Camp Kris­ten

Let’s see, tomor­row brings the close of Camp Kris­ten, or more fair­ly Camp Red Gate Farm, since John has been at least as active a coun­selor as I have been. We’ll have to take Anna and Ellie home in the after­noon, so so sad­ly, as our house­hold could very hap­pi­ly encom­pass three girls (or as Avery points out, THESE three girls) all the time. What fun we’ve had: pool, slip ‘n slide, tram­po­line, shop­ping trips, and quite the most fantab­u­lous (or “fab­u­lis­tic”, we can’t decide) din­ner that ever hit the Camp: pier­rade. And an unex­pect­ed and quite divine addi­tion to the tra­di­tion­al menu of sir­loin and duck: VEAL! It turns out to be the Meat of Choice for the camp girls, so two nights in a row found me slav­ing over the thin-slic­ing rou­tine… such a plea­sure, then, to see so much pro­tein digest­ed by such ener­getic girls. And in addi­tion to the usu­al mus­tard accom­pa­ni­ment, there was a sur­pris­ing­ly pop­u­lar sec­ond sauce:

Satay Sauce
(serves 12)

1 10 ounce can coconut milk
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
1/2 small onion, grated
1 table­spoon dark soy sauce
2 tea­spoons brown sugar
1/2 tea­spoon red pep­per flakes

Boil all ingre­di­ents at a low boil for three min­utes, then set aside to cool. PER­FECT for duck pier­rade.

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Most­ly what we have done for the past week is rev­el in what every at-home par­ent will rec­og­nize as the self­ish lux­u­ry of bore­dom with an at-home child, or three. Of course it’s a bore! Their games are of no inter­est to me, or to John, their con­ver­sa­tion is often noth­ing that stirs a heart­beat. But we lux­u­ri­ate in the total gift of that bore­dom, the heart-warm­ing love­li­ness of that long-term invest­ment of hav­ing this per­son, or peo­ple in our life, for such a short por­tion of ours. Adding a cou­ple of extra girls to it all only enhances the fun. In such a short time we will be of no inter­est to them! Not even as trans­porta­tion. The years when they ask inter­minably, “Mom­my, Dad­dy, lis­ten to this,” are so painful­ly short that we’re hap­py to live through the “But that’s so bor­ing!” Thank good­ness they want to tell us.

Today under a threat­en­ing sky, we took Ellie with us to our ten­nis game, leav­ing Avery and Anna alone for a nice peri­od of time just on their own. Ellie played, served (“I’m much bet­ter at serv­ing than hit­ting!”), and final­ly earned some spend­ing mon­ey as “Ball Girl,” serv­ing up balls to each of us, cor­ralling all the stray balls as we played. The clouds gath­ered, how­ev­er, and just as we were stop­ping play, and I was men­tal­ly review­ing the con­tents of my larder so as to know what to feed my charges, the heav­ens opened! We hud­dled at home, and I must say I adore the vista from my kitchen win­dow as the rain pelts down. Very cozy.

Off to Dan­bury to shop after­ward: fon­due forks for pier­rade, a new lamp for the new library, a shelf to hold all our bath­room bits and pieces, train­ers and san­dals for Avery, and just plain can­dy for the oth­er campers: sor­ry, Becky, to have let them have so much, but what is one lone camp coun­selor to do?

Oh, and the girls had a love­ly, if not very chal­leng­ing rid­ing les­son, on the most per­fect after­noon ever. Deb the instruc­tor was under­stand­ably con­ser­v­a­tive about let­ting Anna and Ellie do things she was­n’t sure they could do, but let Avery jump a bit, which seemed unfair. We were all relieved it did­n’t go on too long, and I was hap­py to sign Avery up for six lessons for the next six weeks. Dusty, aller­gy-mak­ing, but a gor­geous after­noon in the sun, and as Becky said lat­er, “Any time spent on a horse is bet­ter than time NOT spent on a horse.” True enough.

When we got home and were hav­ing din­ner, one dish being fresh-shelled peas, I said, “I don’t know how the expres­sion ‘like peas in a pod’ ever came to be. There are nev­er any two peas alike, which you’ll find if you shell them!” And Ellie spoke up imme­di­ate­ly, bring­ing tears to my eyes. “But Miss Kris­ten, that expres­sion does­n’t mean the peas are ALIKE. It means they are CLOSE. Like, Anna, Avery and me.” She ges­tured along the table to encom­pass the two old­er girls on either side of her, and I imag­ined the lov­ing secu­ri­ty she must feel, so safe between them. What a love­ly thing.