How to entertain preteens

First of all, I dislike using the word “preteen”. Mostly because it involves the word “teen” and having something in my house that’s considered a “teen”, current, pre, real, implied, whatever, instantly makes me nauseous.

But Calen is twelve and a half and I basically can’t pretend anymore.

Calen has two best friends here in Kodiak, Noah and Todd. The three are thick as thieves and have been for the past two years. Todd moves away this week to mainland Alaska. 

Military life is hard, man. Especially for the kids.

This past weekend we had the two boys over for a final sleepover.

Sleepovers with preteen boys (cringe) are easy and require three simple categories to be successful:

1. Video games

Make sure the controllers are charged, move the TV upstairs (bonus points if they already have a TV in their room) and you’ll never see them for the rest of the night. 

2. Snacks

Pizza, pizza bites, pizza bagels, pizza flavored (whatever), Cheetos, fruit snacks, pop. Actual meals are optional. Whatever you do, don’t let the snacks run out.

3. Airflow 

Boys stink. Make sure wherever they are holing up at has some sort of consistent airflow, like an open window, or a fan. You might want to do a drive by spraying of Febreeze too for good measure.

And that’s it. They stayed up until midnight (I had to convince them to go to bed so they would be reasonable human beings the next day), I think I saw them twice to reload on snacks, and the controllers never died. They had a great time.

It’s Fall Y’All

It’s September, and you know what that means in this house. Pumpkins! Pumpkin spice candles! Pumpkin bread! Apple butter! And finally being able to tap into my Fall Pinterest craft ideas.

The best part of homeschooling is incorporating what I want. I declared an art lesson today, even though they aren’t technically enrolled in any art electives. 

Who cares, I’m the principal, I do what I want. 

And fall art projects are my second favorite. Christmas is always number 1. Obviously.

Today we made fall trees using sharpies for the trunk, and a multitude of fall colored crayons for the leaves. Calen mentioned “I haven’t used crayons in like, two years!” Which is true, but it shows they’re still good to keep around. For emergency uses, like Pinterest.

Calen is my artist and of course took to it (and any art lesson) well. Camden is a reluctant artist, however once started he gets into it, and he always does more than the requirement. For this one, he decided to add a “camping tent and campfire” underneath one of his trees. 

I hope they never outgrow crafts. Until like age 40.

Home Economics, Alaska Style

It’s the second day of (home)school and I don’t know if it’s the air pressure change or what but we were over it before it even began. All aboard the struggle bus, there’s room in the back!

By TWO FREAKING P.M., which is three hours past my usual ending time for school, the boys were done, I was done, we were DONE. So I slammed the teacher book shut in dramatic fashion and said “screw it let’s go on a field trip.”

Where do you go on a field trip in September in Kodiak? 

The river to go fishing, of course. 

We headed to our favorite fishing spot on the Buskin and immediately had our bear sighting of the day, a giant of a sow across the river from us that we had woken from a nap. She, as most bears on Kodiak, was completely bored with our presence, yawned, turned her back to us and plopped into the tall grass to take a nap.

Whatever, Bear.

Our not so favorite spot at the mouth of the Buskin

The fish weren’t biting and we decided to risk going to the dreaded “Mouth” of the Buskin, hoping it was early in the afternoon enough to avoid the mass crowds of people that usually swallow up that spot.

Mass crowds as in like, ten people. But there are things in which I don’t share well with people. The beach. A bag of Doritos. Fishing spots. 

We marched down to the mouth and lo and behold, people. Gosh, don’t you go to WORK or something. We lasted about three casts before I announced “nothing’s biting this spot is stupid let’s go back to OUR spot”, which actually was true and in which the boys whole heartily agreed. So we got back in the car and drove the 3 minutes back to our spot, where the bear popped her head out of the grass and I swear rolled her eyes at us before disappearing again into her nap. 

WHATEVER, bear! 

In the end we came home with two pinks, one humpy and one ocean going. Calen is working on a Fishing merit badge, so we took them home so he could learn to clean a fish once Brad came home from work.

Nothing says “welcome home honey” like a 5 gallon bucket of salmon sitting in the kitchen sink staring at you.

Learning to clean a fish. This was all Calen and Brad because this is man's work, or something. I want no part in it. 

Brad took over and taught Calen how to clean a fish because let’s face it that’s just not my jam. The humpy was pretty pale and we decided to bake it and add it to Rebel’s dog food. The ocean pink was pretty enough that Calen seasoned it and baked the fillets and it made a tasty dinner! 

Salmon. It's what's for dinner. 

That’s like, earth science, biology, home economics and health class all in one, right?