Summer 2015: Camp Happy Update

Clear water swimming is a lot less stressful than ocean water swimming. (Except when your son yells “Mom, I found an underwater cave!” and you tell him not to swim through it and he already did. That’s stressful, maybe even more than the thought of a shark lurking in the surf.) We have enjoyed swimming holes and rainbow trout nibbling our toes and water so clear we can see forty feet down. And we learned that lake hair is much better for our hair than beach hair. But not as cute.

The summer pool membership was a good call. Mostly because they serve booze there.

I came out large against camps and our kids only did a few. For the most part, it was a good call. We really got into a summer rhythm of going to bed late and sleeping later. There were lots of activities up my sleeve that we never even had to try, like the $2 summer movies or the local kid’s museum. However, I was really ready for school to start yesterday. Really, really ready. I need a break from refereeing Every. Waking. Moment.

There were lots of playdates. I enjoyed getting to know the moms better. We bonded over muffins and floaties and even a camping trip. There are some rock star moms here in our valley.

This was a playdate. At a swimming hole! Oregon rocks!

In August, there will be smoke in the valley. And when I say smoke, I’m talking 31 days straight. Not like in So Cal, when the smoke can hang out for three or four days and then the wind shifts and blows it all back to Arizona. It just sat there for weeks and weeks. Can’t see across the valley bad. Can’t go outside bad. Shouldn’t be having football practice but the season starts in two weeks so what are you gonna do bad. Bad.

We did a lot of reading. I am three books into the Clan of the Cave Bear series and have three Alice Hoffman books waiting on the bench. I love me some Alice Hoffman. Gabriel highly recommends the Wings of Fire series for boys his age (9-12). He’s read it twice this summer, he loved it so much. Kate continues to believe that reading is over-rated, but she liked her Frannie K. Stein required reading book well enough.

Once Upon a Time is a really good show. Not really, but it’s been my summer TV binge and I’m Hook’d.

The garden. The garden is a whole other post which I don’t have time to write because I have one million tomatoes to turn into sauce. And I’m nervous about that because there have been two canning fails over the last few weeks. I’m shook.

The seals blew on these red hots apples. They aren't supposed to float. And they surely are not supposed to be up side down. — The seals blew on these red hots apples. They aren’t supposed to float. And they surely are not supposed to be up side down.

The bottom of the jar blew out of this one. What??? — The bottom of the jar blew out of this one. I don’t even know…

We have one last camping trip this weekend, and then we say goodbye to summer 2015, one of our best yet! Next up: 100 Days of Holidays!

Only 115 days until Christmas!

The Dog Who Cried Monster

We have these two dogs.

Sugar is 12 and the greatest dog in the history of dogs. Seriously.

Lizzie is almost 3. She is not the greatest dog. She is not even the greatest basset hound. She has a very pure heart, but she’s 70 lbs of ready, fire, aim.

She and Sugar rarely see eye to eye and as Sugar gets older and more arthritic, Lizzie has begun to assert her place in the pack.

Shea is not having this. Sugar is his dog and he will fight to preserve her place. Even though I have told him that dogs do this. The leadership naturally passes to the younger dog. It’s useless for us to interfere. There’s nothing we can say or do.

This does not stop him from trying.

So when Lizzie started barking at Sugar constantly last weekend, Shea had no patience.

Lizzie barked at Sugar to get up from her bed. Shea yelled at Lizzie to stop.

Lizzie barked from the top of the stairs at Sugar down at the bottom. Sugar whined back and Shea chased Lizzie down the stairs and out the doggie door.

Lizzie howled from downstairs at Sugar asleep in her bed. Over and over and over. “She needs to leave Sugar alone” Shea said. But I wasn’t sure that was it.

I did a once over on the floors. Sugar has been known to have accidents and Lizzie has been known to tattle on her.

I checked their food and water. I fed them. We have to separate them and this resulted in Lizzie barking frantically at the closed door where Sugar was eating.

I told Shea “She’s not barking at Sugar. She’s trying to tell us something.”

So Shea checked the backyard for signs of critters, invaders, space aliens. Nothing.

This went on for four days.

Yesterday afternoon, Lizzie set up a giant fuss in the girls’ room. I finally called her up the stairs and she came. But then she whined at Sugar in her bed for five minutes until I made Gabriel take her for a walk.

Last night she did it again. And let me just say again, she’s a basset hound. She only has one volume: full-throated. It reverberates through the body.

I’d had enough. Off I stomped down the stairs.

Lizzie was on pointe in the doorway of the girls’ room. That gave me pause.

