EnviroMom

Outdoor Kids: Family Game Night

I am frequently reminded how blessed we are. Security. A friendly climate. A roof above our heads. Schooling. Friends.

Despite my many reasons for gratitude, there are still days when I feel sorry for myself and wonder what in the heck I was thinking to not schedule very many summer camp days. We are on the third day of summer, and quite frankly, it's felt like the third month. I know it will get better. We are in that awkward transitional phase, from having had tons of routine, to almost no routine at all. I feel like every decision I make is fraught with danger. If I say "yes" to this child's request now, they will expect it all summer....

So when the phone rang around dinnertime Saturday night, not once but twice, and it wasn't telemarketers, we were delighted with the offer on the line. Some friends from our elementary school proposed that anyone who was game meet at a small, neighborhood park from 6:30 to 8pm on Saturday night for family game night. And if it worked out well, it could become a regular thing.

Outdoor Kids: Backyard camping

The Great American Backyard Campout isn't until June 27 (mark your calendars!), but we got a head start over the weekend. We've been having a spell of rare, blissful, late-May summer weather here in Portland, so on Saturday my husband pitched the tent in the backyard and slept out there with the kids for two nights. Last night it was my turn. (We'd all be out there together, except my husband's sleeping bag has disintegrated after 30 years, so until we get a new one we're working in shifts.) The kids are absolutely loving this little adventure. There are (mild) ghost stories and shadow puppet theatre and fun with flashlights, giggles, snuggles and listening to night noises (was that an owl?). The kids fall asleep quickly and sleep deeply through the night.

I can't say that I had a restful night, however. I'm a light sleeper, and if I wake up in the middle of the night I have to read in order to fall back to sleep. That wasn't an option, and I'm pretty sure I was awake from about 1-6 this morning. My Thermarest mattress wasn't feeling all that comfy either, so I've got some aches as well. (Jeez I sound old and pathetic.) But watching my kids sleep so peacefully in the dawn light, cocooned in their bags on either side of me was pretty amazing. And since I was already awake when the birds started their jabbering, it was pretty cool to listen to all of the different calls. I'm definitely going to do it some more, I just need to get more comfortable.

We have one 2-night camping trip planned for this summer up at Mt. Hood with a group of family friends, and that's probably all we'll manage this summer. But if we can keep this up, frankly I think we're experiencing the best of both worlds: low-tech family entertainment and bonding with the convenience of home just a few steps away. Don't get me wrong: there's nothing like the woods and a mountain lake and the conviviality of family campers and pancakes on a camp stove and smelling like a bonfire 24-7. But this has been pretty sweet, too.

Are you ready for backyard camping? And do you have a comfy camp mattress you can recommend?

Rethinking summer camps

This time of year I've usually entered panic mode about signing my kids up for summer camps. Summer looms in the not too distant future. All that unstructured time... Here's the drill: find camps that are still available, not too far away from home, not too expensive, and that my kids will enjoy. Coordinate with Heather to fill up alternating weeks of summer, so that we don't have to spend such excessive amounts of time with our kids that we go out of our bleeping minds. Along with all this goes a good dose of grousing about why kids even need summer vacation. It's not like they are working the fields and reaping the harvest like they did (presumably) when school calendars were set in stone a bazillion years ago.

Green Hour (or approximately), short winter days and hibernation

Notice, if you will how gloriously dirty these two sets of feet are. They were photographed last summer. If you looked at my kids' feet today, the picture would tell a very different story. You'd see sock lint between their toes, pasty white skin that hasn't seen the light of day in months and nary a sandal blister in sight. And if I was daring enough to peel back my socks right now, it would be an even sorrier sight.

Thankfully, our ugly feet still work. I walked home from my Pilates class today, and had a split-second panic when I thought it was going to start raining. Of course, I had no raincoat or umbrella or hat. But just as quickly I realized that had real rain fell (it didn't), it's quite possible I wouldn't have melted. I don't know about you, but I have been struggling to get myself outside, my kids outside and celebrate the Green Hour on a regular basis during these short, dark, cold and often wet days of winter. So far today, I think I logged .25 Green Hour(s).

Outdoor Kids: wading downstream in search of crawdads

I did not grow up wading in streams. I knew kids who did this, catching crawdads and other creepy crawlies, but that was all a little too exotic for me. So taking my kids to an urban stream for crawdad-hunting has never been on my radar until a friend told me that it was one of her favorite summer activities with her kids. My kids had their first introduction to crawdads last summer (thanks to a family friend) up at Mt. Hood's Timothy Lake, and my daughter has been eager to hone her catching skills ever since. I was a little unsure about my son, who I always think of as being more 'delicate.' Boy has he got me fooled.

