This rain

Geez, Carol! In your position, I'd be busily chopping up veggies and making hot soup. Even nobody eats it, it would keep my hands and mind busy! Nothing preys on my mind more than when my kids are out in a storm: I feel for you. I hope everything turns out well in the end!

Let us know he's home and safe with his friend. And Trish is right, go make some soup. If it' too hot there for hot soup, I'll send you my gazpacho recipe.

Hee! I keep forgetting it's *hot* over your way! I made soup for tea tonight. Pumpkin. Burp! It was really nice, especially at the end of a cold, miserable day.

DD suggested making damper (Oz campfire bread), so we did. Only 'something' went wrong with it and it turned out like liquid bricks! Bleaurgh! Everyone manfully swallowed his damper but it was bl**dy awful. Lucky the soup was so good, eh?

(Patting self on back: I didn't have any bacon to put in it, so I added a couple of bacon-flavoured stock cubes and they did the trick quite nicely!)

We just dropped our son off for Boy Scout camp this morning and it's been storming, with hail, this evening. He'll do fine, but I'm wondering how the first year scouts are managing. It was really ugly for several hours.

Karen E.

Carol -

Please let us know how this all turned out - we're thinking of you.

It's been raining here a lot too - my DS has played in baseball tournaments the last three weekends and this is the first one that did not get rained out/delayed - last weekend, they got MAYBE five innings in. This weekend, they got to play and made it to the championships - only to lose in the first round to the team that ultimately won. And this morning? It's raining again.

Linda

There's something about Scout Camps and rain, I find.

DD has had two major camps washed out in the past couple of months. The first one was a doozy! They were camped at a place called Glenrock Lagoon, which borders right on the Specific Ocean. The storm blew up and it was very violent with rain and hail and winds of tiddly-pom miles per hour. Enough to collapse half the tents, anyway. Poor old DD and her friend, Tamara, were trapped inside their tent and couldn't find the pull-tag of the zipper to let themselves out. Being good Scouts, they lay there, giggling their stupid heads off until her father (DD's - my DH, that is) came to release them. Turns out, the zippers *had* no pull-tags and so DH had to make do with the safety pin he keeps in his scarf. Talk about being prepared!

So DD and Tamara got out of their tent and ran to their troop leaders' car. Nine Scouts sat in the car for two hours with lightning striking all around them and hail pounding on the roof. They sang 'Ging Gang Gooley' eleventy 'leven times and then started arguing about who needed the dunny most. DD won, so she (STUPID child!) tottered off into the storm with her leader's oilskin and umbrella for protection.

Well duh! The umbrella immediately blew inside-out and nearly gave DD a quick ride directly into the Specific Ocean! At least she was sensible enough to let it go and hi-tail it up to the dunny! She was pleased and surprised to find the other 92 Scouts in the amenities block, having a great time indoors with a fire burning in the big grate and scads of marshmallows a-roasting on sticks! A message was immediately sent (via mobile phone) to the lot stuck in the car and they eventually made their muddy way up to the amenities block and warmth.

The first I heard of all this was the pounding on the front door at around 3am. DH and DD were bedraggled and crestfallen at being washed out on only the second night, but they reckoned it was one of the best camps ever!

Nothing worse than a camping trip in the rain. Unless it was spending the day at the local amusement park with DD's school in the rain. And the kids wanting to do the "water" rides anyway.

Well, why not? They were already wet.

Their little minds don't think along adult lines, that they'd dry out quicker in the sun.

My appearance did make the office staff giggle. I was a tad bedraggled.

Around here, it's usually Scout camping and _me_. I've developed quite a rpeutation within DS's troop. One of the first year scouts came up to me at his first meeting and said, "Somebody told me that every time you go on a camp out it rains." Because I am precisely That Kind of Person, I replied, "They're right. Except for when it snows." I shouldn't have found his look of terror so amusing.

ROTFLMAO!!! Don't tell me you're the resident Jonah? You should invest in a bright yellow raincoat and rain bonnet and wear them rain, hail or shine. LOLOLOLOL!