When I stepped into the room, she gave one last bark and bolted.

Holy moly, I thought. What’s in here?

Then I saw it.

When Lizzie was barking at Sugar to get out of her bed, what she was really saying was “DUDE! There’s something down there!!! Get up!! I don’t know what it is!! Get up! Get up! Get up!”

Then “It’s right there. Right there. RIGHT. THERE. Be careful. But get it! Get it! Get it!”

And “PEOPLE. I don’t want food. There is a thing in the house that is going to eat the children if you don’t get it right now!!!!

She was right.

Beware the sheepskin.

My inlaws gave it to the kids on Sunday. Since then it has been spread out and folded up in different places all over the house. At one point Gabe put it on and chased his sisters around.

To a dopey dog with a small brain, I’m sure it looked like a monster. A monster that moved, curled up on the couch and slept on the floor in the girls room.

DANGER.

Poor thing. Just trying to keep us all safe.

Shea has apologized.

And I’m pretty sure that Sugar laughed herself to sleep.

Sugar is not scared of the sheepskin monster.

Gummy Bear Stew

George is a legitimate Oregon outdoorsman.

He fishes. He crabs. He hikes. He hunts.

And he is the inventor of Gummy Bear Stew, which like all good ideas, was born from a mix of necessity and ingenuity.

Last summer, George took his son Jack and his nephew Hayden on a weekend camping trip. They unpacked the tent, the clothes, the sleeping bags and the camp stove. Then they unpacked the beer and the gummy bears and rested.

They are male, after all.

When George went back to unpack the food for dinner, he realized that somehow his keys had gotten locked in his truck.

He could have called his wife Angie, but it was getting dark.

So first, he built a fire. Then he drank some more beer. Then he cut the tops off the cans and turned them upside down.

He melted the gummy bears in the bottoms of the cans, stuck a spoon it in and called it dinner.

If you’re thinking Ewwwwww, I’m with you.

But the children must be fed.

We camped with George and Angie this weekend, and you better know Gummy Bear Stew was on the menu. Any kind of candy is fair game. Our stew had Gummy Bears, Sour Patch Kids, Rolos and marshmallows.

This is not haute cuisine. And it tastes about how you imagine—like a melted Halloween candy bowl. If you don’t eat it fast enough, it hardens into a Gummy Bear Stew lollipop. One taste and my teeth almost fell out.

But camping moms know that the food rules are a wee bit different in the woods. And not 20 minutes earlier I was the mom who yelled “Don’t give me that natural bug spray crap! The baby needs DEET!!! NOW!!!”

The kids ate that stuff up. And then bounced off into the woods with flashlights to search for windigos and stump trolls, too amped up on liquid sugar to be scared.

Dishes

At some point in my growing up years, the household chores got divided along gender lines.

My brothers did all things outside and trash related. I was in charge of the kitchen.

Although I do find immense satisfaction in a completely clean kitchen, and no one loads a dishwasher like I can, there were moments when I was 16 that I hated it. I wanted to be in charge of trash, something that happened every other day, but my brothers were no one’s fool.

When I came back home for my first college break, they gleefully stepped aside so I could resume my duties. I wanted to at least share them with whoever had been in charge of the dishes while I was gone, but nothing doing. “It’s your job” my brother said, patting me on the back, grabbing a soda and heading for the family room.

I made a vow that in my own family, things were going to be different. None of this genderized division of labor in my home!

I thought of this last night as Shea and I made our way through For Better And For Ever, a marriage preparation guide for engaged couples. We are training to join our parish’s sponsor program, so we need to go through the book ourselves to prepare to help others navigate the pretty tough topics and questions.

This is an interesting thing to do after ten years of marriage.

Somewhere, we have similar books from our Engaged Encounter weekend. I kept them because wouldn’t it be fun to look at them in the future and remember where we started?

Yeah, or scary.

Because we were so young. And idealistic. And we really had no idea what was going to happen next.

Take for instance the division of duties. I was determined we were going to share it all. No traditional 1950s housewife over here.

Shea does dishes. I do dishes. The rule generally is the person who didn’t cook cleans the kitchen. The truth is that he will offer to do the dishes when I am just too tired. And he did them every night of all three pregnancies. I keep the kitchen clean during the day because I’m home. It’s a pretty fair trade. We both like a clean kitchen.

But I do not take out the trash. Or pick up the poops. Or water the garden, pull weeds or mow.

I make sure that Gardener Cory shows up to mow, so that’s something.

