Camp, The Calls, and Peaceful Rooms

Yesterday I forgot about posting until it was way to late for Daughter and I to get started. She and I are without men/boys for the entire week! Husband and Son left yesterday morning for cub scout camp in VA. We helped them get packed up and head off into the sunshine for a mere 4-5 hours driving. After the should have gotten there I got The Call. Camp was closed. Yes, closed. There was an e. coli problem (7 people I think) last week. Even though the camp called everyone to assure no problems on saturday, sunday they were closed. Yuck! The Leader called around and found them another camp with space about 20 miles away. The Call from from Son who does not handle transitions well. He wanted to come home. Luckily, I was removed from the situation enough to Be The Mountain. I helped him calm down, realize he would still get to shoot bb guns, and that it would be ok. Then another Call. They were at a Italian restaurant and Son wasn't hungry and didn't want to eat there anyway. The Mountain that I am, I helped him think of just getting a glass of milk (wow it seemed he needed protein to accompany the sugar snacks he had on the drive) and asking waiter for plain chicken. Thank goodness, when he called to tell me what he ordered, he had discovered chocolate milk and chicken strips. No more calls.

Daughter and I had no trouble jumping right into projects together. Even at the tender age of five, when I told her Brother said I could clean out the unused things from his closet, said to me "I could use some of those toys since I am bigger now." Indeed, she now has many of the little cars and the homemade driving rugs. They will still play together, but Son won't have to deal with cleaning them up and keeping them in his closet. Works for them! We installed the display shelves which have been sitting on the floor, vacuumed, put away his clean laundry, and generally made his room look orderly and neat. I know it will bring him peace when he comes home. It is so hard for him to handle his room by himself all the time.

We had to work on Daughter's closet as well since she had lots of stuff she wanted access to in the house but did not want to take care of in her room. Most of the building stuff (k'nex, lincoln logs, etc.) are now downstairs where they are played with anyway! So both kids rooms now bring calm peaceful feelings. Yeah for us!

Daughter was introduced to the idea of swim lessons at dinner, so today we are going to watch a lesson like the one she would take. She will have to wait till the fall sessions start to sign up, but I think it will work. Watching first is always a good plan with my kids.