The World of Boys

I grew up in a house with girls.  I never had a brother or cousins that lived close by.  So I don't have much, if any, experience with little boys.  Porter, for the most part, is pretty mellow and easy going, and I haven't struggled much with the male part of his nature.  But I did find this drawing of his the other day:

I'm not sure how well it will show up here, but it involves violence of many kinds.  And includes his sister.  He was impressed with himself and thought it was funny and fairly unremarkable.  Bryce and I puzzled over it though with half nervous laughter, wondering if we should be worried or what.  I mean, what the hell?  When I was his age, I remember drawing pictures of rainbows and sunshine and an inch of blue sky at the top of every page. 

So I brought it up one day with a couple of friends who both have boys older than Porter.  I described the picture, and they just nodded.  Totally normal boy stuff.  One friend showed me some pictures from her boys that looked amazingly similar, with people falling off cliffs and shooting guns.  I even googled it, and read blog entries just like this one, with people wondering what happened to their sweet boy that only ever watched PBS.  Who knew?  Boys.  It's a whole new world.

Heat Wave

The title pretty much says it all.  Here in southeast Alaska we put up with a whole lot of really awful weather, even in the summer.  There is rain and snow and more rain, and a little more rain.  Last summer, it rained so much that a lot of die-hard Alaskans I know were moping and talking of moving down south.  But then, we had the past two weeks.  Such a stretch of warm, sunny weather that people start getting a little crazy with it.  And really, when your life looks like this, there isn't any other place on God's green earth I would rather be.

The past few days have even gotten above 80 degrees, which I swear feels closer to 100 here.  Yesterday we spent 10 hours at the beach, and I even swam in the ocean, head underwater and all.  But after days and days of boating, bonfires, swimming, playing, and sitting on the beach, I am officially sun burnt and out of clean laundry and groceries.  My kids have gone to bed at 10pm for so many nights in a row, it's starting to seem normal.  And we haven't really had a meal that wasn't hot dogs over the fire or a bag of grapes in eons.  And so today, even though it is another scorcher, we are laying low.  Cleaning the house.  Nursing our sunburns.  Eating real food.  And getting ready for tomorrow.

Also today: dealing with the giant pot half filled with leftover crab cooking water and crab detritus that sat on the deck sweltering all day yesterday and became home to five thousand flies.  Seriously, I'm not sure anything else smells quite like it.  But still loving Alaska.

Honeymoon: Over

So, last week I was basking in the first days of summer glow.  It was nice outside, nice to sleep in, nice not to have a schedule.  I bragged about it.  Of course.

And then on Friday, I took all the kids to Fred Meyer in the afternoon to look at bikes for Porter and pick up a few groceries.  No biggie.  I had been promising this event to Porter for months, and he was super excited.  We picked out a bike, got some food, and made it through the check out.  Then Cedar decided to climb up on the truck ride (thank you so much for this Fred Meyer), which I did not have 50 cents for.  She clung to it for dear life, and after five minutes of pleading and bribing, I had to pry her off, finger by finger.  Which then meant I had to carry her, kicking and screaming, like a sack of potatoes, under one arm.  I pushed the cart with my other hand, and Porter wheeled the bike.  We got out of the door, and Molly had some unknowable crisis, the only solution to which was sitting on the ground and refusing to move while wailing loudly.  Cars were coming, it was pouring rain, and I had no free hand to deal with this situation.  Strangers smiled in pity. 

And just like that, the honeymoon was over.

Also, Monday morning: summer camp.  I am the very last parent to drop their kid off.  At least he was wearing the green t-shirt.  August 20, here we come.

Peace.