I do laundry, pay bills, vacuum and yell at the kids until they dust. I make beds and clean bathrooms and grocery shop. I master the coupon apps. I shop for shoes and clothes and school supplies. I do doctor’s appointments and manage the family calendar. I take care of sick kids and sick dogs.

Shea brings home the bacon. This is a big deal. It’s what keeps me at home, running the Command Center.

I am very happy with this arrangement. Shea is very happy. But last night we realized that we have the very thing I was determined not to have—a fairly traditional marriage.

Why wasn’t I going to have it, again?

I can’t remember.

And there you have it.

Guest Post: Unashamed by Jennifer

Good morning friends. Our support of Maternal Mental Health Awareness Month continues today with a guest post from our good friend Jennifer.

My name is Jennifer, and I struggle with depression.

I have a family history with mental health issues and a personal history of depression from before I had children. Because of my risk factors, my husband, Nate, and I were proactive with a plan to ward off postpartum depression after the birth of my first son. Our efforts paid off and we were successful. Unfortunately, after my second son was born I developed post-partum depression. He is almost two years old and I still struggle.

I think that because I did well mentally after the birth of my first son, Jacob, I let my guard down with my second son, Andrew. I did not have a plan in place for the post partum period when he was born. Andrew was born at 36 weeks gestation and this was a factor that contributed to my PPD. Though I was technically in labor, the hospital let Nate and I choose whether to go home or have my water broken. For various reasons we chose the latter. Andrew’s birth was very quick and he was small so he ended up being born with fluid in his lungs (Transient Tachypnea of the Newborn) and became a NICU baby. He spent a week there before being discharged. Sometimes I still catch myself playing the “what if” game. I know it’s an exercise in futility but I can’t help it. I will never know if his NICU stay could have been avoided had I’d just gone home that day instead of having my water broken. The guilt over our decision was something that really ate away at me when Andrew was a baby.

I turned 30 when Andrew was not quite two months old and I was not feeling it. Not because I was dreading turning 30, but because I was just starting to admit to myself that perhaps I was experiencing more than baby blues. I just wasn’t in a celebratory place. I remember telling Nate that I feared I had PPD but as I told him I also tried to minimize my feelings. I was ashamed of the place I was in. I think our conversation alerted my husband to the fact that I might be having a problem but we both were in a state of denial over it.

The height of my PPD was when Andrew was four months old, both boys were sick, Nate was working 80-hour work weeks, and Andrew would not take a bottle. I think his refusal of the bottle, and my subsequent inability to get a break, was a big factor in the severity of my PPD. Part of me began to resent nursing Andrew because I felt leashed to him and, as vicious cycles go, I would then be consumed with guilt for feeling that way. As I took care of my sons I alternated between constantly wanting to take a nap (something my well intentioned mother encouraged until I told her it was because I was depressed) and envisioning myself getting up and walking out the door while leaving the boys behind. I never wanted to hurt them or myself but the vision of walking out was so very real that I could practically feel the action of doing it. And that scared me. A lot. It was my sharing this impulse that made Nate truly understand that I was having a problem. Once he saw this, he immediately went into action mode and together we changed things to make sure I was getting a break, getting exercise, and other little things that did make a difference. Having the number to a Postpartum Support International coordinator ready on my phone helped too though I never ended up calling. In a strange way, simply having the number at my fingertips was enough.

December 2013 was my low point and through a lot of work and support from Nate, family, and friends, I am doing better. I still have days and weeks where I am inexplicably sad but I’m a work in progress. I have my list of things that help ward off my depression (exercise and duty free time are most helpful) and I know my red flags that signal the clouds are rolling in. I’ve also decided that I need to see a counselor. I’m doing these things to keep myself healthy and to help my family be happier. But I’m also trying to be proactive about my mental health because I have a strong desire for a third child and I am afraid I’ll have PPD again. I’m not ashamed of my history, but I don’t want to be caught unprepared again.

I also want to say this. If you think you may be experiencing PPD, don’t try to downplay it. Your feelings are important and you need to be heard. Tell people, a lot of people. I ended up telling a lot of people what I was experiencing and I’m glad. Sharing my story created a new village for me to lean on and be part of. On the flip side, if someone you know tells you they “may be” having baby blues or PPD, drop everything and listen. Take them seriously and get them help. Don’t assume someone else will.

The struggle is real but we do not need to struggle alone.

If you need immediate help, please call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

If you are looking for pregnancy or postpartum support and local resources, please call or email us:

Call PSI Warmline (English & Spanish) 1-800-944-4PPD (4773)

Email support@postpartum.net

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: