Summer Trips 2023 II

 

When it looked like it was going to be a problem with timing and doing a long road trip to "the bridge" (mysterious music), I hunted around for a nicer, closer outing where we could go. 

It is easier to make a sightseeing trip in Europe. Every little hamlet, village and town has some plaque or museum or historical marking that you can go anywhere for a small outing to see and learn and be productive.  the US and A...?  That said, there are quite a few in Northern Michigan its just that most of them are more like 2-3 hours of driving away. But if you only need a nice walk in the forests with some history attached, then there are many if you do a little research.  That is why it was nice to find the HARTWICK PINES STATE PARK with BOTH nice woods walking and historical content.  

The sad reality of northern Michigan is that its history and nature were nearly wiped out of existence in the late 19th century by logging.  Hartwick Pines State park is interesting because it has some of the only "old growth" trees left in the entire State.  There is another place in southern Michigan too, but that is about it in the lower peninsula.  In Hartwick there is a nice small walk among the huge old growth pines.  These are trees which have existed since BEFORE the revolutionary war.  "Stretching skyward for 120 feet and more, the giant pines are the only remnants of what Michigan looked like before the arrival of men with axes."

There are historical buildings in the park showing how the loggers lived and there are nice walks of varying lengths in the woods.  We took a nice walk in the forest beyond the old growth path. The only thing was it was a very hot and humid day and this prompted no small amount of complaining from my daughters.  I always try to make the best of a situation and enjoyed the nature and ignored the heat, but maybe that comes with age and kids ,especially teenagers, whine about anything bad, moreso if it is organized by a parent.  

The nature was nice and the old growth impressive.  I was however saddened by the historical element.  I guess you have to put things in context.  Most people back then (second half of the 19th century) lived in standards way below what we have now of course, but it seemed both very sad the way the loggers lived at their jobs they worked at.  While I can not sit in their stools and watch with their eyes, it seemed like they were small cogs in the machine which was very oppressive in those days.  They worked hard and gained little and helped destroy the natural order of life with no plan of sustainability or regrowth.  Just cut and ship, move on to the next forest.  Something like the Lorax by Dr. Seuss which is kind of how it ended up.  

I have learned that many of those trees helped to rebuild Chicago after the great Chicago fire.  Others built up the prairie land and North and South Dakota for settlers.  Judge the history as you want, good and bad.

I dont think my kids gained this impression. They were just concerned with getting the walk done and getting to an air conditioned car.  Paradoxically a couple hours later we had a huge 10 minute downpour which knocked branches down and even rolled a truck off the street we were driving on into the gutter and woods.  

In retrospect I think about that day and outing quite a lot and am proud of myself for organizing an educational outing and nice nature walk for my kids. And then we had a nice lunch planned afterwards. At the time I was thinking it was a disaster.  Even the planned lunch we had in a restaurant we had gotten food from 2 years ago during the covid summer didnt turn out well. The chicken wings were small, the dumplings were not "Japanese" as my daughter thought they would be and my daughter did not like sitting in this establishment with these people.  She would rather have taken out. Thus she was complaining about that too.  It all made me wonder why I should try?   

We havent seen my mother, their grandmother, since 2019.  After that year of course was covid in 2021 and 2020.  And in 2022 we just didnt make the visit.  Now we did.  But, the problem is, and this is the problem with all my outings and journeys, is I got travel anxiety.  This was a big outing with a plane down south. I had to book the plane AND the shuttle from the airport to the house of my mother. 

This doesnt have much to do with being a father, it has more to do with phobias I
have which further cramps my father abilities.  Booking a plane and stuff having to do with a journey takes me several hours.  Not only the looking and comparing prices but the wondering and pausing.  Sometimes I wonder if it is just easier to forget it.  And when the trip seems to be a disaster at the time (like the Hartwick Pines visit) you procrastinate more.  

Needless to say I did it all.  I booked everthing. We made the trip. We saw my Mother once again which was very nice for all.  It was a short visit, but it was severely hot where we were with her and really all we could do was stay inside and be with my Mother, which was kind of the point.  I miss my mother the way she used to be and it scares me a little the coming of time, the time passing and things aint the way they used to be.  I guess my Mother is golden in that way that she is able to live in the present and enjoy each day on its own merit and not compared with the past and "what it used to be".  She is happy with each day.  I guess I dont take after her in that respect.  

But I digress to some unknown point. 

I was just happy that the trips were accomplished.  Because it doesnt seem like the more you do, the easier it becomes.  It seems like a tough fight to rewire your brain and abilities to be able to do each one.  Is it possible to rewire the brain on this aspect? 

I think when we got back from visiting mother (grandmother) we only had one more week vacation, so my anxiety started again. 

I am trying to come to some big moral or sumptuous ending to this post, but nothing comes to mind.  Cant we accept people for their different abilities and their strengths and weaknesses?  My strength is someone elses weak point and vice versa. It is a lesson in Ricardos comparative advantages theory.  (Need you ask?).  In the meanwhile I have to work on my weaknesses, this is true. 

In the end, I organized some outings and despite whether I thought they were good or bad, they happened with some relative success. Some were better than others, but they all came off.  Maybe next year we can make it to the bridge.  

Summer Trips 2023 I

This vs

This will probably be a boring post and very banal.  I dont care. All along I tell people this is just my personal journal of being a father as my kids grow up, made public.  If you come and read it, great, thanks. I appreciate it. If no one does, fine also.  Everybody thinks and often attacks a banal life as bondage and or boring. I dont. I think it is natural. And boring is a matter of perspective. I could never ever be bored in my life. Anyway... here we are: 

This

As I said in my last post, I dont like to go on so many trips.  My wife does that. I get to a place and thats it.  Stay there, take it easy, sleep late and read a book on the dock. Jesus, I got a beautiful lake in front of my nose, I go swimming right here. Everybody comes here, why should I go someplace else when I am here?   BUT, with such a long vacation you HAVE to do some trips.  

"Trips" is the wrong word.  Moving or driving is more like it.  Hey when you live in the woods and are ten miles away from any town, any outing is a small trip.  

Some of our past small trips cant happen anymore because I guess sorry to say my daughters have grown out of them.  I dont see why they have to be too old for the splash pad, but well, we dont go there I guess because the laundromat is closed over there now.  The splash pad in Kingsley is great. I wrote about that one once. 

We made two drivings on Sundays to see the "Barbenheimer" movies.  We made drivings to buy clothes a couple times. Yup, that is considered an "outing", our moving and doing something for some day.  For some reason my older daughter wanted to go to Target and Walmart to see the great American buying malls.  We went to both.  

Doing the grocery shopping is a great small outing. When you live in the city you can walk to the grocery any and every day to get whatever you lack.  But when you live in the woods with a "longish" drive to town, you get everything in one or two shoppings a week.  Its like commando patrol this year.  One girl goes over to aisle 4 to get the juices and milk and one girl goes to aisle 2 to get the canned goods and cookies.  I stay in aisle one to get fruits and vegetables.  For some reason grocery shopping is much more fun in the summer doing these big shoppings and getting lots of food.  I do have a budget, but I think we went over the budget this year on food.  It was usually about 20 bucks more or so over from what I estimated before going.  Rats.  

A nice regular outing we do several times in the summer is to the local branch of the public library.  I think I have mentioned this spot before in other summers. I cannot deny its importance and fun.  

As soon as we can when we get to our vacation spot we go to the library for books.  Each of us takes out at least 7 books for trying or a bunch in a series we hope we will get to reading.  We go to the library for books at least once a week and it is great that even on this out of the way corner of the state they can get so many books through loan from other libraries.  I think the library has been an important pillar all my summers from when I was a small tot to this summer. And it has been for my daughters too, although this summer I was quite dismayed that my older daughter did more "work" on tik tok and social sites than reading.  If this is a trend among young people, a switch from reading books, to just mindlessly reading social sites and looking at tik tok..... we will be in a very dark period for kids very soon, with no creativity and brain ability lessened from the lack of reading. Tell me it aint so. 

