This has been a bit of a difficult month for me. As you know, I sent Micah off to camp (for. five.whole.days) three weeks ago. True to my word, I followed him there after a few days. I told him that, since he was only nine years old (and not ten, like his brothers were when they first went to camp), he could only go on the condition that he let me "stalk" him. I had only stuffed about fifty-three post-it-mommy-love-notes into all the pockets of his pants, his shoes, his bag of toiletries, his Bible, his note book, his hats, his gloves & his underpants. You know, so he wouldn't forget about his mama. Seth & Jarod remembered, fondly, when I did the same thing for them on their first trips to camp. They lovingly recalled reaching into their wallets for soda money, in front of their friends, and pulling out a love note from Mommy. With such sweet memories in mind, they vigorously begged me not to inflict the same fate upon Micah. Their plea fell on deaf ears, as I did not want him to feel unloved! Or to forget about me. Mind you, I know & trust all of the youth leaders & children's ministers in our church. They are absolutely amazing & I appreciate everything that they do for my children. They are such blessings to our family & are truly a special breed of human. But Micah is my baby and, well, I worry. And I missed him. A lot. I don't really look forward to sending any of my children away. Some people think that makes me crazy. I've never disagreed with those people. His camp went Monday through Friday. On Thursday we packed the camper and drove out to Micah's camp ground. I thought he might be home sick by now. I found him in the chapel, watching and performing skits with all his friends. I didn't want to interrupt, so I snuck in quietly and sat down right next to him.
He suddenly looked up, saw me, turned red, gasped, "MOM!" and buried his head in his hands.
I said, "Hi, honey! It's nice to see you too! Are you having fun?"
"YES, MOM." in a whispery kind of hiss.
"Do you want to go camping with us tonight or do you want to stay one more night?"
"STAY. ONE. MORE. NIGHT. MOM."
"Ok, honey! I love you! Bye!"
"BYE, MOM."
So, even though I knew he would really, really miss me & be very, very sad.........I let him stay one more night. We camped in a parking lot about five miles away, picked him up the next day (when all his friends were getting ready to leave as well), and set off to enjoy the rest of our camping trip.
I was happy to have my baby back.
The rest of the week went like this:
Camp fires
Shooting lessons from Daddy
Playing in God's play ground
Nature walks
Pretty flowers
Pretty stream and pretty trees
Crazy-weird-cool trees growing out of other trees. OK. I only saw one of those.
Livin' it up in the wild, dinos & all!
"My nose is right here, mommy."
I love that I can send them to their room, even when we're camping.
Sadly, this trip, Jarod still wasn't able to shoot himself a squirrel for dinner, even though he did pack his special squirrel seasonings in his camp bag, just in case. Maybe next time, buddy. He did shoot some killer paper-wear!
Be vewy, vewy quiet. We're hunting wabbits.
The boys' favorite part of camping, I believe.
Such adventures!!!
This one is my favorite.
And this one.
And this one.
This is my other favorite doggy.
After three days we went home, unpacked, cleaned, did lots & lots & lots & lots & lots & lots of laundry & sent Seth off to camp with his buddies.
Seth came home & the next week, we sent Jarod off to camp with his buddies.
Now everyone is finally home, safe & sound.
For the most part.
