Fishin’ With DaddyO

These weekends were just as beautiful as the photos appear. Alan took our youngest two boys and went camping with DaddyO in Alabama. They fished, they cleaned the fish, they ate the fish, they learned about the importance of gun safety while shooting cans, and they got to sleep in a tent. It looks so good, it almost makes me wish I had gone too.

But then I remind myself that I don’t touch worms, I don’t clean fish, I don’t sleep on the ground, I don’t like being cold, and I don’t do well with bugs, and then I’m okay with my decision to pass on the camping.

A successful day of fishing! The boys are still talking about this.

Look at all those leaves!

After living on the California coast for two years, we have a fresh new appreciation for fall foliage. I can’t get enough of it!

happiest moment ever

Pick-up trucks are an essential part of a Southern campout.

I know. It almost makes me nervous too. But if you knew Alan, you’d know how good this actually is. I guarantee you those two little boys now no more about the danger of guns and gun safety and the purpose of guns than most adults do. Alan is such a thorough teacher. He is an amazing dad.

Pioneer Dad

Daniel shows off the target afterwards.

You see why Alan and Daniel called this “the man trip.”

You should’ve heard Daniel talking about this trip the day before. “We are going on a MAN trip. We’re going to do MAN stuff.  MAN stuff!” Can’t you just hear Tim the Toolman Taylor saying “far ra rar ruff!”

The big boys missed out on the camping trip. However, they all went with Alan to Providence Canyon State Park last weekend while I got a desperately needed day off! Here are a few photos from that!

They took turns being statues. I think Daniel was the Statue of Liberty.

“They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than President of the United States forever.” ― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving. I want to tell you how thankful I am to be starting to feel settled in my new home. It’s been four months now, and the depression that came with moving has passed. I have a modicum of energy again, and I cannot tell you just how much I am enjoying these incredible fall colors.

I’m sitting here staring out the window. The trees in front of me are orange and red, mixed in with pine green.

It reminds me that if I am thankful for fall, then I must be thankful for change. No matter how we resist it, it is simply one of the seasons. We know it’s coming. Look for the beauty. If every change were as beautiful as autumn, that wouldn’t be so hard.

These recent changes in my life actually are a thing of wonder. The boys are growing. Our family is closer. I’m doing a little outside work for the first time in 11 years!! The places and faces I see everyday are new, but they will soon be familiar.

“It was November–the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines. Anne roamed through the pineland alleys in the park and, as she said, let that great sweeping wind blow the fogs out of her soul.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

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This is a sideways panoramic photo of The “Candelabra Tree” at Henry Cowell State Redwoods Park. (No, this is not in my neighborhood. We did visit it this week, though!)

A couple of months ago, a new neighbor moved in. They have a boy Caleb’s age, and a girl in kindergarten. We’ll call this little boy New Friend and his sister New Friendette. Creative, I know.

New Friend and Friendette have a glorious treasure of elementary school childhood right in their backyard. A thicket. Actually, it’s a large thicket that runs down our street a piece, so we call it “the woods.” Joshua, Caleb, and their new friends have spent hours over the last few weeks playing in the woods. Their joy has just been overflowing.

My joy level was pretty high the other day, too. I stepped out on my balcony, and I could have sworn that I saw someone move in the woods. I stood very still for a long time, just thinking and praying. I love looking that way, because beyond the woods, the elevation slopes down, so there’s a small glimpse of ocean.

As I stood there, perfectly still, a “lots of points” buck rose up out of the bushes in the woods. Then his whole herd rose up around him, and I just stood there in awe. I HAD seen something move!!  It was the deer, ducking out of sight, at my sudden entrance onto their scene. They just stood there, munching on leaves, or whatever they eat, probably poison oak or something.

I can’t tell you how that uplifted my spirits that day!

And then Wednesday came. On Wednesday, Joshua and Caleb stayed in those woods, building, imagining, and socializing for two hours, which I hope they will look back on fondly some day.

