Kids

 

   Our 8,000 mile jaunt around the country had two objectives. First, to celebrate Uncle Vern's 100th birthday in Mesa, Arizona, and second, to watch our two younger grandchildren in Marshfield, Massachusetts for a week at the end of September. We got Vern launched into his second century on September 17, then headed up to Marshfield, arriving on the 23rd.

  Isla (8) and Nash's (6) parents were out of town and we were here to fill in. It always takes a while to find your way around someone else's house, especially when the owner is not around to show you where they store the coffee maker and tell you how to operate the newfangled thermostat. The kids and dog were at the other grandmother's and we'd pick them up the next day.

  Ages eight and six are definitely easier than three and one, five and three, etc. For one thing, the kids are in school all day. We put them on the bus at 8:30, chat with the other parents, and pick them up again at 3:45. During our first days in town we do some house maintenance. Our son Joe is a single dad. He's away on his tug for two weeks and when he's home he's busy. Sometime he gets fired up about maintenance and sometimes there's slippage. Teresa takes up most of the slack and I provide the brawn.

  When the kids get home from school they want a snack. They like raw vegetables, but not cooked ones.  They ask to use their iPads or watch a show, but these are banned during the week.  It's homework before supper and reading books. The kids are not fussy eaters as long as you give them what they like. For breakfast they like crêpes. Teresa suggests they have fruit on their crêpes, but they're purists, preferring  cool whip alone. OK, there's some minor spoiling on our part.

  Once we get the house the way we like it, we look for useful activities. Teresa likes a good walk every day and I'm up for that too after six days of sitting in the car from Arizona. There's a state park nearby that we had never visited. It's surprising that such a large chunk of land so close to Boston has remained undeveloped. Chief Wompatuck gave the land to the British colonists but it was so rocky, nothing was done with it. It probably would have been developed after the war, but the Navy had taken it over for ammunition storage. They even used the area to work on nuclear mines. Thank goodness that project was mothballed.

 Eventually the Navy gave the land to the state and it became Wompatuck State Park in 1969. Many of the trails are paved from Navy days. The trails wind between granite boulders and little ponds, under a canopy of falling leaves. It was good to stretch our legs. 

  We had intended to drive to Key West after our babysitting duties were done, but Hurricane Ian gave us second thoughts. We decided to stay in Marshfield another week and spend more time with the family. We were also able to take part in a couple of events we would hear about every October but had never taken part in. The first was the annual 5.5 mile rowboat race on the Weir River.  The second was the annual climbing of Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire, which I'll cover more thoroughly next Friday.

The start of the race