In addition to getting books from the library, the local branch organizes many arts and crafts days too. Every year in the summer.  We never fail to go to the rock painting day and in a past year that produced an incredible painting on a rock from my older daughter. Sadly this year she didnt like her painting (of a Hello Kitty take off) and erased the cat prompting both me and the librarian organizer to exclaim, "Noooooo".  

We also did tie dyeing and my t shirt came out quite well. I have never done that before and it is a shame as it is quite easy. I guess to make the really impressive designs you have to be doing it for some time. But none is a loser.   

These were all great little outings which gets us doing something during the day if we dont have a reading day, which was impossible this year as my older daughter would just look at her telephone all day.  Getting out for a little trip got her off her phone even if it was just to do grocery shopping.  

I understand that you might be confused thinking that these are not "trips" in the usual sense of going on an outing, but yes and no, yes they are.  When you add up all these little trips and that we have to plan them and the clothes trips can take three to four hours, it is the same as a sightseeing trip which will take that long too.  Granted they are not really educational (well the library trips are) they are more functional.  But when you finish dinner in the night and ask each other "what are we going to do tomorrow" and I say or my daughter says " we need to do clothes shopping" well then that is the plan for tomorrow and what will take up a big planned chunk of the day. Or we might plan to get subs for lunch and that will involve a walk along the river too which is a nice planned outing.   We have to put it in the schedule just like a sightseeing trip. I think even my wife will stay home some weekends when she has to buy clothes or visit her Mothers or go to Ikea.  It is the planned weekend "trip" just like an educational sightseeing trip, but again, it is functional not so much the educational.    But let me get to the sightseeing trip(s) now in part two.  

I have said, I prefer to listen to music without singers, but it doesnt have to be electronic music.  The Avengers VI "real cool hits"  really real surf music, for instance is a classic which i listened to this time while writing. Its on Sympathy for the Record Industry (SFRI) records.  

 

Big Fat Lazy Summer (2023)

 Every summer is different.  What can I say?   Two summers ago we played Monopoly constantly in the summer.  When one game finished, we started a new one.  This summer we played one game of Monopoly

 I dont know, maybe it is taste, maybe it is age.  

Last summer I recall my daughters were sleeping till around 10 or 10.30 and I must have been rowing from 10 or so because they would be asleep when I left, but awake when I got back.  

This summer was different again.  

It had been my plan to go rowing and come back and eat breakfast and we would

have an outing from around 11am till 4 in the afternoon or something.  Maybe eat lunch out.  Well, you know what they say about plans:  Man plans, God laughs... is that how it goes? 

The thing is, my daughters were sleeping till at least noon, sometimes more, till 1pm.  Now how did that happen?  And am I a bad father for letting that happen? 

Two things.  1. I think sleep is a good thing especially for teen agers.  They also say that TOO MUCH sleep is not good for you, but I would rather err with too much sleep rather than too little sleep.  And what is too much sleep?  More than ten hours?  I dont know.  You remember that experiment where the men lived in the caves with no light and their bodys naturally slept for twelve hours? So they figured that at some point in our history, pre pre pre pre industrialization, the circadian sleep rhythms of humans was twelve hours.  So, More than twelve hours is too much.  But actually i have heard that more than ten hours is too much. They were getting 10 to 12 hours of sleep.  I was hoping their brains were growing growing growing in that time, as the brain is usually growing the most during sleep in teen agers.  You can correct me if I am way wrong.. 

2.  Its the summer.  So what if they sleep till noon or 1pm.  I mean they are missing a nice part of the day in the morning, but we arent really morning people, although that  can change. Essentially, they were going to bed around 1am and sleeping 11 hours or so.  Big deal.  If they werent allowed to get a good good sleep in the summer, when can they?  Teenagers need sleep.  Summer and sleep can go together. 

I must say that it crimped my plans of making road trips of any size besides to the grocery store or the library or small outings.  Even a movie on Sunday at 3pm had to be planned well.  But again, I say, let them eat cake, I mean let them sleep.  I am not a military type guy, rise and shine at 5am.  And, as I said, summer is summer. Summer is the time to do it the way we want to. 

