Pictures from the week

We visited The Idea Store together so Alex could find materials for his next big project: doll models of the deities in his Marvel screenplays. He's hand-sewing their costumes, learning how to replace the hair on a doll, and having a good ol' time of it. The Idea Store is like Goodwill for crafting/sewing/creating. People donate unique and interesting things and recyclables for other folks to create with. Everything is crazy cheap and all profits go to the local teacher association. Matthew and James found a couple feather boas. Matthew brought the black one home.

Kid Camp fun. Not exactly sure what this game is about, but Matthew is clearly a prisoner.

More Kid Camp fun. We took a field trip to a local petting zoo and fed the animals cold watermelon.

Matthew finally, finally, finally got to put up his lemonade stand. He's wanted to do it all summer. We made lemonade by hand and offered some free chips (leftover from Robert's summer job restocking vending machines). His first customer was a van full of sweaty kids who had just finished a sports camp. My friend, the driver, was stopping by for another reason, but they ended up buying all of Matthew's lemonade within minutes of opening the stand. We closed up shop, bought more lemons, and started again. He spent a couple more hours outside and sold some lemonade to neighbors.

While Matthew was selling lemonade, James did some target practice with Matthew's gel blaster. He plays with that thing a whole lot more than Matthew does.

 

Gardening Milestone

My gardening/farming interests usually shuttle me towards really experienced, knowledgeable folks I want to learn from. I always feel like the new kid, y'know? This week, however, I've had the chance to work with some volunteers who are just getting started with gardening. One volunteer noticed the tomato plants. She asked if those were supposed to be green tomatoes or if those were just unripe tomatoes. The question stopped me in my tracks. I was trying to find a frame of reference where that question would make any sense. Turns out, she didn't know that green tomatoes were actually unripe red ones. 

So, while I almost always feel like the newbie in everything I do, I can now say with some confidence that I know a little something about gardening :)

ACES Family Academy and Ohio Visit

There's a 2-day camp that the alumni association puts on for ACES (College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences) alumni and their kids/grandkids/nieces/nephews. We get to sleep in the dorms and attend a variety of classes and tours within the college. I first attended in July 2019 with Alex and Robert. Then again in 2022 with Robert and James. And a third time this year with James and Matthew. 

We stayed in the dorms, ate in the student dining hall, and biked around campus playing "Get Lost." Alex, Robert, and I invented this game at our first ACES Family Academy. We were all riding our bikes and the person who was "it" would make all the direction choices trying to get us lost on campus. Well, James doesn't like to get lost, so he took us in big, looping circles that always ended back at the dorm. Matthew got lost *literally* after the first turn, so his turn didn't last very long. Matthew is still pretty new at bike riding (he finally learned this summer!!) so he was a little slow and wobbly. It wasn't my favorite round of "Get Lost", but we still have a couple years to play it :)

The dorms were fun. We shared a 2-room suite and had a bathroom to ourselves. 

The dining hall was less spectacular than previous years...or maybe I just knew better what to expect. Matthew kept saying, "Wow! This tastes homemade!" and "This is really good!" James was not so easily won over, however. And one day, when the hot lunch options weren't looking so great, he thought a roast beef sandwich was a safe choice. Not so. How can you make sliced roast beef taste like gasoline and feel like wet jerky?! Dorm kitchens know. They had some tasty vegan options at every meal, but the "vegan" label didn't mean vegetable-rich. I missed my vegetables. And the chocolate soy milk dispenser was out of order! *SOB*  There was a decent variety compared to my undergrad dorm food experience, but I'm really, really grateful for Bobby who cooks fresh, delicious food with lots of vegetables. It just tastes better when it's fresh and custom-made.

Showing off some SWAG at our first class. We learned how to tell how old a deer was by looking at its teeth. We also got to plant some native prairie plants on campus.

After our first class, we explored until we found the underground tunnel system connecting some ACES buildings together. The boys kept saying, "This is so creepy."

Yummy dorm food.

All-you-can-eat soft serve ice cream. Mmmmm.

We had a class on orienteering. James got the hang of it pretty quickly...

...Matthew was pretty quickly bored.

We had a drumming class, too.

Shuttle ride to one of our classes, checking out the campus.

Seat belts on the shuttle?!

Thursday evening, we got to tour the basketball stadium. Our guide took us into the players' very posh, very expensive locker room. That's not a wall, those are the solid wood, engraved locker doors. Some walls down there were covered in the ACTUAL material they use to make basketballs. Our guide told us it cost $500 per square foot. Dude, that is a $50,000 wall.