We met up with our friends last week for our stream-forging initiation. The water was cold, thanks to the recent rains, but my son walked right in without hesitation, right up to his buttocks. The other kids were already immersed, scanning the water for rocks where the crustaceans might be hiding. My normally fearless daughter was more hesitant, but eventually got in and began scouting. My friend is an expert crawdad-hunter at this point and found a bunch for the kids. The kids put the crawdads in their buckets with some water and then eventually released them back into the stream. Of course, they had a blast. Like Renee mentioned last week, dirty kids are happy kids. Wet kids are happy kids, too.

Here at EnviroMom we talk a lot about how to make our children more comfortable in nature. What I'm realizing is that I'm the one who needs these excursions and 'introductions' just as much as my kids. While I have no problem getting filthy dirty doing yard work and encountering the occasional garden snake, my instincts in nature are more tentative. Who knows what could be lurking at the bottom of the stream? You want me to take the fish off of my own hook? How do you expect me to build that campfire? I'd love to go on a hike with you, but do bears live in these woods?

Just as we are teaching ourselves to unlearn bad habits and live a greener lifestyle, we are teaching ourselves how to be comfortable in nature so that our kids will grow up and carry that comfort with them throughout their lives. Do you find yourself in this category, too? Or are you a lifelong nature girl (or boy)?

Outdoor kids: dirty feet and summer camp

In a world that sometimes seems so wrong:

• The plethora of doggie daycare options
• Tori Spelling publishing a best-selling memoir
• A bucket truck driving around Portland with the motto: "Just like Viagra, we get it up for you!"

Some things in this world are so right: Earth Song summer camp. This camp has no website and I only heard of it through friends. They hold it at Tryon Life Community Farm, which is ridiculously close to my house but seems worlds away. I loved that it was small, both my kids could attend together, and that they got to interact with the animals on the farm (chickens and goats). They made crafts: little treasure pouches that they sewed and braided with guidance from their teacher, and then took on a nature walk to fill with treasures they found in nature. There was a fabulous rope swing hung between tall trees that the kids all lined up to swing on at the end of the camp day. They made food: a cobbler for snack, popcorn made over a real fire, and blackberry jam (squishing the berries with their own feet) that they got to bring home. They learned to pee in the woods. Their teacher was wonderful: welcoming, calm, connected with the children, in control, and communicative with the parents. The kids came home with filthy, dirty feet every day. There is no truer sign of a good day at camp than dirty feet.

It was eye-opening how much fun the kids had getting dirty, and doing things I normally wouldn't try with them. I need to let them get dirtier and try new things. I sometimes forget that my children are washable. What were your greatest "outdoor kids" moments of summer?

Into the Wild: teaching respect, survival and fear of nature to children

My husband and I manged to get the kids to bed early last night and watched Into the Wild, Sean Penn's masterful adaptation of John Krakauer's book of the same name. The story, if you don't know it, recounts the based-on-actual-events, two-years' adventure in the vast American wilderness of Christopher McCandless as he shucks off society and lives and ultimately dies alone in the wilds of Alaska.

I first read the book after buying it for my husband. My husband isn't a bookworm like me, but I figured he'd enjoy this story as he himself is most alive in nature, being active, and spent several formative months adventuring with Outward Bound. As I recall, I read the book before I had children back when I was much younger and still hopeful that I would continue to tap into the wanderlust that is a rite of passage for most young adults. I remember feeling so haunted by this book. Like a part of me died when McCandless did. Sure, I could see that he was in over his head, but you couldn't help rooting for him to survive even though I knew full well how it ended.

Flash forward several years. I am the parent to two young girls. We all love the outdoors. But we are so fully rooted to our routines and community that travel now has little appeal. This movie brings to light many complex familial relationships in McCandless' life that the book did not. You can see that he didn't just want to get away from the privilege of his parents' materialistic world and their hopes and dreams for his life. He had something to prove, and loads of unforgiven anger for the mentally and physically abusive childhood he experienced. Watching the movie gave me new insights into his life, but also tapped into fears of mine as a parent. How do we raise these children to live in harmony with nature, to fear and respect it, to not get in over their heads? How do we raise them to make good decisions long after they've left the nest as young adults. I know I shouldn't worry so far into the future. Sometimes I just can't help myself. Do our best. Teach what we know. Learn where we are weak. Hope for the best.