Yeah, Scouts are used to camping in storms, but the one that washed out the Glenrock Camp was unusual. At the same time, it was ripping roofs off houses and generally flooding the local area all over the place! I don't generally mind DD being out in the storm *except* when it's severely electrical and/or to close to large amounts of water.

We had our regional rally a few weeks ago and DD's troop did pretty well. Sadly, they didn't make it to state rally on account of their two Scubs (Scouts just come up from Cubs) got Montezuma's Revenge and had to be taken home. The points penalty put the girls right out of the running. They were offered the opportunity to attend based on last year's performance, but they all agreed they didn't want that unless they'd earned the right. I was pleased about that.

Anyway, one of the bases at rally was an extremely steep hill with a muddy track that wound all the way down, through trees, rocks and scrub to a puddle at the bottom. The task was to sit on a peewee bicycle and make your way to the bottom in the quickest, cleanest fashion. Points were awarded for swiftness and %cleanliness of the jeans at the end of the ride. DD (who *still* can't ride a bicycle!!!) won! She came down at a snail's pace, both feet on the ground and sedately looking to the right and left to avoid being snagged on a bush or rock and wound up getting about 5% for speed, but 100% for clean jeans! LOLOLOLOL! Some of the boys came down virtually on the seats of their pants and wound up with variable marks, but nothing to touch DD's.

Our troop also did extremely well in the firelighting section. They had to light a fire with a flint, steel and six cotton balls. The prize went to the troop that boiled a soup can of water in the shortest time. They came second, owing to our Tamara using the lenses of her glasses to help matters along. They got massive points for inventiveness. Something tells me Tamara has Burnt Things before with those glasses...

Sooo true! When DD was in Scouts, one of their first camping weekends it absolutely *poured*! Since it was a first time, we weren't sure how to set up some of the borrowed tents properly. Of course, in the rain, they leaked horribly and sleeping bags got soaked. We learned that, when borrowing someone's tent, you have them show you how to set it up properly before leaving! LOL

I have a *lovely* picture somewhere of me in shorts, cowboy boots (tennis shoes had long since gotten sogged out of use), and plastic rain poncho trying to get a fire going.

And for some reason, our troop was *always* the furthest from the bathrooms! After a number of experiences like this, we also learned to start asking for a site closer! :)

Ahhhh the joys of Scout Camp! :) I sure do miss them. I think the last time I was camping was DD's troop's last campout in 2004. No, I take that back. I did go camping with her former GS leader 3 years ago. She's also a stitcher and quilter, so we get along wonderfully!

Joan

I really don't get it. We have lovely weather a lot of the time but if I go camping with the troop it tends towards the dreadful. I've camped in wind so strong it ripped out a grommet on the tarp I had over my tent. We've gotten five inches of snow. (That was actually a great weekend. The snow was beautiful and it _was_ January.) I've earned my first

I understand completely. Roof-ripping storms are wicked scary.

Pardon my giggle. Montezuma's Revenge put them out of the "running"? Hee!

Good on Tamara for resourcefulness!

Family night is tonight. We'll all have dinner together and then there's a ceremony for those (including DS!) who hope to join the camping honor society. After that we've got the all-campp campfire, complete with the standard camp songs and skits. Then it's back home for three of us, and off into the woods for DS, where he'll be spending the night on a tarp.

Oh, and Trish, we've found a couple of nice camps for DD. One is run by an organization for those with Tourette's, OCD, or AS. It's a four-night camp with lots of activities. She went last year and had a grand time. She'll also be going to a horse-based day camp for kiddos with spectrum disorders. DD loves horses. We expect this one will also be a hit.

Karen E.

so I'm the parent who

Which camp? Hahn or Thunderbird? Or Bartle?

Linda (whose son has not done BS this year and therefore we won't be going)

Bartle. Land of the peach float. We're in the KC metro. In fact, DS is at Naish right now (his troop does both camps). Family night tonight, and he's doing his OA ordeal.

Karen E.

That's *excellent*!!! I wish we had something similar here!