Here is a regular wall in the stadium, still in the special area where the public doesn't go. Matthew likes to hold up the letters in a sign.

Here, the kids on the tour are exploring some of the stadium seats. We couldn't go on the floor due to some construction work going on. Matthew was devastated. This stadium is a hundred years old and very recently remodeled ($50,000 wall...ahem). It has a long, illustrious history that is important to college basketball fans. I asked our guide if anyone had been born, married, or died in the stadium. Pardon the awkward conjugation there, but I couldn't find a version of "to die" that conjugated with "had been." Suggestions are welcome. I will likely ask this question again in the future and I'd like to be better prepared. He said one spectator once had a heart attack during a game but did not die. He knew of no weddings or births.   

We biked home just in time to run another session of Kid Camp and then pack up for a weekend in Ohio. James, Matthew, and I spent a couple days with Rachel's family to help celebrate Daniel's return from his mission and Joshua's graduation from high school. Matthew loooooved trying out a hair dryer for the first time in his life:

We had fun, and we're all glad to be home. I asked Bobby, Alex, and Robert what they did while we were away almost a whole week. They told me they worked, played video games, and didn't chat much. I believe them...I just can't comprehend it...why? how? Not one outing? Not one rule-bending adventure? No comprendo.

Travel Routine

I've spent a lot of time this summer 1-on-2 with James and Matthew, a lot of it away from home.  They're pretty good at packing an overnight bag now, though James has forgotten his pajamas twice, and they almost never remember to brush their teeth when we're away. 

They're getting better at falling asleep in new and weird places, though. 

I like to think that this time with them is helping me get better at stuff, too.

With Matthew, I'm learning to hold my tongue. He's always listening and he's almost always on the lookout for potential crises. Even an innocuous "hmm" can kick his worst case scenario machine into high gear. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes for a scare like that to wear off.

With James this summer, I've actually witnessed thousands of his interactions with Matthew but I still don't know how to help them improve their communication. He says he's shy, but I've seen him hover on the perimeter of peer groups until an opportunity presents itself to make a joke or start a new game and he jumps right in.

Ear plugs are my best friends when it comes to sleeping in new places. I. Love. Them.

It feels like "The Summer of James and Matthew." Bobby is at work. Alex is at work. Robert prefers to stay in his room to avoid contention with James. It's just me and the little boys kicking around, doing our thing. That's the routine. We hang out at home, we hang out camping, we hang out traveling. Routine. 

I'm getting kinda tired of the routine. Feeling worn down. Need a little more variety in my life. Plenty busy, though. Don't need more to do. Just gotta find a way to recharge faster or more efficiently. 

Onion Soup

I planted a bunch of onions this year, but I was late, so they weren't very big when they got the signal to make a bulb (i.e. 14 hours of sunlight). I held out hope that they might get bigger. Nothing changes after 2 weeks. Ugh.

I harvested them all, cleaned and sliced them, and threw them into a pan with butter to caramelize. Then I made onion soup. Tasty!

Would I have made onion soup this week for any other reason? Nope. Necessity is the mother of invention, right?

Kid Camp

Matthew's Kid Camp this summer has gone really well. He's put on an Animal Week, Water Week, and Ninja Week so far. Matthew runs his camps a little differently from Alex. It's more like an organized play date. He chooses games/ activities that he likes to play and plays along with them. He has somewhat of a "teacher voice", but he lacks confidence. The truth is, he doesn't want to be in control. He just wants to play with people. 

He and James have worked pretty well together. They're responsible when they need to be. A couple times, they've had to stop their own fun so that they could help the youngest kids be safe and have fun. That's really hard when you're 8 and 10!! I'm proud of them. 

Water Week with 3 year olds: as simple as a bucket of water and some ice giant cubes.

James was the sparring partner for all the campers learning swordplay. We gave him some protective gear.

Matthew and James love planning these camps. Honestly, they just sit around thinking about what sounds fun to do and then make it happen.

Camping #7 Pretty Darn Good

I asked a camping friend where she likes to take her camping family when they go camping near here. Camping camping camping :) She said Eagle Creek State Recreation Area was their favorite and suggested I get two adjacent campsites because the sites tend to be small and crowded. Well, I'm SO glad I took her advice. 

First off, the weather was perfect *heavenly chord*

 

Second, Eagle Creek was beautiful and foresty and close. It only took an hour to drive there! On this trip, we listened to all of "Holes" by Louis Sachar (the boys loved it!) and started "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White. Both boys were informed that this is viewed as a sad story, the spider dies in the end, and there is a lot of talk of killing animals for food. They were okay with that. 

