The Fish Pond

Letters From Camp

Trout went away to Safety Patrol Camp last week, her first time at a sleep-away camp. She'd never really been away from home for that long at all, and I figured she'd do fine, which she did, but, well, her letters speak for themselves.

She wrote this first one Monday night after she checked in. All spelling and punctuation is as she wrote it:

Dear Everybody,

    total chaos! It is so crowded! When I went to get my stuff, I got pushed twice and fell over 3 times! the other girls in the cabin are great friends, and the counlsers are wonderful. We are going to have a DJ tonight! it is going to be great! I really miss you all and Please write back.

yours truly,

Trout

This one arrived the day she got home; she wrote it the day after the other;

Dear Everybody,

    I truley expected it be different. but anyway, this place is amazing. I wrote the first Letter Before Dinner, so I didn't tell you about the food. last night it was "personal" pizza, yuck! for break-fast I had 3 bowls of frosted flakes! yummm. lunch was chicken, so all I had was, oh, Nothing! for dinner, Burgers. I had Pudding! today I wen't swimming, and made, I think, "griffidi"? While swimming I got scrapped Badly, But its not my fault! Tomarrow there is going to be a talent show, and I'm singing September! I'll tell you all about it and other stuff tomarrow! Please write back.

Your one at camp,

Tout

No "I love you." No "I can't wait to come home." She was all about the injuries and the indignity of nothing her Princess Pickiness wanted to eat. Other than it being abundantly clear that we need to work on her grammar, I'm good with that.

One Upmanship

Years ago, when Little Man was about two and a half, I decided it was potty training time. We got the little potty, the stickers, the rewards, the m&ms, the books and videos, and did everything we could to convince him that using the potty like a big boy was the way to go. He would have nothing of it. I'd enthusiastically say "Don't you want to go use the potty?" with a little dance and he'd scowl and say "No. Don't want to." We'd offer him lifesize Buzz Lightyear figures, bucketloads of chocolate, skittles, a freaking pony, whatever, but he just refused to even sit on the thing.

He was three years nine months old and still refusing every effort we made to try to get him to use the potty and I had despaired of him ever learning when he woke up one day, said "I'm going to use the potty today," and did. And he never had an accident. Ever. He just up and did it. In his own good time. And that's when I learned not to potty train, to just wait until they're ready.

Last weekend, Little Man went over to the house of a friend of his from his baseball team (incidentally, they ended the season 5/6 for the regular season, lost both playoff games, and never got to make up a rained out game that they likely would have won. Not bad for his first season ever, methinks) who happens to live down the monstrous hill that we live on. That boy is the younger of two extremely athletic boys who are given fairly free range. Little Man and his friend taught Little Man to fish in the lake behind our houses. Last Sunday night, after a weekend of the boy sleeping over here and them running back and forth between the houses all weekend such that I didn't really know where they were most of the time, BigDaddyFish found Little Man standing in two feet of water in the lake pulling out fish after fish after the reel on the fishing rod broke. This resulted in soaked sneakers the next day. His only pair of shoes.

Back around Christmas time Sunny wanted to learn to tie shoes so I spent an afternoon trying to teach her. She never got it so I let it go, thinking we'd try again later, maybe next year. Little Man couldn't even tie his shoes (and let me tell you what a wonderful baseball season it was with me having to tie his cleats a frillion times a week) so I wasn't going to push it with her; I'd aimed to teach Little Man by the end of this year, but Sunny could wait. Well, about a month ago she comes running in excitedly proclaiming that she tied her shoe. Since she's not known for a proclivity for truthfulness, I made her show me, and while she was a bit slow, she did it. That ticked Little Man off to no end, and I figured that would be the impetus he needed to learn to tie his shoes. Apparently it wasn't enough.

