A Cautionary Tale (Viewer Discretion Advised)

 Warning: This story involves toilet talk, poop, etc. If you're queasy or easily offended by bodily functions, you might want to skip over this post and go to the next. Boys are gross. Sorry not sorry. 

Boy are gross. 

I mean, they're really gross! Why are they made this way? Is there some sort of required "nasty grotesque DNA chip" secretly embedded into each newborn boy? With a delay switch, because they're so sweet and innocent and not-gross until the chip is deployed at say, age five? 

I was home for thirty seconds this evening. Thirty. Seconds. Calen was outside with friends. I walk in the front door. I kick my shoes off. I hear Camden from upstairs "Mom?! Can you come here please??"

This is not a "come check out my new Lego creation" 'come here'. This is a "I'm in a crisis situation and I need reinforcements" 'come here'. 

I get to the landing of the stairs. "Are you okay?" 

"No!"

This is not normal. So now I'm bounding up the stairs. Why is my eleven year old not okay? Is he bleeding profusely? Does he have a broken limb? Why is there no crying? What traumatic scene am I about to walk into?

I make it to the playroom (the master bedroom), I can tell his voice is coming from the attached bathroom. So I turn the corner and push the door open, expecting the worst, ready to call 911, when I see Cam, stark naked, on the toilet, staring at me. 

"Mom, I'm pooping a lot."

Stand down everyone. Belay my last about reinforcements. Pack it up troops we're going home. "

"Oh, is that all that's happening?"

"Yeah, but Mom it's a lot."

I'm trying not to laugh. I mean it's not funny. But my relief that this isn't a real emergency coupled with the fact that my son is mildly panicking over some tummy troubles is making me want to burst laughing. Also I laugh in uncomfortable situations. 

"It's totally normal. I mean not really normal but it happens from time to time. It's not a big deal. It's probably from the milkshake"

We'll get to the milkshake in a moment. 

"Because I'm not used to milkshakes?"

"Something like that."

"Mom.....is this....diarrhea?!?" in the most horrified, astounded tone of voice. 

"Yes. But it's not a big deal."

Cam's eyes go wide. He starts to breathe heavy. Panic at the Disco. 

"You're not going to die from diarrhea, Cam."

Relief. A deep sigh, and then the next round of questions. 

"Well how do we get rid of it?"

"You just need to sit there and let it all out, and then drink a lot of water and you'll be fine."

Cam looks at me and curls his lips in disgust. 

"UGH! Seriously? I just have to sit here? I don't have time for this. I'm wasting daylight."

This was the part of the story, when retelling it to Brad who was downstairs blissfully unaware of this situation, said "And where do you think he gets it? He's totally you."

He's not wrong.

So now I'm really trying not to laugh and I go "well I don't know what to say Cam but you have to just hang out here until you think you're done." I go to close the door and I hear him grumbling to himself. 

"It sure would be nice if I could watch something since I'm stuck in here all day."

I shout through the door "Do you want a book?"

A few seconds of silence. And then: "....sure. Can you bring me Garfield?"

So I deliver a Garfield comic book and then had to ask one more question. 

"Cam...why are you naked??"

"Oh. I just got so hot. I just get too hot when I poop and this was taking forever."

 I head downstairs howling in laughter. But it's not over yet. After maybe another ten minutes of him upstairs I hear the unmistakable noise of our overpowered airplane jet toilet flushing and him bounding down the stairs - half dressed, still putting his shirt back on - and announcing:

"I think I'm the first kid to ever have diarrhea!"

"No...you're not."

"Oh. Well the first in Kodiak."

"No, you're not. And there's no records and certainly no contest of this anyways."

And then we had to have a quick and extremely important discussion of why we don't ever discuss what happens in the bathroom to friends, ever. Because he would because he's a disgusting boy and can you even imagine that text message from the neighborhood moms. 