My wife is the planner and "lets get up and go on the outing".  I am sort of the opposite, although I do appreciate the sightseeing and when something is organized, I wont shy from it.  But, I figure my wife will take them on some trips. We are here, and this is the sort of laid back, take it easy, do our traditions, part of the summer.  

So.... they were sleeping till noon.  We always had a good time in the evening, watching our TV, sometimes going down to the dock to watch the stars.  One daughter and I watched the meteor shower in mid August and saw 5 meteors fly across the sky.  In the darkness, the really big fish come out and jump up to catch a fly and you hear big splashes once in a while on the lake.  But the night star sky is amazing in the woods with so many stars. And ever since watching the original Star Trek series again, I have a renewed respect for the Milky Way galaxy and all that is out there, just in our galaxy.  When I look up at the night sky, I can think of it as "our" galaxy that we have to find out about. 

But back to the sleeping. So, it was rather a downtempo summer with not a lot happening, but I was not dejected.  We still did a lot.  Thanks to all who helped, including our trip to my mother who we havent seen since 2019 (largely because of covid), our trip to the state park, and of course the local branch of our public library who every year put on summer activities several times a week including rock painting and this year tie dyeing.  

 Really, the loss of the morning hours, well who knows what we would have been doing if we hadnt been sleeping? Probably just the same things as we did in the evening, besides watching the night sky. My friend at another cottage got up at 8am or earlier and he would mess around on his computer and then take a nap sometime in the day, even later in the morning. So what is the difference? I let them sleep. Leave me a note if you think I did it wrong.  

It is the beginning of the school year now.  I write this on Sunday, the last night before school starts tomorrow, on Sept 4, but I still have a couple stories from the summer I have in the pipeline. So, i hope you wont be too upset if I continue with the great summer topic where also I shine as a father (well... relatively speaking, at least a glimmer).  Next post will probably be on summer trips.  

Household name in the UK, grand composer of ambient techno.  Rerelease of the album "PINK".   Fourtet.  

Tradition and non change in the summer vacation. Slow to no evolution. That is fine.

 

Hi from summertime.  

There are two ways to operate your summer vacation. 1.  Always be on the move. Make a trip.  Going to a new place and exploring nearly every day.  Travel, see, tour, move.  2.  Go to your summer home or your traditional summer place and stay there and pretty much only there for an extended amount of time with one or two trips but very little movement, but just staying put and doing things there where you are. 

I have no qualms against either.  Obviously it is good to do both.  It is good to explore, see new places and travel, but it is also good to have tradition of place year after year.  I think our family is pretty lucky that we have both in the course of the summer.  

I grew up on going to the summer cottage and staying there for the whole of the summer.  That is what I know.  So naturally that is what I feel comfortable with and continue to do.  Every summer I take my two girls to Northern Michigan where I personally have been going since I was born.  And now my daughters too.  We have strong traditions there.  When my mother was still around my younger daughter was so clear about what we had to do every year that we had to sit in the exact same seats or booth when we went to the restaurants we went to every year.  

Sadly my mother is not there anymore as part of the summer tradition. But we did see her in her all year home.  So some of the traditions evolve slowly.  We dont eat inside that restaurant I just mentioned. We take it out and it seems a new tradition that we take it to a quiet area nature park along a river.  Eat it on a bench overlooking the river then take a walk.  We only got that food once though this year, in the past it was tradition to eat it two times in our vacation.  

We used to eat in a fast food restaurant but that was because the place had a playground and my daughters played there after the meal. Now they are too big for the playground, but its nicer because we take the meal to a park on the bay, eat it in the park then go swimming in the bay (pictured here to the left).  It was tradtion to do that three times, but we only got to it twice this summer.  

But my daughters demand that we get take out pizza from the absolute "bestest" pizza restaurant (no it is not in Norman Oklahoma) in the world  at least once a week.  In this our last week, we only had eaten it two times so we had to get the pizza twice in our last week to keep the tradition up.  Yes we had four weeks vacation this year in our traditional spot.   

