Tag: camp

M had a great time at camp. We picked her up Friday afternoon and, just like last year, she shared every detail of her week for the next 90 minutes as we drove home. Well, this year was a little different since C had been at camp two weeks before and would occasionally interrupt to ask a question or share something from her experience. But, mostly, it was M talking.

Last weekend was also the festival at the church around the corner where the girls went to preschool. We’re usually at the lake that weekend, but with us taking the weekend off, we walked over on Friday night with our neighbors. It’s been at least four years since we went, so this visit was a lot different. In the past S and I took the girls to each ride, monitored their use of tickets and purchases of snacks, etc. This time we turned M and C loose with their buddies and a fistful of ride tickets. L isn’t into big kid rides at all, so S took her to the smaller ones. And my friend next door and I bought a beer, parked ourselves in kind of the middle of the midway, and kept an eye on things.

He and I were thankful our oldest daughters weren’t quite ready to be part of the huge packs of teenagers who stood around together. And we were really glad our girls aren’t wearing shorts that show off their butt cheeks or other clothes that would make us uncomfortable. Seriously, what some of these girls were wearing… Yes, we fully realized we’re turning into old men. At least we’re complaining about what kids wear and not elbowing each other and saying, “Hey, look at that one!” Grumpy old men > Dirty old men.

The fun thing about having teenagers is you can embarrass them. While M and her friend were waiting for the ferris wheel, she kind of gave me a look like “Stop watching us.” So, naturally, I yelled out her name and started waving to her. She rolled her eyes and turned her back on me. No doubt saying, “OHMYGODMYDADISSOWEIRD” to her friend. Good times!

M had a busy day yesterday, too. Off first thing to visit her orthodontist. They took her top wire off then sent us to her dentist to get a filling. On our way out the dentist said, “Yeah, that tooth is pretty messed up. It’s fine for now but after her braces come off we’ll probably need to put a crown on it.” Yikes! Then back to ortho for her regular adjustment. They added the dreaded power chain to her bottom teeth which caused some pain last night. And her face was all swollen from the filling procedure. Can’t wait for her to get up this morning to see how much everything in there hurts. Her teeth are looking good, though. Her front space is already gone after six months. Only 19 or 20 months to go!

Although school is still nine days away our calendar is already filling up. C has been doing summer workouts for cross country for three weeks, but fall practice officially begins tomorrow. Kickball practice starts this week, although M’s team won’t get on the diamond until next week. We just got back from C’s first practice, and L has her first tomorrow. Next week we’ll get kickball game schedules and XC meet lists. And soccer info is only a couple weeks away, so soon our family calendar will be a complete mess. Guarantee we’ll have at least one night with three kickball games at three different schools with XC and soccer practices for the same times.

Well, here we are: the teenage years.

Holy shit!

Thirteen years ago this morning M came into the world, full of drama from the start. It’s a cliche to say something like “and that day, my life changed forever.” But, really, what else can you say? Marriage is a big change in your life. But S and I had also been together three years when we got married. There were some adjustments that came with not having our own apartments anymore. Yet life wasn’t really that different and we knew what we were getting into.

Nothing prepares you for kid number one, though. Every single aspect of your life gets turned completely upside-down. That was even more dramatic for me as M’s birth was the moment I took a big left turn with my career as well. When you add that in, you can argue M’s birth was the biggest moment of my adult life.

She would love having that level of importance.

So who is M at 13? We haven’t noticed any major changes in her personality, attitude, or behavior yet. Sure, she’s moody and emotional and will spend entire days in her room if we don’t force her to come out. If frustrating, that’s still all normal and expected. When motivated, she still gets all wound up about the things that have always wound her up. When we went down to pick C up from camp two weeks ago, M spent two-straight hours talking to me about every single detail of the camp that she remembered from last summer. That kid has always loved to talk. Even though she has grumpy stretches of silence these days, she’ll still talk the life out of you if given the right stimulus.

She is smart – really smart when she wants to be – but often lacks motivation to really use her smarts. That drives me crazy, mostly because it reminds me of myself at her age. She is – as I was – capable of getting straight A’s. But neither of us has the full commitment to do it, slacking off in subjects that don’t interest us completely. Like me she has the uncanny ability to call up detailed memories from long ago. If only she/I could have harnessed that skill for academics!

She’s still loud and obnoxious at times. But she’s also full of life when she’s in a good mood. You want her to tone it down about 10%, but you’re also thrilled that she finds so much excitement in things and wants to share that excitement with others.

She doesn’t have a lot of super close friends, which has always concerned us a little. But, also, she seems to be casual friends with all the girls in her class, from the most to least popular. Every few months it’ll seem like she’s gravitated toward a new friend she talks about most. But there’s never the one friend she wants to hang out with every weekend. Which, at this stage in life, could be a blessing.