The milkshakes in question were due to the fact that we had milkshakes for dinner, because it's the first day of Crabfest, and Soda Jerk came to the island for the weekend. And what is Soda Jerk, you ask? The best dang milkshakes on planet earth, and we will have them every.single.day this weekend. Regardless of whatever bathroom consequences we may or may not have. 

Disclaimer: Camden is NOT lactose intolerant. I think it just hit him wrong, or he had a gas bubble, or something. 

Inventing Homeschool

 

Since I've been really, and I mean really, bad at keeping up with this blog, I'll bring you up to speed. 

I've been homeschooling the boys for almost two full school years now. It was always on my radar, but I never pulled the trigger until the Rona basically sabotaged the '19-20 school year and it resulting in a total loss. Then after a trial school year at home, it was such a runaway success we decided to toss public school in the rearview mirror and never look back, baby. 

I mean it when I say I. Love. Homeschooling. Some teaching, picking what they read and learn, Pinterest projects? I was made for this. 

Anyways, here we are in the last leg of our second homeschool year (7th grade for Calen, 5th grade for Camden). We have been doing focused unit studies for the last half of the school year, and currently we are doing Inventions and Transportation (or the invention of, as it were). We have also been throwing in introductions to Electricity, for obvious reasons. 

Fun fact: Boy Scout Merit Badge work packets are spectacular for homeschool. Learning about Inventions and Electricity and getting a merit badge for it? I'm a fan. 

This week we learned about the invention of long-distance communications, the telephone, and the first cell phones. This of course requires some fun activities, such as:


Tin can phone experiments. 

An entire afternoon of playing with Snap Circuits, 

Watching Big Hero 6 for fun (in theory Baymax is an invention, right?)

And creating a model of their own inventions, which they will actually build a prototype of later. Calen is developing a pre-measured automatic dog feeder, Camden is inventing a trash wagon droid. 

Calen's dog feeder model

Camden's trash droid model 

Did I mention I love homeschooling??

Tidepooling at Gibson Cove

 Yesterday we decided that school is for suckers when the weather is nice and we played hooky...from ourselves, because Homeschool is fantastic and has no rules, and went to the beach instead. We headed to a new (to us) beach, one down Deadman's Curve hillside which is a bit more rocky, but is perfect when there is ultra low tide such as this day. 

Gibson Cove, Kodiak

We found all sorts of sea life in the tide pools. Sea anemonies, cucumbers, eels, sucker fish (Mr Uglies as we call them), thousands of hermit crabs, and lots of star fish. 

Camden's favorite thing was catching Eels

We overturned this rock to find a huge collection of fish eggs!

Interviews, Water and Sand

 First of all, I'm horrified to tell you that my biggest little, who was only THREE YEARS OLD when this blog started ten years ago, had an interview for his first job today. 

Has it really been ten years since I started this blog?

Has it really been ten years since Calen was a toddler??

Am I actually old enough for all these milestones?

Calen's bestie is moving away this summer and thus is relinquishing his newspaper route. The admins of the paper, Derek and Janet, were Calen's baseball coach and team manager last year. So of course, they asked for "Socks" by name when they found out they needed a new paper boy. 

However, we had to go through the official interview process. When I asked Calen how to dress for an interview, he suggested a white button up, a suit jacket, black slacks and a tie. I said that might be a little intense for a paper boy position. Then he came downstairs in a turtleneck sweater, with a flannel (not a dressy button up, a thick flannel) OVER the sweater, AND a tie. Attempt number three, and he came down looking quite proper. 

I got to sit in on the interview process with Janet and it was a hoot. Calen, in true early teenage form, was swinging around in the office chair, messing around with his pant legs, picking his nose. Janet asked him if he has ever made a mistake in his life before and he goes "Oh yes. I made a HUGE one yesterday and now I'm grounded for a week!"

And then during the post-game debrief, we had to discuss why oversharing is not necessarily a good thing during a job interview. 

