for everyone to get out and get back to work (they were practicing instruments, or had been rather), Charles leaned over the toilet and took a deep whiff.
"And the smell, Oliver is horrible."
Oliver could hardly take it he was so entirely gratified.
"Really, Charles. Do you think it is the smelliest ever?"
Charles reflected for a moment, " No. Not the smelliest."
Oliver was crestfallen, but then Charles went on, " But I think it is very close."
"Wow, it's almost the smelliest ever!" Oliver was jubilant. I shooed everyone out and flushed the toilet. I think Oliver was wanting to save the trophies for awhile.

Family Circus

Yesterday morning at breakfast Gabriel came down and stood in the middle of the kitchen wearing a soggy diaper and a shirt. I was rushing around, throwing a load in the dryer, turning off the kettle, spooning up oatmeal and in a general hurry. Charles observed his little brother and said, " You know mom, I don't think Gabriel has been dressed yet." I responded with sarcasm," Way to use those deductive thinking skills, Charles." Charles contemplated this for a moment and then turned to Jonathan seated on the stool next to him. " I think she's mocking me," he stated. Jonathan replied in his rather good British accent, " and right you are, my good man."

Daily Diary

This isn't exactly turning out to be daily yet. Last night we had some friends over for dinner. Once I figure out downloading pictures, I'll add them! (Even Jon couldn't quite get it to work, so that made me feel a little better). After dinner, Jonathan, Caroline and I fiddled. Unfortunately, Oliver insisted on being a part of the action, but he can only play a couple notes in random order with even more random rhythms. He can play LOUD, however. We convinced him to go in the music room and play with the door closed so we wouldn't disturb him, but this only lasted a little while. I thought we were pretty good fiddlers, as did my friend Kevin. Jon said it was more annoying than anything else because he was trying to talk and it was too loud.
With all this great weather we are having this week, I'd rather be camping! After lunch we (the kids excluding Vivian) went outside and jumped on the trampoline. It rather shocked the kids to see Big Mama, as they call me, jump. I let them know that once upon a time I was quite capable on the trampoline and could do front flips, back flips and other things. Should all of them not exist, I would probably still be able to do those things, so watch it! It is either really good excercise, or I'm seriously out of shape, but I was quite worn out after 15 minutes.
Violin and Viola lessons were canceled for today. The teacher is sick. All the kids were bummed. Jonathan wanted to switch over to his new violin and also work on the fiddle tunes. Charles has finally gotten his latest piece down and was eager to start the next song, and Oliver, who considers himself to be a virtuoso, just loves his lessons.
Back to the school room....

Daily Diary

I'm attempting to find time to develop this blog site. It may take a little while before I really have things arranged as I wish. I'm also somewhat computer handicapped.
Today was one of those days where you are surrounded by the perpetual piles of housework (dishes, laundry, etc.) and of course a huge pile of school work, but your interests lie elsewhere. Jonathan got a new violin last week, and along with ordering it, I had also placed an order for some fiddling books. We had a ball flipping through the books. I think we spent nearly three hours over the course of the day just on fiddling! After practicing their other music for an hour and a half, we got out the fiddle books, but only fooled around, or fiddled around, for about 1/2 hour. This afternoon we sighed our way through spelling and I said," Time for recess. Let's go fiddle." The enthusiasm was immense. There went another hour at least. Then more after dinner. Tomorrow I will exert more self control. One thing that is highly annoying- Jonathan is a vastly superior violinist to me, and he makes a point of playing over everyone and blazing ahead with no thought to timing. Sheesh.

Camping in South Georgia

In preparation for camping this summer, I decided to take the opportunity this week to try out camping with the kids by myself-meaning without Jon. The bummer was that Jonathan went to D.C. with his class, so that also left me with the pre-school pack and no helpful firstborn. Most of my friends...make that all of my friends decided that I was insane to attempt such a thing. But I was eager to test all my theories and preparations. I had read a variety of blog sites on camping with kids, read up on camp cooking (and practiced a bit in the backyard thanks to the firepit Jon dug for me), and read several books on the subject. After taking inventory of my gear, adding a few choice items, and cooking a few meals in the dutch oven, I felt ready. Of course, it is one thing to make a list and quite another to collect things and figure out how to load all the stuff into the car!

Last week I set up the tent in the front yard for a couple days and sprayed on two coats of water proofing. The tent had already survived a couple rainstorms, but I wasn't going to take any chances. I decided that along with the tent I needed a gazebo of sorts for the camp kitchen. After looking at websites with tarp hanging ideas, I concluded that hanging a tarp was not going to work for me. I needed something a little more fancy and reliable. Plus I didn't want to worry about angling the thing properly for water flow in the event of a storm. So I bought a Coleman gazebo. Other major gear included the portable picnic table (useful only for seating small humans), a small table, an electric kettle (my personal favorite), an electric griddle, and of course my air mattress. I organized things like rain gear, sleeping bags, etc., using the giant ziplock bags (I love those!), the fabulous Space Saver bags, and of course the rubbermaid bins bought cheap at Big Lots or Walmart.

