The Third Child...

We have three beautiful children together:

Mine: The Social Guy [The Oldest] - He can talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere (and I am NOT kidding). He remembers faces and names, unlike his mother. He will make friends no matter where he goes. He loves, loves, loves people.

His: The Artist [The Middle Child]- She has the most amazing stories in her head. She can take you on the adventure of a life time without you ever leaving the living room or backyard. She can write them or help you act them out, even at the grocery store.

Ours: The Brainiac [The Baby] - He can figure out how anything works and will tell you how he could make it better. He is happiest in the garage or working with Legos thinking up his next greatest invention. Oh, and he has a really weird East Coast accent.

The three of them are a great mix and most of the time they make a beautiful blend of oil, herbs, and vinegar (in no particular order). But sometimes they separate and it makes parenting their different styles difficult. So one of my favorite things to do is to take them camping. It's a few days when the "Olson Family of Five" is nothing but a perfect blend.

Some of our frequent places to visit are the MN State Parks. The State Parks are usually very clean and quiet, enough privacy and enough running water. We like to hike and "rough it" (rough it = double decker air-mattress for me and hubby, nice sheets, three room tent, mini tents for the teens, organizers, flat top gas griddle, gas grill, gas burner , adapter for the car battery to run plugged in appliances (yes I 'could' bring and run my microwave), reclining chairs, mp3 player and little baby speakers....I think you get the picture.) for as many weekends as we can each summer. Unfortunately we were only able to go family camping once this summer. But, there are so many blog-able events that happened over the weekend you can expect a few blogs this week :)

Seeing that the kids are older (15, 14, 8), they got a lot more freedom this year. The teens went to the showers by themselves. All three kids took the dogs for short, but adventurous walks throughout the park. Our requirements were simple: stay together and bring a walkie talkie.

Then there is the Third Child...
Considering his age, he was probably allowed the most freedom of them all...

Eight Year Old, "Hey dad, I wanna make a fire."

Dad, "ah...no? I paid $4 per tiny bundle of wood and you are not making a fire at 3:00 in the afternoon."

Eight Year Old, "but dad, I really, really want to make a fire. You always make log cabin fires and I wanna build a tee-pee fire."

Dad, "You can make a fire closer to dinner time."

Eight Year Old, "but-sep-for [except for] I wanna make one now."

Dad, "Fine. Go get your own wood and you can make a fire."

Eight Year Old, "All the wood is too big for me to carry."

Dad :::hands Eight Year Old a saw::: "Okay, go saw it into smaller pieces."

Fifteen Year Old tunes into what is going on, "WHAT!?!?! Did you just give the Eight Year Old a saw? AND tell him to go cut his own wood?"

Dad, "Yeah...so?"

Fifteen Year Old :::silently thinking::: "what the FUCK are you thinking?"

Fifteen Year Old, "You never gave me a saw at eight!"

Mom, "oh, you don't even remember being eight."

Fifteen Year Old, "wow"

***Hours later Eight Year Old starts fire with Dad's $4 per "small" bundle of wood***

And of course we didn't give The Oldest Child, aka The Social Butterfly a saw at eight! He would have sawed his finger off while talking to the people at the next camp site...

Tiaras and Tutus~
The MFP