What else is on our list of traditions?  At least one small roadtrip, though I was

hoping for a better one farther away this year, but didnt make it. And I was hoping to do two, but that didnt happen unfortunately.   Pretty much eating the same lunch every day if we are at home.  Corn for dinner nearly every other night when it comes into season, around August 6th.  Going to the nearby library and getting books out though not necessarily any day in particular.  But doing some of the arts and crafts events the library puts on like  tye dying, painting rocks, making pom poms etc..  Full reading days at home, just sitting somewhere, hopefully on the dock and reading all day.  For me, rowing or kayaking as many mornings as possible.  Not really a tradition just something I enjoy doing and am proud to do, to get some regular good exercise.  Since my friend and his daughter have been up the past couple years, we have had a grilled hot dogs and s mores night.  Did I forget anything?  Swimming at the island when we can in the late afternoon (Island picture at the beginning of this post at top).

Hartwick Pines park

Unfortunately Michael Moore canceled the Traverse City film fest this year. Otherwise we had been going to that for the last five or more years. 

This all might sound boring and low key to you.  Admittedly if I did it in my home winter town, it probably would be and I would feel bad that my girls didnt get out and we just do boring stuff and waste the summer, BUT since we make a long travel to get to our "summer home" and our getaway is in the woods on a lake maybe it makes all the difference.  We arent jumping out of planes, bungie jumping or white water rafting, but we look forward to our summer traditions each year and even my daughters demand that we do this and that in the tradition.  Its changed a little each year and some of the years we had big changes like losing our traditional summer home which had been in the family for 60 years and my mom retiring and moving away, and maybe next year will be different. I cant say each year is EXACTLY the same, but for my whole life and my daughters whole life we have found a comforting summer tradition which (I hope and suppose) everyone enjoys and looks forward to.  To lay down strong traditions with slow or no evolution, I think, is not only comforting, but very solidifying in a child's and person's life.  

I hope you too have had the chance to carry on some of your summer traditions which hopefully develops good memories for you and your kids.  

Oh, lots of readers (maybe???) from Singapore. Drop me a message, write me a comment. Tell me if you enjoy or why you are reading. Thanks 

I like to listen to music which I personally have on vinyl or CD or have in my store, but in fact this once I listened to some slowcore music which was recommended from a good music blog.  It seemed to fit my mood for this post too. So it was good and I hope I can find the album to buy.  VALIUM AGGELEIN "BLACK MOON"  NUME213LP.  Hopefully the first song will stop you in your tracks and keep you hooked and listening carefully till the very end.  And then again. 

Summer Travel 2023 : Revisiting O Hare

In 2021 I wrote

this post in part on going through O Hare airport in Chicago. 

It was a disaster. A nightmare which I still have dreadful memories from.  Just terrible.  I promised myself never to go through O Hare Chicago airport again. I lost a huge amount of money on it that I never got reimbursed for, though I spent time trying.  

So why was it that I booked our flight AGAIN this year through O Hare International airport, even with a layover of 6 hours?  

Well.  It came down to two factors.  

It was the cheapest route at the overall fastest time.  

I told my daugthers after I had booked it and one said, "Aw dad, why did you do that?  You said we would never go through there again. It was so awful".  Or something to that affect.  Yes, I said, but.... money.  

The reason I accepted the 6 hour layover is exactly because last time it took about 3 hours to get through customs so I was cushioning our transfer.  We still had to catch a transfer and go on the last leg of our trip. 

The big day came and I thought IF we got through quickly maybe we could get an earlier flight and get in sooner.  

We landed in Chicago roughy on time.  What would happen next?  We speculated the possibilities.  If... IF .... If ... If?  IF!!!   

Then we got off and walked to customs. And we walked.  "Hey isnt that where you had to sit down and rest last time?  Yeah and where was it that you threw up the first time and left the bag there?"   And we walked more.  And we got to the customs room  The last time just getting to that point had taken way over an hour if not two.  