When we got up Monday morning to go to school, Little Man's shoes weren't wearable - they were drenched and still full of mud, and squished when he walked. So we went off to Target with him in his socks to buy him -- something. Anything. Turns out "anything" means "black low-top chuck taylor converse all stars with flames on the front." The catch: they tie. I told him if he wanted those badass shoes he was going to have to learn to tie them. I showed him one more time while he tried them on, and I made him take them off for us to pay. I paid for them and clipped the tags off with my trusty nail clippers I keep on my key chain (seriously - the best thing ever. turns out nail clippers are great for tons of stuff) and he sat right down on the end of the Target checkstand to try to tie them. He was ultimately unsuccessful, but close. By Monday night, he got it. He taught himself to tie his shoes.

We are in the process of cleaning out our self-storage unit that is costing us a ridiculous sum of money each month so that we can fix our budget, and last weekend we brought home Little Man's Chik Fil A bike, which he won at a fire department raffle back when he was about 3ish. It has been too big for him ever since we got it, and we figured we'd use it to teach Trout to ride. Somehow we've never gotten around to it - turns out having 4 kids and trying to stay on top of the house work is a bit time consuming (laundry, anyone?). We figured we'd teach Trout, then Little Man, but he was kind of embarrassed about the cow-print stickers on the bike. We didn't have time for lessons last weekend, so we planned that this weekend BDF would take the kids out and teach them to ride a two-wheeler.

Too late. Last Tuesday, Little Man was outside and grabbed the bike, and came in the house an hour later telling me he could ride the bike. I interrogated him about it, then he and Trout went outside so he could show Trout. An hour later, they both came back in, bragging that Trout, now, too, could ride the bike. Sure enough, they both taught themselves how to ride. Seems I will be using my potty training philosophy for other skills, too - just wait until they do it, in their own time. Little Man ripped the cow-print stickers off the bike and we bought a second or third-hand bike from a neighbor for Trout, so both are happy, bike-riding fools.

Glad I got to cross something off my list. Wanna bet who learns to swim first?

Sorry, That's a Fee, Not a "Donation"

A few days ago I got this letter from one of the kids in his/her backpack:

Quilt Project

The XX graders have been working on drawing and coloring quilt squares all year to make their individual quilt of XX grade memories. The quilt consists of a pillow protector case and batting placed inside. Each student also received a box of special fabric crayons in the beginning of the year to color their pictures.

Donation for completed quilt for your student is $6. Please place donation in envelope.

Thank you,

The XX Grade Team

We had no notice of this in the beginning of the year. We weren't given a choice to opt out, or to see if we could purchase the supplies ourselves cheaper than $6. And I don't know about you, but that letter looks like a demand, not a request, and in my book, that makes that $6 a fee, not a donation. It's not even worded particularly politely. Will I not receive my child's quilt if I don't pay the $6? I'm not willing to risk that particular child's disappointment to find out, but I do have a blog where I can publicize things that piss me off, and use it I will.

I know that MCPS schools are not allowed to charge fees for anything related to instruction, due to a lawsuit regarding provision of a free education, and that's why they are calling it a donation. But if you are trying to get around that, a "Would you please make a donation to defray the cost of materials for our project? Whatever you can afford would be wonderful, but the total cost of all materials works out to about $6 per student. We greatly appreciate your help." would have been much more appropriate. Had I seen that, odds are good that I might have donated a lot more than the $6 for my kid; we can afford it and I am well aware that we live in a fairly economically challenged area. But they aren't going to get the chance to find that out. Way to shoot yourselves in the feet, XX Grade Team.

For My Grandmother - A Team of One

For my grandmother Jean H. E. And for Karen M., my godmother, and Susan N., my blogging friend. And all others who face this battle.

1 hour, 20 minutes, including bathroom and water stops. Still turtle like, but not bad considering the heat and humidity and that you are limited a bit by the speed of those around you. I am still totally drenched, and that's after a metro ride and a fully air conditioned drive from the train station.

Thanks to my donors Janna U., Val M., Sharon M., and Cello Mum.

This year, a team of one. Next year, a team captain. Who's with me?