DD has a very good friend with a diagnosis of ASD as well as bipolar disorder. He is an abandoned child whose Mum left him for the call of heroin, so he lives with his aging grandparents who absolutely don't understand ASD and whose only form of punishment is to ground him and take away his guitar. They don't 'get' why he does the things he does and it's more about punishing 'crimes' than understanding why he does them.

This kid belongs to DH's troop (not DD's, on account of DH and DD are in different groups now) and he's in dire danger of getting kicked out on account of his 'violence' and 'aggression'. He's *not* violent or aggressive, he just hasn't been taught to manage his behaviour. Very few people understand how to handle him and so he continually gets in trouble for rough play. A specialist troop would be good for him if there were leaders on hand who understood ASD and behaviour modification principles. The only specialist troop in our area is one that caters specifically to kids with Cerebral Palsy and Down Syndrome and it's brilliant. But we need a troop that can deal with obsessive and unempathetic behaviours in kids who don't 'get' the normal ways of socialising.

It's *great* to hear your DD's doing so well and especially that she's having such fun in Scouts and with horses! Life's for living! Go for it! ;-D

Oh, that poor young man! No support at home. It seems almost criminal, doesn't it, leaving him to founder that way? We don't have specialized scout troops nearby that I'm aware of. The camps DD is attending aren't through a scouting organization, rather groups that work with the special-needs kids.

She's moving on to high school this fall. CanNOT believe it. In our district, high school's three years, starting with 10th (sophomore) so she got an "extra" year at junior high. She'll be in a program that really interests her - earth sciences - but at a different high school than most kids she knows. This may or may not be bad as she really hasn't been social with kids from junior high (and doesn't seem to care about that). It will get her away from the kids who drove her out of her chorus class, so that's something, but as a "new" kid from out of the catchment area for the school she could end up being a target all over again. We've got a transition meeting coming up in a month or so and we'll be trying to address all that. She'll have to do PE again this year. She loathes PE. Could get ugly.

Back close to the original topic, It poured _again_ last night, this time with both kids away. I think we're supposed to be getting a break from the rain for a bit. Sure hope so. I dread what DS's gear will look like when we collect him tomorrow.

So nice to chat with you again, btw, Trish.

Karen E.

Jock isn't alone! I can count (without even thinking about it) eight kids I know whose parents have abandoned them to the upbringing of well-meaning, but elderly grandparents. DD came home one day in tears after her friend, Conor, told her how his Mum shouted at him and his little brother 'You're millstones round my neck! If it weren't for you two, I'd have a man by now!' And she left them with their father, who promptly delivered them to their grandmother's house. They've lived there for seven years now, having never seen either parent in that time. Granny is nice, but she makes it clear what a good deed she's doing in keeping the two boys. DD was utterly amazed that Conor is smiling and cheerful every day at school! 'If I were in his place', she said, 'I'd be crying every single day!' So would I.

Gee, it's lucky to be able to get DD into such a program, isn't it? How lovely for her to be able to ride! The outside of a horse *is* good for the inside of a girl, isn't it? ;->

Omigoodness! She was eight, last time we talked! I can't believe it either!

Try not to have a self-fulfilling prophecy! We pulled DD out of her feral school when she was eight, full of misgivings and assuming everything would be the same at the new school. Nothing could have been farther from the truth! DD started anew, made billions of friends immediately and still has them these six years later. DH and I are still amazed at how foolish we were to keep her at the feral school as long as we did. Still, the 'bad years' as she calls them taught her a lot about bullying and how to treat people. She's a lot more resilient and self-reliant than I might have expected.

The point I make is that few kids are misfits in and of themselves. But situations are often bad. If you move away from the situation, there's no reason to assume the next one will be bad too. D'you know what I mean? (I do, but on re-reading, it seems a bit garbled. LOL!)

Oh, and being a 'new kid' has a glamour of its own. Everyone wants to get to know the new kid and this may work in her favour instead of against it. One thing that worked a treat for my DD was the fact that she started off with one firm friend. (Nina, who came up to her on her first day, shook her hand and said 'I would love to be your friend!' G*d bless Nina!) If you can get the teaching staff to line up one mature and kindly kid to be DD's mentor, it could make all the difference for her!