On Thursday morning, Joshua woke up with a red rash on his face and itchy arms. Thankfully, he was not having breathing difficulty at all, so we didn’t have to rush off to the Emergency Room. We weren’t sure if he had poison oak or a mild reaction to nut exposure Wednesday night. We fed him lots of Benadryl, and we kept a close eye on him.

Friday morning he woke up broken out on both sides of his face. 🙁 I started researching poison oak a whole lot more.

Did you know it takes 3 weeks to get over poison oak exposure?

Did you know that it may not show up until up to 72 hours after your exposure?

Did you know that you don’t need to seek medical help unless the poison oak is in your eyes, private areas, or covers more than 1/3 of your body?

I found a bottle of Prednisone with about 3 teaspoons in it, left over from his great cashew reaction of 2014. I gave him a dose of that on Friday.  That took care of the left side of his face pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, by Saturday, Joshua had poison oak on the corner of his eye, all over his right cheek, forehead, and chin, and little red dots popping up all over his body. Off to the ER he went. He now has a good, two weeks’ supply of Prednisone. He still looks pretty rough.

I feel sooooo badly for him. He’s handled it really well, though.

Did you know that unless the oil from the actual plant is still on your skin, a person with poison oak is not contagious? I did my research on this.  However, the sight of Joshua would probably scare most folks, so he will be staying home with Nonna tomorrow.

By the way, we have had some great field trips/adventures this week to the Redwood Forrest and the Monterey Aquarium. That aquarium has found a new fan in me! Alan and DaddyO got to go kayaking too!!  I can’t wait to get all the photos uploaded to share on my next post!

The post When Playing in the Woods Turns Ugly appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

“Bring on the summer,” they say.

This group of boys is so adorable, and this is just a few. There’s really a whole slew of them, ranging in age from 3 (Dan included) to 10. They gather at our local park after school, and yes, there are girls in the group as well.

A few of the kids have recently begun migrating into the backyard of a friend of ours, that happens to have this hammock and a really cool treehouse.

This is where it gets just too cute: Their latest game is that some of them have assigned themselves ‘tribes.’ Joshua spent about 30 minutes after school, the other day, creating “ID cards” for each kid in his tribe. He got so upset yesterday when I pushed the black stroller to school to pick them up, rather than the yellow stroller.

“What!  Moooom,” he mumbled, with devastation written all over his face, “I had put the ID cards for our tribe in the yellow  stroller, so I could get them after school, and you brought the wrong stroller!”

He looked so crushed that I just felt terrible, but the thing was that Alan was home with the baby, so I had not needed the double stroller (yellow), so I had pushed the black (single), for Daniel to ride in.

Don’t worry, ya’ll, I will make absolutely sure those ID cards get to Joshua on Monday after school.

Joshua and Caleb are both members of the 11th Tribe. Joshua says, “We are the “Archaeologist Tribe, because we have found the most stuff at the park, especially glass. We find a lot of broken glass, but also like old bottles and bricks and sticks and stuff.”

Ah,  broken glass, just what we were all hoping our children were playing with…

Aren’t they just PRECIOUS! I just love this, I mean not the broken glass, but the way they are running and playing freely in the outdoors.  I feel like the best thing I do each week is getting these boys to the park after school, where they run free and make friends with the trees, the dirt, and even sometimes the snakes….

The whole group is notorious for how they are always running around with sticks, and yet I can assure you there have been very few true injuries. Sometimes there are whole wars back there, where they play their own version of “capture the flag”, and I love how the big and small children all seem to mingle just fine.

Are there fights? Only occasionally. Are there hurt feelings? Of course,  that happens, but that will happen their whole life, so they might as well learn to work that out now. One day, last week, I saw Caleb making a beeline, crying, towards the ‘mom area.’ I set out to meet him halfway, concerned as any mom would be. Neither of my boys are big whiners or “tattlers,” so I was  worried. Then I saw two of his friends chasing him down and talking to him, and suddenly, he turned around and headed back to their thicket of trees with them. Only by then, I had caught up, so I wanted to know what was going on.  One little boy said, “I let go of a little tree and accidentally hit Caleb in the face, but it was an accident!”