Side note: she also asked him if he has ever done chores, which at first he said no because he feels like his daily tasks aren't even chores. She asked oh do you feed your talk, take out the trash, and all that. And then it sparked him into this word vomit:

"Oh! Yesterday when I took the trash to the dumpster we were throwing an old printer away and I got to CHUCK it off the side of the hill and it SMASHED into a bunch of pieces that I had to clean up. But it was SICK."

Imagine if you will how I'm trying to keep silent in this interview, but also trying to pop my eyeballs in a form of secret communication to tell him to stop oversharing pleeeeeeease.

The good news is, Janet knows and LOVES Socks from baseball, had him sign a contract, and now you're looking at the newest paper boy for the Kodiak Daily Mirror newspaper. 

How did we go from THIS - ten years ago this month in the blog - 

To this?!

I mean I literally can't. 

To celebrate his first job (his idea), we got Subway on the way home and then loaded up the car for another adventure.

Kodiak is a lot like the Pacific Northwest. If the weather is above 55 degrees and it's sunny, then we are calling into work, cancelling school, and doing something outside. 

And that's what we did. Brad didn't go to work, we cancelled (half) of school, and went out to our second lake kayak adventure of the summer: Boy Scout Lake, which is basically a little pond that we drive by every.single.day on our way into town. 

Boy Scout Lake

It's also conveniently the parking lot to Boy Scout Beach, our favorite beach on island, so after we messed around on the lake we hiked down to the beach and played for the rest of the day.  

Waiting for a good wave from the container ship (also known as our supply ship) for his little boat

A Day At Valdez

 There aren't many adventures I take on my own. Not without at least ONE kid. This is by design, as I find travel to be one of the best gifts I can offer my children. But sometimes opportunity rises and we have to jump. 

I got a phone call last night at 8pm from a friend, asking if I wanted to take a Space-A (free) flight on a C-130 from Kodiak to Valdez, Alaska for the day. 

Ummm, need you ask? Island fever is a THING here, especially this time of year, and I don't care WHERE this plane is going as long as it's not Kodiak and I'm inside it. Where is Valdez? I don't know, let's go. 

The boys and Brad were away at an overnight campout with Boy Scouts. In retrospect I would have pulled at least Calen from the campout, but it was Camden's very first Boy Scout overnighter and it was good he had his brother with him. So I packed a little day backpack and this morning we boarded the C-130 Herc at 6:30 this morning and took the ninety minute flight to Valdez, Alaska, which is right in the heart of Prince William Sound (south of Anchorage, north of Cordova). 

Stitch with our ride

Can we talk about flying Space A for a minute? It's so carefree. I marched on that plane with my water bottle full of water. I had a knife in my pocket. I stood in the cockpit mid-flight. Someone was standing up taking pictures out the window during the middle of landing. They don't care. We're adults. What rules. 

Side note #2: Since the boys couldn't go, I snuck into their room this morning and "borrowed" Camden's "Little Stitch", and posed him all around Valdez today to show the kids later. 

We arrived in Valdez with absolutely zero plan, just the kind of adventure I like. 

Turns out there was a bush plane air competition right there at the airport, including the "world famous" STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing) competition, so we hung out and watched for a while. 

The winner of the STOL fly in competition. Check out those bush plane tires! This is also Calen's favorite non-military plane

We took a break from the air show and called this "guy" (some contact of a friend's friend) that does shuttles from the airport to town and back. The "shuttle" ended up being this fantastically sketchy rickety van that only had five actual seats, the back two rows ripped out and some combination of cardboard and particle board laying a makeshift floor instead. We buckled my friend's kids in the seats and her and I risked it in the back - which was well stocked for the zombie apocalypse - complete with a case of beer, a mallet, some ski poles and a jar of salsa - and we took a wild ride to the marina in the little town of Valdez. 

