“Daddy, I like this song because it reminds me of all the fun times I’ve had in my life!” — Griffin
Adorable!
Until you listen to the lyrics. The song is Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People and it’s “written from the perspective of a troubled and delusional youth with homicidal thought,” according to Wikipedia.
Pumped Up Kicks
Here’s the chorus:
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, faster than my bullet
Fortunately, a bit of further investigation revealed that Griffin hasn’t a clue what the lyrics are about. When I nervously asked him why it reminds him of fun times, he looked up with a big grin and said, “it just sounds so happy!”
The ultimate irony here is that I am exactly the same way. I only figured out what the song was about when I started writing this post — after listening to it with Griffin a few times — and thought I’d better look up the lyrics to make sure it wasn’t filled with profanity.
The counselors at Camp du Nord tell stories about an old troll, simply named Mrs. Troll, who lives beneath Angell Bridge. Our campsite lay on the far side of the bridge, so we crossed it many times a day, and we often tried to spot Mrs. Troll. Although we sometimes heard her, we never spotted her. Nevertheless, Mrs. Troll became a major feature of our conversations and quickly became a featured character in our bedtime stories.
I tried not to depart too much from camp canon, beginning with these basic facts:
She lives beneath Angell Bridge.
She is shy and doesn’t like to be spotted, but is not otherwise unfriendly.
She has a shopping bag with a hole in the bottom.
She’s not too bright (i.e., never understanding why her shopping bag is always empty when she gets home).
She has straggly hair and a stoop.
From this we began spinning tales, and learned many new things about Mrs. Troll, and other characters. For example, she has a secret friend, a clever flying squirrel who keeps an eye on her and helps her overcome her problems. She likes to drink sour milk, but has ever so much trouble getting it home in her shopping bag. She sleeps on a bed of sharp stones, and becomes awfully uncomfortable if any of them get too worn; she hates soft spots, and rolls around causing earthquakes throughout the camp. There are other, less friendly trolls, who live elsewhere in the wilderness around the lake. They are strong and mean, but even Mrs. Troll can outsmart them to protect the camp.
In Norse mythology, the Midgard Serpent is so long that it envelops the world and grasps its own tail in its mouth. If it ever lets go, the world will come apart.
At Maggie’s request, we discovered that there is a Mr. Troll, too — he is a prodigious fishertroll, usually sticking to regular fish, but capable of pulling whales, sea serpents, and dragons from the depths of the lake. In our most epic troll story to date, he was challenged to a fishing competition which nearly ended the world as he began yanking the Midgard Serpent out of the lake. Luckily his opponent backed down, so he unhooked his catch, forestalling the apocalypse.
We’ve been back for a week now, and the kids are just as excited as ever to hear new troll stories. Indeed, I have never seen Maggie so enthralled by storytelling. Her eyes grow wide with each new chapter, and she jumps in eagerly to provide key details or to correct me when I get something wrong. She also suggests story topics, especially when I’m tired and feeling less creative. Tonight, for example, I paused at the beginning of the story, trying to cobble something together in my head. Maggie jumped in, saying, “Daddy… maybe Mrs. Troll has trouble sleeping!”
“Ah yes, of course she does,” I replied, and so the tale of Mrs. Troll’s unusual mattress requirements was born.
Family camp? This was a new concept to both Sarah and Andrew, but we had been hearing wonderful things about Camp du Nord from families we know in St. Paul for a few years, so this summer was our first time giving it a go. We are generally a do-it-yourself family vacation kind of family, so the idea of going somewhere where we could enjoy being on a lake AND having our days filled with activities we didn’t plan sounded kind of dreamy. We were not disappointed!
Camp du Nord is on Burntside Lake, at the south-central edge of the BWCAW.Griffin’s certificate for completing the polar bear plunge on five consecutive mornings.
Camp du Nord is a YMCA camp located near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in extreme northern Minnesota, mere miles from Canada. Andrew and Griffin kicked off every morning with the “polar bear plunge,” wherein the doughtiest members of the camp all run screaming into the chilly lake. (For anyone who has done a real polar plunge, into freezing water, this was not really that bad.) After breakfast, the kids spent every morning in age-level activities led by an incredible group of counselors. Sarah and Andrew were gloriously free from all responsibilities during this time. In the afternoons we engaged in full-family activities, which included a canoe paddle to a nearby smaller lake where Andrew succeeded at his first canoe portage, Voyageur Days where the kids tried log rolling, and an all-camp hunt for the counselors who were hiding in the woods. There are cabins available to rent, but we opted for a tent site right on the shore of the lake where we slept and had breakfast and lunch. We took the advice of families before us and joined the full camp for dinner in the dining hall. A couple of evenings, we took advantage of the traditional wood-heated Finnish sauna, which always concludes with a dip in the lake! And every night, we fell to sleep excited and exhausted, ready to see what adventures awaited us in the morning.
