I'm really busy this summer doing things like vacationing (where I'm busy lying around in a hammock doing absolutely nothing). So I thought I'd go through the archives and publish some of my older articles and columns periodically that never showed up on this blog, because I wrote them before the blog started. Here's one from way back in 2002, when my girls were still very small. It was the very first column I published!
It’s that time of year again: camping, cottages, water skiing, boating and beaches all beckon us. Unfortunately, they all involve a particularly gruesome form of self-torture: car trips with children.
For those of us travelling this summer to fun-filled destinations where we can relax, getting there can be an exercise in frustration. Tiny ones repeatedly bleat “are we there yet?”, while older ones yell, over and over, “she’s on my side of the seat!”. How can we survive this nightmare?
Every summer, our family takes an eight-hour trip down to Pennsylvania, and a four hour one up to Muskoka. They’re not always pleasant, but we’ve found some ways to pass the time, many gleaned from other parents who have trod this path before us.
First, you must have a zero tolerance for fighting. My award for Shrewdest Mother of the Year goes to a mom with two girls who told them they were going to visit Grandma, some six hours away. She packed their bags, loaded the van, kissed Daddy good-bye and took off, with a stern warning that when the first fight broke out she would turn the van around and head home.
They made it about half an hour before she kept her promise, landing them once again in their driveway. The two girls were too stunned even to cry. When they realized this was for real, they sobbed and begged, but their mother would not relent.
A week later, after many promises, they set out again. This time, they made it the whole way. What the girls didn’t know was that mother’s vacation time was actually booked for that second week. She knew they wouldn’t make it to Grandma’s on the first attempt. That was only a trial run to make the point.
Like that mother, I can’t stand fighting or whining in the car. It infuriates me, and if I have to listen to that for eight hours, I’m not going. The girls know that, because at the first sign of whining we stop the car.
We’ve also played every game in the book to keep them occupied: look for all the provincial and state license plates, count the cows, and find things beginning with all the letters of the alphabet. These really do entertain younger children, though unfortunately they’re not the most entertaining for us adults. Coming up with a word for X, though, took a lot of brainpower last year. I’m better prepared this year. I’ll be on the lookout for a xenolith--a type of rock fragment—as we traverse through the Canadian Shield to Muskoka.
Last year, in a spurt of energy between packing the camper and doing laundry, I laminated some “picture” bingo cards, with horses, cows, railway crossings, signs, and other landmarks. These were big hits, and best of all, the kids did them themselves, so Keith and I had time to talk to each other.
But the smartest thing we ever did was to borrow books on CD from the library. You can borrow whole books on CD, like Charlotte’s Web, or C.S. Lewis’ Narnia chronicles. Many of them are entertaining for adults, too, and best of all, a lot of them last hours! Hours of not hearing “are we there yet?”, but only “it’s not over yet, is it?”. And to whoever lives in Trenton and is currently listening to Quinte West’s copy of Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus, I need it by the 19th!
I’ll leave you with my favourite summer car ride story. During a cross-country trip, one eight-year-old girl started to feel very carsick. She rolled the window down, but it didn’t seem to help. Her eleven-year-old brother watched her with growing concern as she turned different shades of green. Then, when it was obvious something REALLY BAD was about to happen, he showed tremendous forethought. Sticking out his hands, he caught his sister’s vomit and threw it out the window, so that they wouldn’t have to sit in a stinky car for the next few days.
So as you’re driving to the cottage, and the air conditioning isn’t working, and the kids are whining, just be thankful that at least you don’t have to catch the vomit.
Where are you heading this summer? What do you have planned to keep the kids busy?
Are you all excited it's a Monday? Likely not. who likes Mondays? But I must say that I'm feeling more invigorated than usual, because I just got back from vacation yesterday. We went on a cruise with the four of us, my husband's parents, and my nephew, who turned 16 while away. We had a great deal where the kids almost sailed free, so it was just such a blessing to get away and have some time with each other.
I didn't announce I was leaving before I went because I have known a blogger who announced it, and then got robbed while she was gone. Yelling to everyone on Facebook and your blog that you're leaving seems too much like placing a "Come rob my house! It's empty!" neon sign above your door. So if you're wondering why I didn't jump in in the comments last week, that's why. I even had some blogging buddies email me asking where I was, and expressing concern, which I thought was so special! It's great to feel like we're making real friendships through this.
So yes, I was more than fine, and I'm more than fine now that I'm home, because I feel rejuvenated (and, to be honest, it was so relaxing to be away from the computer for a week). Next time maybe I'll just say that I'm busy for a week and I won't schedule posts!
Anyway, as wonderful as the vacation was, I came home to the very sad news that a friend of mine's 15-year-old daughter passed away last Thursday. It wasn't a surprise; Katie had had cancer for several months, and it had gone into her lungs. I didn't know Katie, but I did know her grandparents and her mom a bit. It wasn't like I am very close to the family. We followed her journey on Facebook, and I prayed a lot for them, but I don't KNOW them.
Yet I can't convey to you the sadness I felt, sitting in the Tampa airport yesterday and checking Facebook. I feel sad for her family that is left behind. I feel sad for Katie's older sister Jacqui, with whom we are a little more acquainted. I think of my own two girls, and how they would be if either of them passed away. It would be a hole you never, ever filled this side of heaven.
They are a wonderful family of faith, and God has really sustained them, yet that does not make it any less sad. Death is just awful. It was never meant to be this way.
Katie's funeral will be huge this week. They are very well connected in our small little geographical area, involved in so many community things. It will be a big comfort to the family, I think, to see how many people support them. And yet I can't fathom how many tears will flow.
It seems such a juxtaposition, to get back from a wonderful family vacation, only to hear that another family has been so wrenched. It is not that I am sorry I went; on the contrary, I think I'm even more glad. We don't know what the future will bring. A year ago Katie was a track star, active in her high school, surrounded by tons of friends and a promising future. Today she is singing with Jesus.
My nephew is 16, and we wanted to do something to show him that we really do care about him, and so we took him with us. It was really a bonding time again, and we needed that. When he grows up, I want him to look back and know that his aunt and uncle love him. I want my girls to have memories like that, too.
And so this week, as I get back into the business of blogging and editing my book and homeschooling, I will say a prayer for Katie's family.
I have this song on my iPod, and I've been singing it to myself for the last few months, thinking of Katie everytime. She had her leg amputated about a month before she died, because of the cancer, and I always think of the "Dance with Jesus" verse for her, and now the "Fly to Jesus". I'll just leave it with you, in case you've never heard it. It really is beautiful.
My girls and I are just back from Calgary, after a Bible quizzing competition for a week. What an amazing time! I learned a lot about them, and about teens in general. But picture this: 120 teenagers, from all over North America, who are all incredibly bright, who have spent this year memorizing 1 & 2 Corinthians (that's right; the whole books). I'm going to have to post a video of some of the quizzes or you won't believe it, but it was so amazing to see these kids who are so alive, and self-assured, and in love with Jesus, all in one place. They weren't nerds, either! In fact, I spent far too much time checking out the guys on the Western Canadian teams (and some of the Pennsylvania teams), because I figure that eventually my girls are going to have to marry someone, and better it be someone I choose for them! :)
Anyway, I walked in the door this morning at 4 a.m., after our plane was late flying into Ottawa. So I'm extremely tired. I've written a bunch of blog posts to automatically publish over the next few days, but I'm hoping that I can intersperse them with some of our great pictures of Banff and some videos of quizzing!
And my oldest daughter placed 15th (she was the #2 rookie) out of thousands of kids who do Bible quizzing with the Alliance church around North America. So we were really proud!
Until now I have felt a bit like summer hasn't begun, because the girls were studying (even if they were doing it while lying in the sun), and we were driving back and forth to practices. But now we're home and that stress is over, and we have a little more than a month to go of summer.
While we were gone my husband booked us into a campground. I told him we absolutely have to go camping, even if we only can snatch a few days (after I wrote a post about memories from previous summers it became imperative to head out in the trailer!). And Keith booked a weekend away, just him and me, for later this month, too. My girls are going to stay with my younger cousin and help her paint her new house, which will be so exciting to see them get to know each other better.
So now I see this next month stretched out in front of me, and I am so relaxed and happy! I hope that I'll write some more posts for you all other than the ones I have scheduled, but I do plan on taking some time just to enjoy the sun. While at Internationals last week Rebecca had a boy from Ohio ask her how she got so tanned, since Canada doesn't have heat. Becca thought that was pretty funny, since before we left we had had two weeks of 100+ temperatures (if you factor in the humidity). Thankfully it's cooled down to the mid-80s (or the high twenties, for my fellow Canadians who think in Celsuis), and it's absolutely lovely. Unfortunately, we don't get that kind of weather very often, so I am going to make the most of it.