The much offended Caleb, still smarting in the face a bit, had already decided to forgive and move on, and my intervention was not needed.

Poison ivy and ticks have happened a few times too, though Joshua, Caleb, and Daniel have miraculously dodged those bullets for now, and while I’m not saying those things are good in and of themselves, I do think it’s an acceptable part of childhood.  I love that here in my neighborhood, growing up doesn’t have to look so very different than it did 20 years ago. That’s right. It isn’t just about video games and cartoons. The kids here are very much still exploring the great outdoors.

The moms are there at the park too. We just all hang together on the shaded concrete cylindrical benches.

You can see the benches in the background of this photo, taken at Joshua’s birthday party at the park, last fall.

We sit and talk while our kids run around like wild Indians, and it’s just an amazing and beautiful thing. I love it. It’s very good for our mental conditions. I’ve never felt lonely here–except during those cold spells where no one goes outside–and that’s because we “Park Moms” are just as important of a social network as our 11 tribes of children are to each other!

Oh, and apparently the ‘Archaeologists’ also have a slang name for their tribe: “the tall tribe”, because many of them are the tallest kids at the park.  That sounds about right.

There’s also a large group of boys that like to play football at the park. I guess Joshua’s group would call them the “football tribe.” I asked him what the other tribes are called, but he says he really only knows his group’s name.

So before you judge this little generation of city- school- boys too harshly, just remember that America still has plenty of stick-carrying, glass-collecting, tree-climbing, park tribes out there!

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  Ta-daaaa!  I have been nominated for my very first award since moving the blog to Stories of our Boys, just a month ago.  Hurray!  A big thank you to Naptime Thoughts, an awesome and wicked-funny blogger, for nominating me! I am tickled pink.

  So these awards have RULES, and I am a rule follower, so here we go:

1.  Thank and link back to your nominator.

2.  Tell 7 random facts about yourself.

3.  Pay it forward to 13 versatile bloggers.

My Facts

For some reason I’m fixated on my younger days for this list:

1. You may already know that I am an Alabama (Roll Tide!) fan, but did you know that I have actually WORN the Big Al costume??  (Thank you, Jason Klein!)Oh, and by the way, that was 13 years, and it’s better left unknown how many pounds, ago.

2.  When I was a little kid, I was a seriously studious little book-worm.  In the first grade, when the other kids would divide up to go to reading groups, I just sat at my desk.  I didn’t have a group.  The teacher would just come by and stick chapter books in my desk.  So you can see why I got so stressed out when they told me my 1st grader was behind in reading!!!  Where did I go wrong???

Don’t worry.  You can rest assured I am helping him get caught up!

3.  I was a book worm of a kid, but I could also be a mean little snot that could also be a liar (we’re talking when I was super young–1st/2nd grade).  So if you have a kid that tells tall tales, hang in there.  I grew out of it, once I got caught a couple of times. I would NEVER lie to anyone now.  I mean, you know, so long as you don’t ask me how much I weigh.  ; )   Okay, I won’t lie to that either, but I sure won’t answer that question.

4. For two years of my childhood, I was always playing in the peanut field behind my house.  Now I have two kids with peanut allergies, and we’re beginning to think I might have an issue with it myself.

5. In the 8th grade, I lost a “manners competition” for being too bossy.  Apparently the polite thing was to let the boy lead.  What can I say?  I was destined to boss around little men.

6. I grew up calling a “dinner knife” a “butter knife.”  To this day, I cannot bring myself to call the butter knife a dinner knife.

7.  I once hit a bully (a boy one) in the head with my purse.  My purse had a very solid ice pack inside of it.  The bully never bothered us again, and I think it was my dad’s proudest day.

13 Wonderfully Versatile Bloggers!!

If you’re looking for a great blog to read, you should check these out!

1.  psychowith6.com  This is currently my favorite.  Dr. Mel rocks.

2. aboyagirlandthemarinecorps.com  I have learned a LOT about blogging from her series on the subject!