We took a walk down the Marina boardwalk, which had breathtaking views of the Chugach mountains, bald eagles fighting over a fish and some cute little restaurants, which we stopped into one (The Fat Mermaid, because obviously) for lunch. Then the rickety van picked us back up and we went back to the airfield to watch the rest of the show, then loaded up in the c-130 and headed back home. 

I'm MADE for spontaneous adventures like this. And with the island fever burning, it was exactly what I needed. (And maybe next time, the family can come with too). 

Mother's Day (A Week Late)

Editor's note: Mother's Day was actually a week ago. The more days that went on, the more I realized this story was so absurd I should make a blog post about it. So here I am, making a blog post about it a week later. This counts as a "later-gram", or whatever kids these days call it, right?

I don’t really expect a lot for Mother’s Day.

I mean, it’s kind of a ridiculous holiday. I don’t need flowers, or Hallmark cards, or some expensive gift to celebrate - what exactly? My day to day life?

What I do like is homemade cards, a day off from cooking (or cleaning up cooking), and some sort of adventure. You know something out of the norm, get out of the house and DO something kind of adventure. Well it’s Kodiak and the variety of adventures isn’t necessarily diverse, but the weather was spectacular and the rare sunshine called for us to get outside.

Listen, have you seen a Chevy Chase movie? Christmas Vacation, etc? If you haven’t, watch it because shame on you, but also follow along with my day and see if this couldn’t be a script for the next movie. Chevy Chase’s Alaskan Vacation. Produced by yours truly. 

The day started with the homemade cards waiting for me on the table and the boys sitting on the sofa lounging around. I asked if they had breakfast and they go “no but we wanted to have pancakes with you!” Which is sweet and all.

Except.

There were no pancakes made. They were sitting on the sofa, waiting for me to come down to make pancakes. It was like 8:30. They had been up for two hours and are fully capable of making pancakes thank you.

So I go and make pancakes and bacon and Brad is like “why are you cooking it’s Mother’s Day??” And I go “because kids have to eat on Mother’s Day just like any other day!” So then he rushes behind to clean up after me because you know “it’s your day you shouldn’t clean up on YOUR day.”

Maybe that’s why Mother’s Day is always “brunch”, because by the time the kids get the meal figured out and actually realize THEY have to cook it, it’s 10:30am and half the morning has already passed.

Well after our breakfast/brunch/whatever, we decided to go on our adventure. For Christmas, Brad’s folks had gifted us an inflatable two-person kayak. Super rad right? So we were waiting for the spring thaw and a good sunny day to take it out. Today was the day! The sun was shining, there were no sports or obligations and we were going to have some fun on the water.

We chose Lake Louise, which is only about a minute from our house. We loaded up and headed to the lake, only to find no boat launch. Why no boat launch on this perfectly boatable lake? We’ll go back to that in a minute.

Well, a lack of a launch wasn’t going to stop us! We are Alaskans! We will bushwhack to the lake shore! Which is basically what we did, then took the painstaking time to inflate the kayak and the seats AND build the oars AND read the instructions, all of which I have exactly zero patience for. But I held on and we build a raft, look at us!

Waiting is the hardest part. 

Calen and I were the first “team” to take “Banana” (as we named her, because she’s long and yellow and a little squishy) out on her maiden voyage. So he gets in and then I get in. We’re in! Let’s go! And we grab paddles and Calen suddenly shushes us and goes:

“Mom, I hear a HISS.”

No you don’t. You must hear a snake. Or a bird. Or someone going “hisss.” You definitely don’t hear a hole-in-the-brand-new-inflatable-boat-hiss.

“Yes I do. It’s right below me.”

So we get out. And sure enough. Brand new out of the box there’s a tiny hole in the seam, probably not enough to sink us but enough to most likely take on small amounts of water over time.

But we’re not about to risk it on our maiden voyage. What is this, the Titanic?

So we pulled the boat out. It came with a patch kit. Perfect. We can apply the patch and go out and nothing will be delayed. Read the instructions. “Do not operate kayak one hour after apply patch”.

Fine. Fine, FINE.