ROTFL! DD utterly loathes PE too! She and her friend spend most of PE sloping around behind the crowd and ensuring they don't get called upon to take a turn. Yesterday, she came home full of herself because she'd been caught and made to execute a 'dive roll' (jump off a minitramp into a forward roll). Well, she *did* it and frightened herself and her friend into the middle of next week. Nina (DD's friend) said 'What'd you do *that* for? Now I'll have to do it too!' LOLOLOLOLOLOL! I can't believe a child of mine can't do a forward (or a backward) roll! I mean, I wasn't the greatest PE lover of all time, but I could do the basics. DD is *proud* that she can't! Groannnn!

Please tell your DD 'G'day' from Ellie in Australia and let her know there are kids all over the world who also hate PE. But they're good kids and they do it without complaining, just like she does. ;->

Never mind what it *looks* like, what about the *smell*??? There ain't nothin' so stinky as a Scout's post-camp pack! I believe adolescents have a stench peculiar unto themselves and it doesn't go away until they marry. Or, at least, until they leave home. DH walked out of DD's room yesterday and said 'Whew! What does she *do* in there? And have you noticed she's hidden the key to the window so you can't open it? It's as if she *likes* that awful stench!'

Mummy's Little Flower is only thirteen but her room smells like that of an elderly bag-man off Skid Row!

And delightful to chat with you too! I'm so glad to hear about your DD belonging to things and getting on with life!!! It's funny... they grow up in spite of everything we do for them, don't they? Every now and again, you stop and look and think 'Oh no! Where did the time go?'

When DD was two, her hair had grown *just* long enough for me to put it up in two bunches. I remember that day as if it were yesterday: she turned toward me and I saw with horror that my baby's round piglet face was gone and a little girl with *cheekbones* stood in her place! She ran, laughing, to the front door and showed me how she could reach the lock!

Later, she started school and the hair went into a bum-length plait for seven years. Oh no! A Big Girl had stolen my little girl away! This Big Girl learned to catch a bus and go to the library and smart-talk boys. She also stopped holding my hand in public and asked me to stop making her pretty dresses.

Then, just recently, the bum-length plait came off and the hair is loose and kewl. A young lady is there, wrestling with my Girl! I hear her in the laugh and see her in the toss of the head. She's nearly tall enough to look me in the eye and she's utterly gorgeous. Last week, she went to the movies dressed in a black pleated miniskirt, black leggings and a turquoise angora sweater. The hair was Up and the effect was 'scary' (said her Father). She's learning not to need me right there at her hip!

I remember going through similar stages with her brother and thinking 'this can't be happening'. But it does. Believe it or not, each new stage brings a whole lot of new pleasures to enjoy and it's not really as sad as we sometimes think it is. My baby was gorgeous, but I do think the young woman is shaping up to be an awesome friend! ;-D

Wow. That's beyond tragic. Words fail me.

It sure is. She's looking forward to the horses.

I dread what DS's gear will

Oh, I _know_. With DS it's the socks. I know that's where the fragrance originates, but I cannot find them all in his room. Ugh! And he did look all right today when I picked him up. Of course, I told him to put everything from camp that needing washing into the machine and he did. (I didn't want to have to touch it!) When I shifted it all to the dryer I discovered that it consisted of the following:

Two pairs of long pants Two pairs of shorts One long-sleeved shirt One T-shirt bathing suit swimming shirt (It's got 50 UPF protection for Mr. Peels-a-Lot)

Notice anything missing?

He did have quite an adventure at camp as well. I don't know if you've heard about the four scouts killed in Iowa by a tornado, but DS spent over an hour and a half Thursday evening in a cave with 80 other scouts, waiting out three or four tornadoes that were in the area. They had no touch-downs or damage, but still...

I know. It just floors me sometimes. DD has developed a wicked sense of humor. We don't get to see it often, but when it crops up... look out! Both she and DS are now huge Doctor Who fans as I was in my teens. (Thanks to YouTube we're keeping pace with the UK.) Both kids are nearing me in height, and DS had such a good time at camp that he's talking about being a CIT next year and a full-on counselor the next! And he's my baby!

Karen E.