Project Time

The boys aren't scheduled for any camps during the last two weeks of August, so, with Noriko neck-deep in tenure file-preparation work, I was hoping to do something that I called "Daddy Camp." I was hoping to do one relatively ambitious thing a day. I had five things in mind: bike trips, hikes, geocaching, boogie boarding and then practice at ball sports that would be useful for P.E. at school.

But then, the day before Daddy Camp was supposed to begin, Peter hurt his foot. It wasn't anything that called for a trip to the doctor. Just a deep bruise. But it hobbled him badly enough that our enthusiasm for adventure was sapped. We also did a family trip to REI (really, to Old Navy) to buy the boys some new clothes for the school year. At REI I had a chance to test out my growing sense that Peter's bike is too small for him. And, indeed, it appears that it is time to bring him up a size. 

So, the hurt foot put the kaibosh on hiking and geocaching and the bike size issue dampened my expectations for biking. In the end we went boogie boarding twice, but the trips were more like our customary late afternoon trips, rather than an actual outing. 

As we sat about feeling Peter's pain, it struck me that I'd been thinking about Daddy Camp in very simple terms. Just a series of sporting events. I recalled that one of the things the boys seemed to do a lot at their camps this summer was art projects. I never seem to be able to remember that, on a day to day basis, but they really do like that. So I began to think about things that we can do that would be creative or constructive.

I quickly hit on a plan. We have a lot of cds housed in boxes throughout the house, or piled up obtrusively in random spots. They've been stored in those places because we never had a cd storage case that could hold all of them. Noriko had bought one or two small ones over the years, as well as stacked plastic drawers, but none of these options really worked either efficiently or effectively (that is, it didn't mean greater access to our cds). I figured we could build a cd case for the hallway outside our bedroom that could store all of our cds without blocking any passageways.

So the boys and I drew up a plan and went to the lumber yard to buy the (precut) lumber (I didn't want to introduce power saws to the project and I couldn't fit the wood in the car otherwise). When we got home, the boys measured out the spots for the shelves on the risers. They drilled the pilot holes for the screws. They screwed in the shelves (I finished sinking them) and then they painted and decorated the shelves (lime green paint and musical note stickers). As a man who was formerly obsessed with his record collection, I reserved the placement of the cds to myself.

The lumber yard messed up the cuts of the shelves (they are off, from longest to shortest, by a quarter inch), so it isn't the prettiest thing to look at. But it is out of public view and the boys are very proud of their achievement anyway.

So am I.

Next up: a chicken coop!

Boogie Boarding

End of a day. Broken leash for Peter.

We've been having a lot of fun at Twin Lakes beach this summer.

We haven't gone out as much as I'd like to because Peter's thrice-weekly swim team practice eats into our preferred boarding hours. Our preferred time is late in the afternoon, usually after 6:30 pm. The parking in the area can be very hard even during weekdays, but after 6:30 most people have headed home (although the evening patrons of the Crow's Nest roll in). But we make it out there about twice a week, and that's pretty good.

As we looked at the beginning of the boarding season, around late April, Peter needed a new wetsuit and a new board. I decided that I should go ahead and get myself a suit too. Sammy would get the second child's hand-me-down of Peter's first wet suit, a short-sleeved, short-legged number that gives a few more minutes of comfort in our cold waters than his regular bathing suit. Since Sammy was still obstinate about not getting his head or face wet, this seemed seemed sufficient.

Heading out.

The big advance this season has been getting Sammy to ride. He's not actually riding a board all by himself (the two efforts I've made at that—putting him on a board, standing to the side and giving him a push when a small wave comes in—have both ended in unhappy face plants). Instead, Sammy hops up on my back and we ride the wave in double-decker style. The first few times our rides ended when Sammy got a head-soaking in waves that were a bit bigger than I thought. Once a very big wave hit me so hard as I was walking out to a slightly deeper spot (so we could ride on water rather than sand) that it knocked me over backward, right on top of Sammy. But now that Sammy is taking swimming lessons and has gotten enthusiastic about going under water, our rides have gotten more adventurous. Wearing goggles also helps.

In the churn. The waves are often much bigger than this.

These days Sammy and I try to catch a wave at its crest, rather than in its after-break churn. We have been thoroughly soaked a number of times, but Sammy holds on tight. Some of our best rides have been tandem with Peter. We all catch a wave and as we cruise in toward the beach, Peter and I veer toward each other and we all link arms. More recently, Peter has taken to hitch-hiking. As Sammy and I roar past him in a churn, Peter, who has just completed his own ride and is standing closer to shore, runs in close and dives to catch my bicep to hold on for one more short ride. It is a move made for injury, but I have to admit that it was pretty cool how he has pulled it off a couple of times.

Sammy is also picking up on the dare devil action. These days, as our ride stabilizes out of the first churn, Sammy sits up and rides me like a horse, gripping with his skinny legs, arms raised above his head, shouting, "Yee-haw!"

A satisfied Sammy at the end of the ride.

Usually we ride until the sun goes down. Sometimes, wet, sandy and shivering, we stop off for nachos on the way home. In the car, I dial Noriko, hand the phone to Sammy and he shouts, "Fire up the bath, Mom!"

(Thanks to Mitch for taking the photos.)