So we deflated the kayak, hauled it all the way to the car, and went home and watched Star Wars waiting for the patch and sealant to dry. Meanwhile, the sun had come out in full force and it was beautiful and perfect.

But it’s fine, I’ll just sit here and WAIT.

An hour goes by, Brad and Calen go test it in the garage and come back with the green light. Green means go! Round two and we pack back up, get in the car, drive to Lake Louise. Inflate the kayak, carry it down to the water, get in.

No hiss! Success! You've hissed your last, Hiss! (Please tell me you've seen Disney's animated Robin Hood). We are on our way!

Except we aren’t, because the kayak is literally stuck in mud and reeds. It’s probably a solid 30 feet of mud and reeds before we hit actual water. That’s fine, it’s FINE, the water is shallow and I can push us out there. So I get out. No problem. I start to push, which is challenging, but we’re halfway there already. 15 feet. 10 feet. I take a step, a slow and deliberate step forward.

And sink.

To my waistline. I sink through the mud from ankle-deep to my waistline in one step. Of course my calf-high Xtratuffs boots immediately flood with freezing cold water.

Perfect.

Well now we are committed, so I’m like FINE, and take three more big steps into the water, flooding my other boot, wrestling the kayak free of the reeds before tossing myself butt-first into the kayak and dumping out my boots of muddy lake water before actually getting situated and paddling.

But hey, now at least we are ACTUALLY underway.

Now the fun actually begins. This was fantastic. This was a core memory. Calen and I paddled around the lake, taking in the views, exploring this really cool cove that kept going on and on until it basically turned into a creek and we had to turn around, chatting, making jokes, having great conversations. I. Loved. It. 

Then Calen and I moored up on this little shallow shore we found, sans mud and reeds, and Brad and Cam hiked over to it and took their turn on the kayak while Calen explored and I laid my sopping wet washcloths socks out on a rock to almost sort of dry-ish. Then Brad got out and the boys went out on their own, which was it's own form of entertainment, arguing with each other at who was splashing who with a paddle and Calen trying to call out cadence to get them to row in a straight line while Camden called out random words over him to mess him up, because of course he would. 

After a couple hours of tooling around on the lake, we decided we should probably pack up and head home in order to get some dinner. 

After a couple hours of tooling around, we decided to turn in and pack up and get ready to NOT cook for Mother’s Day. There aren’t many restaurants here in Kodiak, but I decided I wanted sushi from the one and only sushi place, Hanna (or Powerhouse, if you’re a true local). Now I’m no first timer adult - eating out on Mother’s Day is busy and far too peopley, so I suggested we just order take out. So Brad calls. Busy signal.

Side note - it’s the year 2022. How does a business, let alone a BUSY business, not have call waiting? A second line? Just saying. 

So he calls again. Busy signal. A third time, and it says some automated “this phone line is no longer in service” or some insulting error like that. A fourth call and a repeat error, so we said screw it. Let’s get Noodles. Brad calls. No answer. He gets frustrated and says “it’s fine I’ll just go into town and grab it.” So he leaves at 6pm. 

Thirty minutes later and he calls and says it’s going to be an hour and 15 minute wait. For takeout? No. NO. I’m hangry, it’s basically the middle of the night, I’m not interested. He says he’s already paid and placed the order. I said well you best cancel it.

So twenty minutes later he managed to cancel it. He comes home and we have peanut butter and jelly for Mother’s Day dinner.

Fitting, isn’t it. 

But that’s not the end.

I post my happy pictures of us on the lake on social media. Get a text from a Coastie on duty. “Ummm, you might want to know that you’re not allowed to be on the water on Lake Louise.” And I go “why-ever the heck not?” And she goes “wellllll, the rumor is there are unexploded ordinances in the water.”

Of course there was.

I mean, it wouldn’t be a GOOD adventure if we didn’t do something slightly unauthorized, right?

I call this day Happy Accidents, because you either laugh or cry.