And there we were now stopped.  About five rows to the customs booth.  At this point last time my daughters had to take turns sitting down outside the line.  My youngest threw up there for the third time.  We were so angry and bushed.  I was resigning myself to us missing our next connecting flight.  So what would I have to organize?  Could we get another flight, did it exist or would we have to stay over?  

This time they had directed other people to a different room even.  We looked at the time.  2.06 pm.   Ok the line is moving.  Lets see today is Sunday so that might have something to do with it. But that could work either way.  There are no Afghanis in the line like there was last time.   But according to my calculations that only added about 10 per cent. Was I wrong? Had it been more?   

They have a separate line for the airplane crew BUT NOT for parents with babies or young children.  That is still a big minus.  But the line is moving.  In fact it was moving steadily.  

I couldnt tell if they had more customs officers this time or not. It looked like more. At one point one just left with the line standing there and they had to break into other lines. That was weird.  But I think there were more officers this time. 

We got close to the front of the line and I asked what time it was.  2.24.   So by the time we get there it will be 2.26..... 20 minutes in the line.  

Whoaaaaaa  Frank.  That is pretty good.  Pritty good.   In fact very good.  

The customs guy was terse and polite.  We stuck our faces up to the camera and he looked at our US passports.  Each one of us.  "And you are...?  Ok great, welcome back".  That was it.  Yeap, from the beginning of the line till end of customs a little more than 20 minutes. 

We got our bags on the belt and had to check them through again.  That was a bit confusing this time but mostly straightforward.  If I had been 20 years older and with alzheimers it might have been prohibitive.   

Then we just had to wait.  Well I guess "only" 4 hours to boarding.   There was not an earlier flight to our destination.  I thought there was, but I was mistaken. Maybe from another airport.  So we had to wait for a long time.  But that was not the airports fault.  

On revisiting O Hare international airport and getting through customs I give it an A- this time.  Just the customs, baggage claim, recheck mind you.  I cant speak on other issues of hospitality or shops or whatever.  Just the going through customs.  

Maybe last time in 2021 it had been a special case.  Yes covid and the end of the afghani war and soldiers and Afghanis coming into Chicago played a role, but you would think that an airport in existence for so long would know how to compensate and handle it.  But they hadnt.  BUT that had been a very special case, perhaps they hadnt any idea how to deal with it.  A bit strange, but ok.  In "normal" times, it seems they are not so bad and doable.  While stemming from my first bad experience I would still be worried about booking through Chicago, I would temper this with a good experience and look at the circumstance surrounding any new booking.  ¨

In other words, still cautious, but if the shoe will fit then I will take it.  

Congratulations O Hare.  

I am on vacation, my daughters are sleeping nearby and it is morning, so I didnt listen to any music while writing this, just the wind and an occasional motor boat on the lake.   

Sleepy time time. A question of the dozes.

Summertime sleep

 I am not a good sleeper.  I always wonder if this dates from my high school years when I went to bed around 11 pm.  I must have been 14-17.  I didnt think that was too late.  But actually now in retrospect I think it was.  I am not sure if I got 8 hours of sleep although maybe I did from 11 till 7am.   I was always very sad in the morning, but I see that now as part of a problem.  Sort of "morning sickness" or popularly known as a night owl opposed to an early bird.  I have always been a night owl.  I have said and still say that the hours between 6am and 8 or 9am should be banned.  They should be for sleeping.  I think I am in a minority on that issue.  My best time for sleeping would be from midnight to 1am to between 8 and 9am or 10am to get up.  

I am not sure if any of that has contributed to my bad sleeping. I have been reading about sleep and trying to do research on my own about sleep for years.  

So.  The question is, with my background, what time should I let my teenage daughter go to sleep in the night during summer?  

Yes yes, I know, strictly a first world problem.  I admit it.  But now let me get to the points.  

1.  She is a teenager and teenagers, as has been written by major sleep specialists 1) and becoming general knowledge, have a mess in their front brain cortex (I hope I have that part correct) and their sleep patterns will vary wildly.  Not being sleepy till midnight can be common.  Letting them sleep till 8am is a good thing.  Naps in the afternoon are once again good.  