I'm going to bike and play tennis and take lots of walks and sit in my garden and type in my porch. So if I don't get as much written as I normally do, please forgive me. I have to snatch what sunshine I can! But keep coming back, because I'll have a Wifey Wednesday up tomorrow, and my columns every Friday, and lots more stuff to keep you thinking!
We had a near death in my family last week. My computer, with whom I am rather intimately connected, decided to crash (I really don't like Windows Vista!). It seems that the very smart men who work in the computer hospital were able to save my files, but it needed its operating system reinstalled, and I will now spend the next week reinstalling all my programs and reorganizing everything.
It made me revisit, though, how I handle my backups. I don't back up enough. No one backs up enough. But now I will do it religiously, so that if this ever happens again, I will not panic.
It also prompted me to get all of my digital pictures and all of my videos in one central space. I've decided to hire my teenagers this summer to go through all of our pictures, tag them and organize them into folders, and then upload and edit through all of our family videos. I will feel so much better having them all at the touch of my fingers!
As I began to collect my various family photos from different computers, CDs, external hard drives, and USB drives, I felt like I was walking through the past. Sometimes I look at a picture of my girls when they were toddlers and my arms can still feel them. Here's Katie at 7. When I close my eyes, I still picture her this way:
When they were younger Keith and I used to talk about what we absolutely must do with the kids before they left home: go to the Grand Canyon; see Niagara Falls; go on a bike camping trip; learn to play tennis. Some of those things we have done. Some I'm still waiting for. But I'm realizing more and more that the time is short. Rebecca is 15; going away for two weeks on a family vacation is harder now, because she has piano students and she has friends and she doesn't want to miss youth group. Katie has already missed one junior sleepover this year. She doesn't want to miss another.
Your window for doing the most with your kids is really that 6-11 age. I know it's hard when you have children of different ages, but looking through our photos, I found that 2004 was our best year. The girls were 7 and 9, and we did a ton of stuff! I'm flipping through these and I so want to be back there:
We went to Quebec City. We camped through the Maritime provinces. We skated on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa. We also laughed at home, and took mini bike trips, and read through the Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie books.
We ate out on the deck as much as possible. We took off for hikes in the wetlands boardwalk near our home as often as we could. Sure, we did serious things like homeschooling and doing dishes and folding laundry and cleaning. But we really lived.
And much of that living was done that summer in a 1973 tent trailer that my aunt gave us when our kids were born. One of the burners didn't work. The rubber on the door didn't always close properly, and sometimes mosquitoes infiltrated our fortress. But it was ours.
Every morning I would awake to the birds chirping, and I would jump out of bed to see the girls already stirring, often drawing on their notepads, as I hopped into my jeans as quickly as I could in those crisp mornings. And then I'd make hot chocolate. There is nothing like hot chocolate when you're camping!
We used to spend at least a month every summer camping in our old tent trailer. Sometimes we'd be close to home so that Keith could still work, and just come join us at night. Other times we'd venture further abroad, like that summer of 2004 when we visited the Bay of Fundy for the first time.
We even stopped by Green Gables in P.E.I., where the kids sat in the horse drawn carriage while Keith and I explored "Lover's Lane"!
Such memories are so precious, and even now, when I close my eyes, I can still hear the frogs croaking, and birds chirping, and fire crackling. I can still hear the girls chattering outside the trailer, knowing they have to keep their voices down so Mommy and Daddy can sleep in, but trying to be just loud enough to wake us up so we will make hot chocolate, but not so loud that it's obvious.
Today Rebecca has piano students, and the girls have youth group, and they have lives so that it's harder to just pick up and go. So we won't have a chance to go camping like this again this summer, and for that I am sad. Perhaps we are just at a different point in our lives, and I need to realize that. But I am not quite ready to let this go.
And so I think this summer I will announce to my brood that we are heading out again. We'll go somewhere close, so Keith can in for work, and Rebecca can teach piano when she needs to. I'd even let friends visit. But summer is not summer if I don't make smores while Keith reads Treasure Island around the campfire by lantern light, and the girls chase the moths away.
I will pack my Jane Austen readalouds, pack a huge cannister of hot chocolate, and we will go. And one day, the girls will look back on these memories and cherish them, too.
About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.
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