This time next week school will be out for my public school kids. Sydney and Nicholas are already out. So, two down, three to go. I must say my stomach is in knots. Have you read any of my posts about last summer? I feel the anxiety building up already. It is just not fun to live with teenagers. It ain't no picnic. Especially if you are poor and live in the middle of nowhere. If I was rich, I would send them away to summer camp.
I consider myself to be somewhat creative. I try to think of wholesome free activities that will entertain a 5 year old as well as a 17 year old. It's not easy. And when all seven of us travel in the van together all hell usually breaks loose. When Adrian is driving, he just takes out his hearing aids and tunes pretty much all of it out. With a tube in my ear, I can now hear quite well and sometimes their squeaking and complaining sends nerve pain straight to my brain like an abscessed tooth.
So, this summer with the exception of the family beach trip, I am vowing to stay close to home. We are going to have a "Flintlock Camp Summer."
Flintlock is where I spent a month every summer as a child for 7 years. I loved it. We performed skits. We sang songs. We swam in a muddy lake. We took horseback riding lessons. We played cards. We played softball and kickball. We did arts and crafts. We learned about nature. We slept in platform tents in the middle of the woods. We hiked a lot. We woke up early and stayed busy until the sun went down. We stayed outside all the time.
There was one break in the day called rest hour. Every day after lunch, we took a nap for one hour. Even if you didn't sleep, you had to be quiet. No talking was allowed. You could read books or write letters. We ate all of our meals family style. As children, my sisters and I were all picky eaters, but by golly we ate whatever was served at camp because if you didn't eat it, you went hungry. I am looking forward to teaching that lesson to my children this summer most of all. I am already gathering my camp food recipes. Beginning June 3, we are going on the Flintlock Camp diet.
With two children who register on the weird-o meter, or in better terms, the Autism Spectrum Disorder, I know all too well about picky eaters. It's a sensory issue. However, I don't think back in the pioneer days, folks had sensory integration dysfunction. If they didn't like the texture of the animal that was turning over a spit fire, or the beans in the crock, or the biscuits mama cut, then they starved and died I guess. I don't think my children will want to starve, so they are going to have to learn the hard way to eat what is served. No more Lucky Charms for dinner at the Cutchshaw's house. I don't care how magically delicious they are.
As picky as I was at eating as a child, I always ate so much at camp. There were never ending bowls of creamed corn, beans, apple sauce, potatoes, and country fried steak. There was cream of wheat at breakfast along with corned beef hash. There were grits, bread pudding, oatmeal, and peanut butter sandwiches with apple jelly. And we always, always had dessert if we ate our meal. We had peach cobbler, blueberry cobbler, chocolate cake, or Apple Brown Betty. We drank bug juice, water, or tea, depending what was in the pitcher. I am drooling just thinking about it.
All the campers had to help. Each day, a tent was assigned mess hall duty. We cleaned the tables. We set the tables. We swept and mopped the floor. Each table had a designate waiter. There was a pass through from the kitchen and the cook would refill whatever empty bowl the waiter would bring up and she would then carry it back to her table. We ate and ate until we were full. And then we did not eat until the next meal. Period. There were no snacks.
We all stayed skinny little kids. If you were chubby, you lost weight while at camp. It was probably from all the hiking. Just going from the lake to the barn was quite hike. And I believe the sunshine made us all happy. Large doses of good ole vitamin D did us a world of good. Better than staying inside playing video games. We didn't even have electricity at camp except in a few buildings like the mess hall. No TV. No radios. No computers. For an entire month. It did wonders for our little inner clocks. It was so good for our brains.
So, I hope my ideas are good enough to help me press forward through any of the resistance I suspect I will get. I think my little kids will love it but it's those teenagers I worry about. So, since Jolie will be 17, she's going to be our counselor. And Sydney who will be 15, she's going to be our cabin girl, or counselor in training. I will put them in charge of most of the activities.
I can't wait to sit in the front yard and see talent night performed on our front porch. I can't wait to see our children put on skits that they make up. I look forward to camp fires in our back yard bonfire pit and singing all the songs from camp. We are going to get dirty. We are going to play in the river. We are going to swim and ride horses. We are going to unplug our lives from the computer and television. I'll update my blog, but I am going to cut myself free from Facebook. We are going to read books at rest hour. We might even have chapel in the woods on Sundays by candlelight. And we might just have the best summer ever!
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