Becoming more comfortable in nature

I've always had snake-phobia. Not because of any particular traumatic event, but just because they exist. They could be anywhere. I thought that Portland was pretty snake-proof until our 9-year neighbor brought over a garden snake last summer that he'd caught in his yard. He held it by the tail while it writhed and hissed at him. The young man was fearless, and his fearlessness became contagious for both me and my kids. We got up close and personal with that snake. It pooped on my porch. The kids touched it. It was just a little garden snake, after all.

A couple of weeks ago while I was attacking the English ivy in our yard, I disrupted another little snake who slowly slithered away. Amazingly, no screams erupted from my body. I was wearing gardening gloves, and I almost bent over and picked it up. Almost. Two days ago a coiled up snake greeted me at the mailbox. I promptly alerted the children and the neighbor boy, and they spent a couple of hours carefully fondling the snake and watching it slither around. Even my squeamish 3-year old son was enamored. My 6-year old daughter now thinks all things slimy and slithery are cool (and apparently rescued a worm on the playground today). I'm proud of them, and of myself, for overcoming our fears of these harmless creatures.

Last summer we camped with a family who introduced us to crawdads. There were tons of them in the lake and my daughter became obsessed with finding them and keeping them in a bucket as temporary pets. I had a hard time picking them up, but she had no fear. I like spending time with people who can disabuse us of the notion that nature is scary (because that seems to be our natural inclination) and teach us how to respect all things in nature. (I'm currently looking for someone who can tamper my fear of sharks. Anyone?)

I think it's great to lose that fear when you're young because it's a lot harder when your older. Even walking through the woods can seem scary because you don't know if there is a bear around the corner or stranger-danger lurking behind a tree. Chances are you are perfectly safe. Learning how to behave when you do encounter a dangerous situation in nature is important because fear alone should not be a reason to stay away from nature and disrespect it. I've learned through wilderness-savvy friends, but there are  guided nature walks and hikes and classes that can teach both kids and adults how to appreciate and be comfortable in nature. What's your comfort level? High? Moderate? Need a nature-phobe de-programming?

How often do kids in day-care centers get outside?

I read a rather alarming study on the Children & Nature Network Web site about the disconnect between day-care centers and outdoor play. The study, which included 34 child-care centers in the Cincinatti area, noted that kids between the ages of three and six in day-care centers aren't getting outdoors enough due to a number of factors including: parents didn't send a warm enough jacket; kids were eating the bark chips (!); teachers didn't want to stand outside in the cold weather; kids wore flip-flops to school. If one child had innapropriate clothing, like flip-flops or no coat, then the entire class had to stay inside.

At my son's preschool they will go out for half an hour (it's only a 3-hour morning program) unless it is raining because there isn't a covered play area. In the winter we send him in rainboots, mittens, hat and warm jacket, and the teachers will take the time to make sure each child is bundled up.

How about your child's day-care center or preschool? Do they get outdoors, even in the cold weather, for some active play?

Outdoor kids: tickly ladybugs, wiggling worms, tiptoeing through the tulips

I have two girls: girly girls. They like to dress up, talk like Fancy Nancy, put on ballet shows for one another. You get the idea. So given what our local weather people were calling "unseasonably warm" temps this weekend, we spent a whole lot of time outside: weeding, pruning, mowing our shaggy lawn (the fresh scent of newly mown grass, the first of the season!), transplanting in the garden. The warmth and sunlight were like a balm for our rain- and winter-weary souls. But what was lovelier still than the mountain views, the birdsong, the scent of fresh clean air, it was the joy my girls found in finding ladybugs, and having them climb on their hands, giggling as the little red bugs tickled their skin. It was digging up fat, slimy earthworms and holding them as they try to wiggle away. This feels like a monster-sized achievement in the raising of these two girly-girls. They are reaching out and touching nature. Unafraid. Curious. Gentle. Long live the green hour. I don't know if I have anything to do with their recent embrace of nature. Maybe it's the reading of all the eco-friendly storybooks such as Diary of a Worm, Diary of a Spider, etc. Maybe it's all the days we've logged walking to school, splashing in puddles, tiptoeing through the tulips. Who knows? Maybe on the next sunny day they will run in terror and fear away from the worms and bugs. All I can say is this weekend was lovely. And I'm really looking forward to more sunny days.