Life Has a Funny Way of Making You Remember

I spent most of last night listening to Sunny hack and cough and bark. She's had a mildish cough since the beginning of the week and it has been getting progressively worse, but I wasn't too worked up about it - I've got four kids. I can do croup. Last night was particularly bad, though, and she would get into coughing fits where she couldn't really catch her breath well between coughs. We steamed her up in the bathroom, but she started hacking again the minute we left the bathroom, so off we went to the pediatrician this morning.

"She's not just coughing, she's wheezing. Has she had a problem with wheezing or needed breathing treatments before?"

I started to say no, then nearly smacked myself. The pneumonia following the swine flu. Duh. Can you believe I had forgotten? We've been so healthy since then I plumb forgot just how bad it was.

Very, very, very bad.

Anyway, Sunny earned herself her very own inhaler and spacer, complete with teddy bear pictures on the sides.

Totally gratuitous picture of Sunny using my awesome binoculars to find...a squirrel. On our deck.

And hopefully the presence of such items will make it so I can get some sleep tonight. I have something very important to do early tomorrow morning (and I'm rather nervous about it - not the race itself, but the getting up and getting my butt downtown at the crack of dawn all by myself part).

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Trout will be attending patrol camp in a couple of weeks, and the parent information meeting was this week. Patrol Camp is put on by the county police, so I figured if she's going to go to a sleep-away camp, going with the cops can only be a good thing. At the meeting they introduced the key people who run the camp, among them a 36-year veteran crossing guard. Who happened to live in the house in front of which was my bus stop when I was a patrol 30 years ago. Her daughter was my sister's best friend for a number of years in elementary school. I approached her after the meeting and asked if she recognized me, and she said the face was familiar but she wasn't sure. I told her my name and she freaked out. She's going to keep an extra eye on Trout during the camp week, and I feel a mite less anxious about the whole thing knowing just how capable are the hands she'll be in. I had forgotten the role that wonderful woman played in my own patrol career, but again, life has a funny way of reminding us about things that are important, even when we get so busy with life that we forget.

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Yesterday I was out of bread and granola and I've started making my own, so I figured if I was going to heat up the house baking on a ninety degree day, I might as well go for broke.

We joined a CSA a few weeks back, and so have found ourselves with more potatoes, lettuce, and strawberries than we know what to do with. We've eaten a lot, given some away, and I froze some of the berries for smoothies later, but I still had a ton of them left. So I taught myself how to make jam. No idea how it tastes yet, but since the only ingredients are sugar and strawberries, it can't be too bad. It's a rather hot business, my kids asked how I got my hair to go "all curly like that," but I only burned myself once though I probably moved far too slowly step to step. I'm sure I can go twice as fast next time. I'm looking forward to canning surplus tomatoes and beans later on this summer.

Any ideas on what to do with all this lettuce? I don't know how many more salads I can take without turning green.

Seriously. Wonderful, but lots of lettuce. This was only our first week's share, and we got more and more lettuce the next three weeks. Lettuced out.

It's Been a Long Journey...

.... but my ten and half year minus two months diaper-changing career is mostly over. I opened my last box of diapers this morning. I feel comfortable saying Nemo is daytime trained now - he has passed the "stay dry for a day week" test and the "hold it until you can get to a public restroom" test and the "get out of the tub because you have to pee instead of peeing in the tub" test. I still put him in a diaper at night, but he usually stays dry and gets up in the morning and informs me "Mommy, I'm peeing in my diaper!" like it's the most wonderful thing in the world but the point is that he's aware and in control of what he's doing. He will sometimes hold his poop until I put the diaper on him at night, but last night I caught him in the act and put him on the toilet, then praised his success and gave him a handful of chocolate chips, his reward only for pooping in the potty. We don't even need rewards beyond a mild "Woo hoo!" when he announces that he's peed in the potty. He is in control of his excretory system, and it's a wonderful feeling. For me.

I worried I'd be wistful, and I am wistful over so many other growing-up milestones (my biggest baby going away to sleep-away camp with the police!), but this is so not one of them.