As far as food went, I prepared a few entrees and froze them, filled a 2 qt. glass bottle with 18 eggs (raw but out of their shells- easier to transport that way and they plop out of the bottle one egg at a time), two one quart bottles of buttermilk for pancakes, and the other basic cooler items. I decided not to use ice cubes. With some of the food already frozen and a few blue ice packs, I felt things would stay cold without the mess of cubes. I also had a dry goods bin with the usual supplies- hot chocolate, cereal bars, peanut butter, ziplock bags of pancake mix, etc.

After checking the weather for the zillionth time, it seemed like the perfect week. Cool during the day, sunny a couple days with one good rainstorm and a cold front expected on Wednesday. Since I really wanted to experience as many different weather conditions as I could in a short period of time, this was ideal.

We planned to leave on Monday this week, but thanks to a UPS glitch concerning Jonathan's violin delivery, we ended up departing early Tuesday morning. We actually drove out of the driveway at 6am. I meant to leave an hour earlier, but I just couldn't get up until 5. I love to camp by myself, but it is quite another thing to load up a vehicle with gobs of gear and five kids and leave a perfectly good, clean, warm home to journey hours away and set up housekeeping in the wild. I felt like a bit of a pioneer. As I backed out of the driveway, I suddenly stopped the car and put it in park. "Mom, what are you doing?" Charles demanded. "We are going to pray before we leave," I answered. "For what?" Charles wanted to know. "For the tires- that whatever happens, we won't get a flat tire," I replied. Everyone was amused to bow their heads in the car and pray that God would keep us safe, and keep our tires safe! The last thing I wanted to do was be on the side of the highway with kids piled on a blanket in the grass, all the gear on the side of the road, and me trying to figure out how to change a tire. After our prayer, I put the car in drive and bid the house adieu. The kids were absolutely excited. I figured they'd sleep a couple hours, but no- they enthusiastically chatted and giggled and complained of hunger, and watching for Cracker Barrel billboards. It is a tradition in our family to stop at Cracker Barrel for breakfast whenever we travel out of town. When we reached Macon, we found a surprisingly empty Cracker Barrel. Even with only five children, we were able to terrorize the entire place just by walking through. The hostess, forseeing that we were a problem, parked us in an empty sectioned off area-what used to be the smoking section. I was highly amused. By the end of the meal people were stopping by the table with the usual comments: "are these all your children", "how old are you?", "they are so well behaved", etc. I'm not sure if the children are really that well behaved. I think that people believe them to be because they expect the absolute worst when they first see us. Anyway, when I paid the bill I was pleased to be told that I looked like a teenager. Then I reflected that maybe it was because I dressed so tacky...mmmm.

We piled back into the over packed Suburban, and continued on our way. By this time the children were sick of being in the car. Charles and Caroline had to sit up front since I had to put down the third row of seats for gear usage, and they were driving me nuts. Unfortunately, General Coffee State Park was farther down the beaten path than I expected. We didn't arrive until 11:30! Ugh. The children were so excited to be out of the car, Vivian was more than ready for a bottle and baby food, and a few droplets of rain were coming down. Yikes!

I chose a campsite quickly, the one right next to the playground that didn't seem to be a drainage path for rain fall. The kids hustled out of the car scrambling over things, and ran to the playground. I had a baggy of Cheerios for Vivvie, and had Caroline feed them to her one at a time, while I tackled getting the tent and gazebo up. Drop, drop. A few drops here and there began coming down, just enough to put my nerves on edge. I asked Charles how good his prayer life was. He looked at me quizzically. "Why, mom?" "Because," I retorted," I need you to start praying that the rain doesn't come down until after I get this tent up." Charles checked the sky. "Mom, I can't pray that hard."
I didn't have my watch because the battery died. So I'm not sure how long it took me to put the tent, but I can tell you it seemed like an eternity. Thankfully, the rain held back with the occasional warning drop falling. Tent mission accomplished, I moved on to the gazebo. I was a little concerned because I had waited until the last minute to buy the gazebo, and had never actually assembled it before. Let me tell you that Constructs was NOT my toy of choice as a child, and one of the joys of being married to a man is having someone who can tear open a box and assemble the contents without using the directions. Thankfully the gazebo was something that even Charles with his limited prayer life would have been able to put together. By this time, the kids believed themselves to be on the verge of death by starvation, so I paused to feed the tribe, and then unpacked at a leisurely rate.
We took a walk along one of the nature trails in the late afternoon, and enjoyed some of the farm animals. The kids were happy to note that the pond did in fact have alligators. I was happy that this kept them away from the water's edge.

