Hello and welcome to a rainy Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is June 26th and the last Saturday in June.
We’re already a month into summer vacation and it feels like it has barely started.
The Oldest came home from college on May 17th, long enough to dump her college stuff and pack a suitcase. She, along with her dad and two youngest siblings, headed for Fargo the very next day to be ready for their flight to the Czech Republic the following morning, the 19th.
Despite one major delay – a United Airlines employee telling our Czech-bound crew they didn’t have the correct Covid testing (they did) – they were eventually on their way and arrived safely in Prague on Friday, May 21st. Babička picked them up and drove them out to the family house in Teplice nad Metuji, a little village tucked into a small pocket of northeastern Bohemia near the Polish border known for the area’s unique rock formations, for five days of quarantining. After more Covid testing, the family made their way down to Chrastěšov-Vizovice ready to spend the remainder of their vacation with the rest of the family.
While it was nice to see relatives and to be back “home” (which it is for us, just as much as the Wannaska region), steady SnapChat reports from the Oldest relayed that the weather was cold and the littles missed their mama. The Kindergartener referred to his sister as “the fake mom” which the Oldest insists was a phrase I coined first.
All during the trip, while dad was doing house repairs, laying new flooring, and helping with other odd jobs for the grandparents, the childcare duties fell to the Oldest. I was amazed and appreciated just how well she took to the job.
This is a young woman who will announce stubbornly “I don’t cry” and flinches when her brothers want to hug her. She likes her logic. She likes straight lines. And she really likes the object she’s drawing for fun on Inventor. (Something to do with a pentagonal sphere. I can’t be more specific because if I asked her she would know right away why I was asking and yell, “Don’t put that in the blog!”)
On the Czech trip, she would let the littles cuddle right up to her. On several video calls, I would witness the Kindergartener’s arm softly snake up her side until his forefinger and thumb grasped her ear – a gesture of comfort similar to thumb sucking – and she would let him.
Maybe it was the newness of being back with family that made her so gracious. While she loved being away at college (so far away), maybe she’d missed our annoying affection enough to tolerate it. Even welcome it. Her dad confirmed what a true champ she’d been. During “Delaygate,” she entertained the littles while she and her dad spent the better part of the day on hold with United Airlines and Lufthansa customer service. Once finally on the plane(s) (it took 3 flights to get to CZ), she offered to sit with the littles. The entire trip she basically played with them, fed them, supervised them, and even packed their suitcases for the return trip (which nearly resulted in a second “Delaygate” that was, thankfully, thwarted).
So when they all got back from their trip, I assumed that she’d busy herself with her own activities and leave the childrearing to me.
But last week, she not only played with them; she organized an entire creative endeavor that required a level of stamina and patience I imagine she'd used in the Czech Republic, but I had not yet seen with my own eyes.
Enter the Exploding Kittens.
Last week, we had some teen guests at our house who introduced our kids to the card game “Exploding Kittens.” The object of the game is to get rid of all your cards without exploding. Where do the kittens come in? They’re on the cards and every kitten has a purpose. Some diffuse, some are clairvoyant, and, of course, some explode.
From my vantage point in the kitchen, chopping up fruit and veggie snacks while frozen pizzas baked in the oven, I felt a warm wave of nostalgia. I’d loved playing cards as a kid. We played Crazy Eights, Go Fish, and War which gave way to more strategic games like Skip-Bo, Hearts, Gin Rummy, and Cribbage. When I was alone, I knew three versions of Solitaire. When I tired of that, War against myself was an entertaining option. (Triple wars were the best.)
From the Oldest all the way down to the Kindergartener, the kids loved diffusing and/or deploying exploding these kittens. So much so that the Oldest felt inspired to make her own deck and recruited the help of her youngest siblings who were happy to oblige.
Methodical and meticulous, the Oldest sat the kids down and developed a plan. They each got to draw a few cats, first on practice paper, then on white paper. She gave enough direction yet left room for their imaginations (within the specified parameters). When all the kitty drawings were finished, they colored the cards. Sitting on the outside deck where I worked on my computer, I could hear her discussing the design for the back of the cards. “It should be colored so the cards won’t be see-through,” the Kindergartener counseled.
When they finished the artwork on the cards (which took all day Saturday), the Oldest spent Sunday scanning them, properly sizing and laying them out on the computer, then printing and cutting them out. The last step was to laminate them. Unfortunately, we don’t have a laminator, so she MacGyver'ed a packing tape solution. True to her engineer nature, she wasn’t happy with the overlap of the two strips of tape required to successfully protect the cards. Impressed with the effort she’d already put into these playing cards, I scoured our little town for larger tape only to learn that all tape has a universal width of 1.88 inches – which was .12 inches too narrow for my girl’s 2 x 3-inch playing cards.
All week, the cards have been put away, unfinished, waiting for that last plastic, protective cover. Every time I heard wails of “I’m bored” from the littles, I thought about those cards. The creativity. The togetherness. I reminisced about my own childhood when the only thing on our child minds was playing outside. Heck, being outside was enough. I checked out a copy of a Boxcar Children mystery – a favorite from my own youth – just to get our kids jazzed about the adventures of the Alden children – Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny – who didn’t even have the word "boring" in their vocabulary.
“Being bored is a choice,” I often tell my kids.
This weekend, the Oldest, Second Oldest and I will be in the St. Cloud area. I’ll be looking for tape that is wider than 1.88 inches so we can get those cards taped up in a way that meets the engineer-daughter’s standards and they can get back to their new favorite game.
On This Day
Remembering You
Kim
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| We assume there were no exploding animals. Now, if there'd been kittens... (Learn more here.) |
Exploding Kittens. What an image. I just have to use something similar in one of future poems! This is one of your better posts - an unusual look into the guts of a family's life. Thanks for that!
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