Speaking of camp, like last year this will be a quiet birthday in the house because she is at camp. She’s looking forward to the traditional CYO camp birthday celebration: getting thrown into the creek. Although she would be quick to say you don’t actually get thrown in the creek. “You just lay down and they splash you.”

So here we go, with the most fun part of parenting a daughter. The fun has already started, of course. It’s not like some fairy appears on their 13th birthday, waves a magic wand and unleashes the hormones and moods and super dramas that are going to dominate her life for the next decade. But the number does feel like a big change to me. She’s not a kid anymore. She’s not a pre-teen anymore. She’s begun the transition into being a young lady.

Which doesn’t seem possible, 13 years under her belt or not.

This will be a week of catch up. Before I begin diving into all the things that I’m behind on, first a confirmation that yes, I am keeping some casual notes as I watch the Olympics. There will be Olympics posts over the next couple weeks!¹

But now let’s knock out the first, and biggest, piece of catch up: the camps and birthday of two weeks ago.

As you may recall, we dropped M off at summer camp three Sundays ago. I don’t know if it says more about her or about us that we dropped her off with zero concerns. She had never been away from home for that long before. She was 90 minutes away, which isn’t far, but if you’re a nervous parent could seem like across the ocean. But she’s a pretty steady kid who loves new experiences, she was in a safe place, and she had three friends with her. And we’re not nervous parents.

We were able to send her emails during the week, but she could not respond. We could check the camp’s picture site each day and hope to catch a glimpse of M. But other than that, we had no idea how her week was going.

When I crossed the bridge to the main part of camp two Fridays, she was standing there waiting with a big grin on her face. She even gave me a hug, which she doesn’t do often.² But she seemed excited to see me. We grabbed her bags, got in the car, and she started talking. And talking. And talking. She shared every detail of her week at camp in GREAT detail.

We made a quick stop at the lake house to drop off some supplies for the weekend and then headed home. She continued talking. Here’s what they did on Tuesday, here’s what the did on Wednesday. Here is how riding horses was. Here was what climbing the high ropes was like. Here was how dinners in the cafeteria went.

And she kept talking.

Finally, after roughly an hour and ten minutes of continuous talking, she stopped. I glanced over my shoulder and she was slumped over in the middle row. I figured she had talked herself to exhaustion and passed out.

Nope. After about 30 seconds of rest, she popped back up and started talking again. I had to laugh. Classic M, cataloging every detail of an experience and then being able to relay them all to anyone willing to listen. I heard several of these stories many times over the next few days as the family gathered and a new relative asked, “So, how was camp?”

She had a great time. They had tough weather – it was dreadfully hot a couple days, and it rained nearly three inches in three hours another day – but that didn’t interfere in too many of their scheduled activities. She made some new friends. Got along well with her cabin mates and counsellors. She tried some new things. It was a very good week.

While she was gone, she turned 12. Which means we are on the verge of big things. She starts middle school this week. Teenagedom officially starts in a year.

Over the past year we’ve begun to see some physical changes in her. She seems taller to us, although she’s still right in the middle of her class in terms of height. She’s all legs, though, so it seems like there’s a growth spurt in her future. She’s getting awfully close to passing S in height, something that should happen before the end of the year. Those clear physical markers of young kiddom are rapidly disappearing.

Emotionally and maturity-wise, she’s the classic preteen, mixing moments of absolutely maddening immaturity with others that make us proud of how independent and composed she can be. Rumor has it these swings get worse and worse over the next few years. Can anyone confirm?

As I say in each of these, M and I butt heads more than I do with either of her sisters. Some of that is birth order and our expectations for her. Some of that is because her personality is closest to mine. I’ve been trying hard to hang on to, and acknowledge to her, the moments where she makes me proud, though. And, as always, she’s the kid I have the least concerns about when I think of her long-term future. She’s independent, smart, thoughtful, and unafraid to voice her opinion. There are going to be a lot of rough patches on the road, but she’s going to land on her feet at the end.

C and L got to go to art camp while M was away. This was a three-hour, daily event taught by the mother of one of L’s best friends. C was the oldest kid there, but as our most artistic kid, she absolutely loved it. L had three of her best buddies from school in the class with her, so she had a great time, too.

On the first morning when I dropped them off, L’s three friends surrounded her and engaged in a group hug.³ C stood kind of awkwardly behind them and one of L’s buddies came over and said, “Let me give you a hug, I don’t want you to feel left out.” Loved that!

The girls had fun, brought home some fantastic artwork, and I had a few hours to myself for a week in which I could theoretically accomplish things, although I got very little done.