For dinner, I hooked up the electric griddle and made hamburgers. Being outside as the sun went down gave the children the idea that it was much later than it really was. I wanted things cleaned up and put away before I needed to turn on flashlights, and then I herded the kids to the bathhouse to brush teeth and clean up for the night. There is something very bonding about standing in a row at the bathhouse counter brushing teeth together. I'm not sure if the couple other campers preferred to stear clear of the bathhouse when we were there, or had bathrooms in their 5th wheels, but whatever the case, we had the place to ourselves. When we got outside it was dark. There were no complaints about getting into sleeping bags. The kids figured it was near midnight. I whispered and emphasized the need for quiet since people were clearly trying to sleep to help the effect. Gabriel who had been very uncertain about this whole experience, began to panic once inside the tent. He kept saying, " Where's daddy? I want to go to Daddy's house. I want to go home to my bed." I tried to get him calmed down and happy. I figured that it would help if he slept on the air mattress with me. BIG mistake- which I didn't learn until later.

Now here is where the first bummer came in. After I got all the kids in bed, and Vivvie settled in her playpen, I went outside the tent to have a cup of hot tea and enjoy the night sky. You could actually see stars (as opposed to the star you can see in the Atlanta light polluted sky). But the kids were a little unsure about being alone and kept whispering, " mom, are you out there? What are you doing? When are you coming in here? Are you still there?" Etc. So I gave up and went to bed.

Everyone slept very well except Gabriel and thus me. Early in the morning the children awoke cold, so I hustled out of bed and got the electric kettle going. Soon I had hot water bottles ready for everyone and wrapped in the fleece covers my mother-in-law made. I also made a bottle for Vivvie, woke her up, fed her and put her back to bed. This bought me about two more hours of sleep. More than worth it!

We got up probably around 7. I can only guess since I was still without a watch. After changing the diapered people, and putting sweat suits on the kids, they went off to explore and I got the coffee, bacon and pancake mix out. Thankfully, just when the kids started coming over to bother me, the neighbor came out of his massive 5th wheel, and entertained the kids while I finished up. Now here's a shocker. At home I always make 1 lb of bacon and a triple batch of pancakes. There may be a couple pancakes remaining, but certainly no more. I prepared a pound of bacon and a double batch of pancakes, and it wasn't all eaten. The kids didn't eat well at all because once they satiated their immediate hunger, they just wanted to go play! I actually had to talk them into finishing the hot chocolate. Good Grief. I needed a more appreciative audience.

It was a wonderful day. I got basic "housekeeping" finished. We went into town and I bought a cheap watch. It would figure that the store was completely out of ice (I thought I'd get a little for the ice chest) and could only give me $2 worth of quarters (because they were low on quarters). I needed to run a load of wash, and the bathhouse had a washer and dryer. It was enough to run a load, but next time I'm bringing plenty of quarters. Then, even though I still had a quarter tank, I got gasoline-Jon would be shocked to know that since I take pride in getting to the gas station on fumes as a general rule. I asked the camp hostess for some recommendations about the town, what to see, etc. She looked at me dumbfounded and said, " I have no recommendations for you. You've got five children and don't need to be going anywhere." I looked at her incredulously. I guess if you have kids, you are supposed to stay home all day? Then I asked the camp director at the head office the same question and got the same answer with a slightly more insulting twist. I would have thought that camp people had a more positive opinion of children. Mmm.
Around 4 the rain began to come down. Thanks to my trusty weather radio, I learned that a cold front was coming that night. I had activities for the kids to do, and attempted to read Cheaper by the Dozen (nothing related to the modern movie by the same name), but was interrupted so many times by kid needs that I gave up. We had left over hamburgers for dinner. Feeling really brave I herded everyone to the bathhouse for showers. That was a hilarious fiasco. Were there a moment to see on video, that would have been it. I'm sure the racket could be heard all over the park. The little boys stood under the hand dryer for half an hour hitting the button repeatedly and huddling by the warmth until their hair was dry. All of us were attempting to keep Vivian entertained. I trimmed finger nails, combed hair, layered long underwear and pajamas, brushed teeth, and collected dirty laundry until I was in a sweat and they were perfectly clean, toasty warm, minty fresh, and ready for bed. They loved walking back to the tent in the darkness and gently falling rain. All except Gabriel who demanded to be taken to Daddy's house and stated that he hated camping and wanted to go home to his toys and his bed. Once I had everyone in their sleeping bags with their fleece hats on, water bottles tucked at their side, and Vivian in her play pen, I was going to head for a shower myself. Everyone went into panic mode. With a sigh, I laid down on my bed to wait for them to fall asleep. I gave up and fell asleep waiting, but got up early in the morning and quickly showered. I envied the kids being tucked in all clean and dry and warm. Sigh.
Thursday was beautiful. The sky was clear after raining all night. Our tent had done beautifully and all was dry inside, though it had that damp feeling of course. I had decided that if we were going to Agrirama, we had better go right then. It was three hours round trip from the campsite, and I wasn't really comfortably leaving all our nice gear for so long setting there. Especially since the camp attendants didn't seem that friendly toward us. So I loaded up the car, much to the kids dismay, and we headed for Agrirama. After that there isn't much of interest to say. When Gabriel realized we were leaving, he cheered up for the first time, and everyone else was very sad. They can hardly wait to go again.

Well, I wrote the text before downloading pictures, so the final product is a bit lame, but you get the general idea. Next time, I will do better.