Like all family vacations, there were smatterings of tears, whining, and impatience, but overall, we all agreed that we loved family camp and look forward to returning in the future!
4th of July parade
At our camp site.
in the tent
A cool dip after the wood-fired sauna
handsome mustachios
Griffin’s map project
Maggie’s accoutrements during grownup day
reality
Maggie calls this a “lego plant” because the branches and segments pop off
Griffin and his new friend, Sam
Maggie captured a counselor!
bringing Laura to jail
pushing Laura into the lake
aquatic blob tag
beach construction
log rolling at voyageur day
big voyageur canoe
Griffin was a paddleboard champ
beach volleyball (aka, nuke ’em)
Griffin wearing his polar bear plunge shirt, earned after doing the dawn plunge every day for the full week
Earlier this evening we wrapped up a delicious celebratory dinner at Punch Pizza, one of our favorite neighborhood pizzerias, and were enjoying the delicious complimentary candies that come with the check. While walking back to the car, tragedy strikes: Maggie’s candy falls out of her mouth onto the grimy pavement. There’s no way out of this one—it’s well-past bedtime—she’s going to melt down completely. Sarah and I prepare ourselves to deliver platitudes about life and loss while whisking everyone home as quickly as possible. Maggie’s first wail, however, is interrupted as Griffin simply snaps his piece of candy in half and hands her one gooey piece. Her face lights up as she pops it into her mouth and says in a quiet, quavering voice, “Thank you, Griffin.”
We didn’t take many pictures on this, our first summer trip to the cabin, but we had a great time. Jess, Kevin, Murray, and Olive joined us. Despite some rain and bugs, the kids spent most of their time outside, exploring the woods and shoreline.
Sarah was out of town for a wedding. The kids had been asking for another D&D game. We hadn’t played in ages, not since last summer. So, yes, totally, let’s play D&D! But let’s do it properly. We needed more players. I invited over some friends of theirs so that we could potentially have five players, but if the youngest two—Maggie and her friend, Olive—lost interest, they could entertain each other. Five kids while solo parenting… I was asking for it.
We had a great time. Maggie and Olive only played for a bit, but Griffin, Murray, and Miles invested a couple of hours into it. In the year and a half since our first game, the kids have developed quite a bit. Some observations and highlights:
Griffin is far more adept at arithmetic now, and loves doing it. He gets mad if I do any of the math during the game, wanting to calculate everybody’s hit points and bonuses and all of that.
Griffin is also better at reading and writing, though not quite as good as Murray, who is a year older. They loved writing things down and, when possible, reading things aloud. When they came to the ruins of a village, they could not have been more excited to read this scrawled note posted by the main road:
WARNING!
Plant monsters and zombies
KEEP OUT!
They acted like all they wanted to do was fight monsters, but in reality they tended to get a little bored during combat. They were most engaged when they were debating their plans and making decisions as a group.
They loved deciding whether to travel on the road or through the wilderness. Although crossing the wilderness was more direct, they elected to follow the road because they thought (correctly) that it would be less dangerous.
When they passed through a civilized town, they debated what kind of meal to have, and spent some time figuring out how much treasure they had and whether they could afford a fancy meal. They eventually elected to splurge on a princely feast.
This led to them being followed by a pickpocket. Much joy as they spotted him and then ambushed him, leading eventually to the moral quandary of what to do with their criminal prisoner. After some debate, they elected to “scare him” and then let him go, telling him not to try to steal from people anymore.
Honestly, my impression was that I could mostly dispense with the adventure plot, and simply give them opportunities to go shopping, explore the map, etc. I think they just loved getting to make the kinds of decisions that adults usually make for them. (Plus rolling dice, of course—lots of dice!)
The full group at the table, with Maggie wearing a sheep hat.Just the boys at this point, with my characteristic gesticulations.
Griffin and Maggie, turning seven and four respectively, agreed to have a joint birthday party this year. Each of them invited seven friends, and we all gathered at a local park for cupcakes and fun. It was a gorgeous day, and the whole event felt unusually relaxed. The kids rampaged around while the adults chatted, kept nominal watch, and guarded the cupcakes (my strategy: eat them).
Cupcakes, designed by Griffin and Maggie.
Maggie required some elements from Frozen.
Birthday sparklers… Griffin was nervous that they would be loud.
For years we have despaired that our children would grow up to be shiftless, unmotivated drones. Fortunately, for at least the past six months, they have settled onto a pair of robust dreams for the future. Maggie will be an astronaut. Griffin, who is less excited about the discomforts of space travel, will be a space scientist, staying on the ground but helping Maggie with her experiments.
Griffin got me with two April Fool’s Day jokes already this morning: he told me he made me some brownies for a treat (which turned out to be brown E’s) and he handed me a shoe box and said he got me a new pair (which turned out to be a pear)! He was so delighted with himself, and so was I!