As we drove into our campsite, we stopped to watch 1) a doe and fawn, 2) a series of young bunnies hopping around, and 3) red squirrels. Our campsite was in the forest, but the ground was clear and shady. 

Third, we were literally the only campers in that section of the campground. 

Fourth, the shore of Lake Shelbyville was an easy walk away. We explored the shoreline, waded in the water, and tried some fishing. Fireflies were beautiful. As we lay in the tent, looking up at the tree canopy, Matthew saw figures and told me about them. 

Wading in Lake Shelbyville. Matthew found "quicksand." James found beautiful blue-streaked rocks.

We could see fish leaping out of the water offshore, but they were not fooled by our lures and bait.

James politely declined the job of Fire Meister, but was helpful in lots of ways when I remembered to ask him. I kept the food super simple. I also forgot to bring the roasting sticks. The boys didn't mind that much. They prefer their s'mores cold and "deconstructed" anyway. 

Pit toilets aren't our favorite. We're getting used to them.

I made a concerted effort to keep to our bedtime and morning routines. That helped a TON. We brushed teeth, read scriptures, and prayed. I did my full "ready for the day" routine in the AM, which helped me feel more human. Usually, with these camping trips, I'm trying to rush through the whole thing and get back home ASAP. I'm slowly learning to make camping more "normal". We've set up camp and taken it down 14 times now, so that's becoming routine. I guess that's the biggest difference I felt with this trip. A lot of the camping stuff itself felt routine. We know how to do everything. We know what to expect. That relieves a lot of stress. I didn't sleep great, but I slept better this time than I had most of the other trips. 

We didn't see or hear anyone else until we ventured into the RV part of the campground for a couple of hikes. The hikes were a mixed experience. When Matthew is insecure or tired, his mood can be brittle. Small disappointments and changes trigger emotional meltdowns. He used to be my most easy-going kid :( There was a meltdown during the second hike due to the order in which we hiked. Matthew didn't feel safe in any order except one, and James didn't like that particular order. Even when we sorted it all out, Matthew's good mood was gone: sobbing, hypersensitive, angry that he couldn't make himself happy again, feeling like the whole day was ruined now, etc. I noticed then that we weren't on the trail anymore. Somehow, we had missed a turn. We weren't in danger, but Matthew didn't handle it well. I felt impressed to take a little break (instead of forging ahead to finish this crazy hike ASAP). I sat on a log, James offered to scout ahead, and Matthew said, "Yeah, I could use a rest. Can I sit by you?" He sat down right next to me, as close as he could scoot his little booty, making sure the whole side of his body was contacting mine. I felt impressed to hug him, slowly and tightly, and quietly tell him I love him. He relaxed. His mood lightened. He started telling me something silly. The rest of the hike was much more pleasant.

Cool little bridges along the hike.

Pausing for a selfie.

After our hikes, we headed to Decatur for some mini golf. The course was more challenging than I had anticipated! And I learned more about Matthew. While James and I preferred to work through the course systematically, doing our best to get a good score, Matthew tolerated the game just long enough to find a particular hole or shot that amused him, then he gleefully whacked his ball in a hundred different wrong ways over and over and over again, pretending he just couldn't get it right. He found it hilarious. I didn't. But, again, in an effort to enjoy the moment and not rush through this time with him, I watched and tried to enjoy his happiness. It would have been easier to enjoy Matthew's happy moment, though, if it weren't also James' bored and frustrated moment. I did my best. 

Only 4 more camping trips to go!

Words

Out of the mouth of a 13-year-old:

"No, I only tease people I trust to love me already." Explaining his love language to Matthew this morning. He had said something snarky to Matthew, Matthew groaned, I explained that teasing is how Robert shows love, so Matthew should feel loved. Robert corrected me with the above statement, making the lighthearted (but totally true) point that his teasing is only an indicator of his perception of YOUR love for HIM, not the other way around. He doesn't play mind games. His mind just works in roundabout ways. 

"Okay, this is slightly more fun than I thought it would be. " He and I were sharing a paddleboat at Crystal Lake Park for Monday Night Fun. Robert doesn't like outside. Adamantly. So, a family activity involving open water, flying insects, and spiders was already cruel and unusual to him. For just a couple moments, as we raced to catch Matthew and Bobby's boat and Robert finally got the hang of the rudder, he turned to me and told me this. 

"I'm sorry." This one doesn't come often, but it's sincere when it comes. 

"I genuinely think you're going deaf. " I heard this when I didn't understand yet another few things he was telling me in haste. I do think I should get my hearing checked. He's not the only one I wish I could understand better the first time.