2. She is a teenager and wants to stay up later and see what all the fuss is about staying up late at night.  Granted this can start at age 10,  but teenagers act like top sh.. and beat their chests that they stayed up until  xam last night.  

3. As my daughter said, "Dad, its summer.  I CAN stay up after midnight".   Shes got a point there. If she isnt tired, she can go to bed when she is and get up when she is not in the morning.  

The problem(s).  

1. Allowing bad behavior begets more bad behavior.  Going to bed late

accustoms the body to get used to going to bed later..... and later.  

How late should she be allowed to stay out?  She called my wife one night in July at 10.15pm and asked her to pick her up from the basketball court as she had fallen and the park had closed (or something) and she couldnt get home.  My wife answered me with  toxicity: "This is what happens when you let your daughter stay out past 10 pm."   (hisss hisss )

For the first week in July my daugther was going to bed around 2am and sleeping till as late as noon.  This is even past my comfort level and 2am can quickly turn into 4am and getting up in the afternoon.   Bad sleep patterns turn into worse sleep patterns.  

So anecdotally I have to answer this first world problem.  

How? 

Well, thankfully the problem was taken from my hands for the next two weeks as she attended a summer camp and in their usual military style they probably made the campers go to bed at a "not bad time" say between 10 and 11 pm.   But as my daughter said to me, that is when they went to bed, but it didnt mean they went to sleep.  Oh. 

After that, I tried to impose a midnight lights out policy on our vacation.  Maybe 1am for me, just to be fair.  I think midnight is a fair policy for a teenager during summer.  You know, in July and even into August it stays twilight till 10pm so you can be outside till then. Then you go in and have a snack, play a game for an hour, watch some TV (no not on the gadgets) till 11ish and then get ready for bed and read some in bed for at least half an hour.  My girls seem to naturally sleep for around 9-10 hours when they can, so they can sleep till 9.30 ish 10 am ish and still have morning to get up into.  Thats all good isnt it?  

Unfortunately it hasnt been working like that.  We have been watching TV till 11, 11.30. (We have to see the news and weather on TV at 11). THEN we have to clean up some, and get ready for bed and it is midnight.  Maybe after.  Then if I am still up, they are still up.  So it has turned into go to bed between 12.30 and 1 and they sleep till......  11 or noon.  AGHHH.  I dont know why they are sleeping so much, often for 12 hours.  So I guess I havent solved "the problem" if indeed it was a problem.  Maybe now 12 hours is natural and I am doing them good and their brains are developing.  It hasnt gotten out of hand that they stay up till 2am, though one daughter has said she couldnt fall asleep till 2am.  So... I am not sure if I have solved the problem, but maybe the problem did not exist and there was nothing to solve.  Maybe the problem is DURING school year they can only get 9 hours at the most unless we put them to bed at gunpoint earlier in the evening.  

Problem solved once again by not doing anything (?).  Hmmmmmm   

How are you doing in your summer?  Kids at home?  Doing things?  Summer camp?  Your own activities?   Make the most of summer..... whatever that means. 

Puppies

We had puppies born this last week.  Four puppies were born to our dog, a staffordshire bull terrier.  My youngest daughter and I watched them being born, along with my wife and an expert breeder.  

As I am nervous about many things, I was of course nervous about this "new event" that I , granted didnt have to do anything for, but still should be responsible if anything bad happens.  As it was, nothing bad happened. All four dogs came out with no injuries nor defects.  It all went well. I was quite surprised by the way it happened, namely that each one was born separately and all four came out over two hours.  That was new to me how that happened.  So in fact you dont have them all come out at once and the last one is the smallest and maybe defected.  They were all in separate plasmas and in fact the 4th one was not much different from the 1st. Although admittedly the first IS the biggest and developing the most and fastest   Surprisingly, the second which was born not too much later after the first seems to be "the baby" of the group.   

