One morning we woke up to rain off and on. Feeling damp and cold, a bit of panic set in…how exactly to entertain three kids in a tent all day?? And
WHY didn’t we pack several changes of warm clothes??!?
We killed some time by stopping in at an art festival where we saw a puppet show of some of Aesop’s Fables, all under a large tent. Unfortunately, the rest of the show was out in the open and no one felt like running through the pouring rain from tent to tent. On the way back we stopped at a health food store, to grab some food that didn’t require cooking, there would be no fire that morning. Then I ran into a toy store where I paced the aisles, wracking my brain…what will be our salvation?? What little things can I get, that won’t cost a fortune, but will distract an 8, 6 and 2 yo, confined to a small space for a long period of time??? It was not an easy task! But eventually I grabbed a few simple (and seriously over-priced) things and headed back out.
At one point during the afternoon, when a a friend, who had postponed the trip due to illness, was finally able to arrive, all of the adults went to help her pitch her tent, and I ended up with 10 kids in our tent doing Mad Libs. A whole bunch of rowdy 6 and 8 year olds doing Mad Libs? Crazy stuff I tell you…. I think that the entire camp ground could hear the screaming and laughing. Oh, and the type of answers you get from homeschooled kids? Totally hilarious (well, to me anyway). There were many “stories” that called for the addition of a celebrity. I described a celebrity as a famous person. We ended up with George Washington coaching a basketball game. John Henry as camp consoler. And appearances by Benjamin Franklin and David Attenborough (host of many science documentaries), to name a few. When Steve came back in from helping to get the other family settled, he put in Tom Cruise. Of course, no one else had any clue what he was talking about. As the official explainer of the day (by the way, I think that *I*, for the first time in my life, finally truly under stand the difference between an adjective and an adverb. And all it took was explaining it 60 or 80 times. Hurrah for homeschooling!) I elaborated….”He’s this kind of crazy guy that people used to watch in movies sometimes.” Fairy accurate?
Close to evening the rain finally let up and we took a short trip to the beach before dinner. The premise of said outing was to
watch the waves, but I don’t think that there was a single child in the group that
didn’t get soaked from head to toe. Afterwards there was a lot of dry clothes swapping between the parents, as we sorted through our supplies trying to cover shivering little bodies.
“Do you have anymore dry shirts, say size 6ish?”
“Yeah, but I’m out of pants, do you have any left??”
Sometimes community can be a very useful thing.
Hi, Melody — I really enjoy your blog! And yes, Mad Libs have saved many a vacation for us, too. In fact, my own mother used to rely on them to keep my sister and me entertained on long car trips! Take care…
It’s such a pleasure to read your blog! I just love the ladybug/strawberry plants, the lovely photos of everything… thanks for brightening my day!
Allie