3. lowveldlife wildlife pictures from South Africa.  The boys are so happy!

4. nobeautyqueen my old roomate!  There is nothing she will not say.

5.  blog.joshjamie.com  Jamie always sets such a great example of what motherhood should look like!

6. wearethatfamily Great Christian website!  Loved the article to moms of little ones!

7. godgiveusaheart amazingly sweet!!!

8. thediaryofarealhousewife  love her Friday Favorites!!

9. Misadventures of Doofy Dizee kindred spirit

10. survivingtoddlerhood.com She has good food!!!

11. bakedbree  More good food!!

12. The Farmer’s Daughter love her nostalgic posts!

13. last but NOT least… Speculations from South Florida  another mom I know I could learn a lot from!

The post My FIRST Award at the New Web Address appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Today it was finally warm.  Really, really warm!  I was so excited.  

I promptly rolled out our amazing double jogger and we headed out for a good little 1 mile walk.

I thought, “Hey, this stroller is so amazing it can do ANYTHING!”  It can– sort of– it plowed right over snow hills easily….except I might have been a little over eager b/c I flattened a tire.  (Alan, will you please fix that for me??  Thank you!)  Check out this stroller:

I just can’t say enough good things about having a good double jogging stroller!  

The difference between pushing this and pushing our small-wheeled tandem stroller is night and day!  If you have two littles, it really is a MUST.  We got ours for free from our neighbors.

I know.  You wish you had our neighbors….Well, we’re moving in June, so maybe you can!  Alan, please don’t forget to put some air in the tires for me, thanks!

  Caleb, Dan, and I ended up playing at the park for a long time today while Joshua did “after school sports”.  

Ya’ll, I’ve rarely dropped the ball so badly.  Our little Caleb has no great love for any sport or musical instrument.  He only asks to do Mad Science.  Mad Science every time it’s offered.  Caleb LOVES to participate in any sort of science experiment, and he just loves things that explode, fly, turn colors, whatever.

  I procrastinated signing Caleb up for Mad Science until three days before it started, and guess what……it was full.  Completely, devastatingly full.  Oh, Caleb, baby, Mom is soo so so sorry!!!!  I want to make it up to him so badly!

Mom guilt is a powerful thing….

  You can bet when Caleb asked to go to the park after school, he didn’t meet any resistance from me!  Even when Dan inserted himself into a big puddle and jumped up and down in it.  I decided we were in for the long haul.  

Dan could get muddy from head to toe–and he did–but we were staying at the park for Caleb.

Don’t worry.  I did not let muddy Dan touch my beautiful yellow stroller.  He happily walked home,  stomping in puddles, climbing snow ‘mountains’, and throwing snow into puddles alllll the way home.  It took us forever to walk 1/4 of a mile.

(I think the puddle jumping was good for Dan too.  Honestly, do kids always have to be clean and neat??  I think not.  Let the kids play, I say!)

  I took a cute pic of muddy Dan to share with you, but I guess I accidentally deleted it on my phone.  Oops.  We’ll just have to settle for last year’s similar picture!

  I remember four years ago, we had a similar warm, wet day.  We had just moved up to the DC area, and I let Joshua and Caleb do the puddle stomping thing then too.  You should have seen the looks I got from our neighbors.  They were so disgusted I would let my children do such a thing.  Oy.  I will always be an advocate for letting kids get out and have fun.  

I think this is what childhood should be about, don’t you!?  Those are my best memories:  digging a hole to ‘get to China’, climbing trees, riding bikes, building forts, and making mud pies.  Okay, I lied.  I never liked mud…but I claim my right to be girly on that issue!

 It’s really important to us that our boys spend lots of time outdoors, and less time staring at screens, which by the way they do plenty of that too. 

My dad, amazingly enough, let Caleb and Joshua take turns driving his scooter.  They also tied these little cars to the back of it, making a train.

Darth Dan

sweetness

Dan, testing the limits on the “Don’t go past the line” rule…..oh, they do love to test the limits!

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