But what I wanted to talk about was the importance of this event for my children, particularly my younger daughter.   I ll start by saying that everyone reacts differently and not everyone is interested.  My older daughter, while she likes the dogs and dogsits for them too, wasnt greatly interested in the whole process and wasnt standing there gawking the whole time like the rest of us.  She was texting a friend.  But, thats ok, I am not mad this time.  Its not even bad.  Some people like some things and others dont.  No problem.  

But for my younger daughter it was life changing perhaps.  She loves all the dogs and as she said herself, everytime she looks at the puppies, all stress and problems disappear as they are so cute and lovable.  She wrote down notes of when each was born and how much they weighed.  Now she weighs them twice a day since their birth to see how they are growing. 

It was new for me too.  We had guinea pigs when I was growing up.  We had a dog, but it was spaid, so no puppies.  But we had guinea pig babies maybe three times a year  or more.  We had guinea pigs from when I was very young, even say 3 years old until I was well into being a teen ager.  

I cant believe now that my parents let me take a small guinea pig to nursery school (4 years old) for a show and tell. I remember quite well that I held the pig and it fell from my arms from pretty high up.  But luckily was not injured.  I guess my parents trusted me to act responsibly.  I am not sure I did. 

I had chores quite often to clean the pig cage out and frankly this did not bother me. I liked doing it.  We kept old newspapers and I would just roll up all the old stuff in the cage and put it in a waste bag and lay down new papers and cut up more papers as hiding for the pigs.  Then put in some sort of tunnel they could go through like a quaker oats cardboard container which they loved.  I think we had to clean their cage twice a week, at least once but probably more.  I dont recall that my older brother did anything to take care of the pigs, but maybe my memory is bad. At the beginning we had a huge cage which was in his room .

The point being that it was a fun responsibility for me.  Not only did I have to clean but keep their bottle filled with fresh water and clean the bottle and food pellets in their bowl and give them special food treats like corn husks or green grass or vegetable leaves.  That was always fun, to have them come running when the food was coming and watch them chomp away on the greens.  It was always nice to watch the pigs and take them out and hold them.  Realizing also that I had to make sure if I let them run around that they didnt get in any places I wouldnt be able to get them.  Or to take them outside in a portable cage and turn it over and let them eat grass.  

I think it was very helpful to my growth to be given this FUN responsibilty.  I knew they depended on me and I could give them a better happier life.  If I slacked off my responsibilties they could live in misery and even die.  But why would I slack off when it was rewarding for me?   It was fun to watch them after I had just cleaned their cage and they had new paper and a new quaker oats tunnel to run through and they would go wacko doing this running in circles going throgh the tunnel.  And squeaking as you fluffed up the new newspaper and they hid in it.  And sitting outside in the backyard in spring warm weather reading a book and having your feet on the cage as one pig munched away on the grass.  

So while this was an important responsibility, I have very fond memories of taking care of our guinea pigs and I never really thought of it as work or responsibilty although it was indeed.  Folding the laundry was work, but that is another story.  

So I hope my younger daughter finds the new responsiblity of taking care of the puppies a very fun responsibility.  I dont know what it will involve. We will probably only have them for three months, but we had the baby guinea pigs for even shorter (then we usually gave them free to a pet shop).  And yet in that period there will be things to do, such as weighing the dogs and probably for some time teaching them to walk and then taking them out for walks while we still have them.  Maybe.  It will be a good learning experience for her, as the guinea pigs were for me. In the same way it was sad for me to see the little pigs go (but many times we kept one) I am sure my daughter will cry when the puppies leave us.  But that is a learning experience too. 

In short it is important to keep pets when you have kids growing up.  I strongly recommend it.  While on one side you have to watch that your kids dont mistreat the animals and maybe inadvertantly injure them, like i nearly did when I took the pig to show and tell, the responsibility of taking care of the pets is worthwhile work which hopefully is both fun and educational which provides (fond) memories for ones whole life.   

Listened to but didnt finish listening because it is an incredibly long and epic album, the just released (June 22, 2023)   Swans Album  "The Beggar"