I spent the day cleaning out the workshop and garage with the kids. Ok, maybe the word day isn’t correct. And ‘with’ is stretching it a little bit. They did do quite a bit of work, when they wanted to. I can’t say that I did much, with a bum ankle still. I probably did more than I should have, but that’s what dad do, right? Can’t let the kids see us hurt for too long, even if we pay for it later.
I think my kids are great. Most fathers would agree, they may even think their kids are great also! I love how they get so excited about things. How they have such reckless abandon when they don’t know any better. How they have this air of invincibility about them, yet they don’t hold it against us when they get hurt. ( Or when we get hurt either.)
Today was a day of planning for the future. We are cleaning out what was my woodworking shop, to make it into a train room. Model trains. The Walnut is extremely excited, and wants to run the trains now. I have a small oval set up for him to do just that. He has learned to use the controls. Move the train forward and back. Today he learned how to couple and un-couple cars, and to put cars on the track. Very exciting. During all this time, I was cleaning, and moving stuff. Later, all the kids helped empty two cabinets, and move them into the garage proper. We also spent some time putting away camping gear from the ill-fated camping trip where I hurt my ankle.
The ankle is still bothering me. Two weeks ago, I told the Peanut we would be able to finish out hiking and geocaching in two weeks, when my ankle was all better. Yet, here we are two weeks later, and it still feels like someone is stabbing the side of my ankle, most of the time, and I still can only walk short distances w/o the brace. It sucks. I thought I would have healed much faster. Heck, it’s only a sprain, right. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to heal as fast as when I was 20.
The kids seem to understand. Even though we couldn’t hike after my fall, the Peanut and I still had a good time the rest of the camping trip. The Walnut and I still can run the train a few times around the track. The Almond still wants to play games and the Pecan is…well, the Pecan is only 11 months old, so he doesn’t really do much yet. They are great kids.
They are also, daring and don’t listen. While cooking hamburgers on the grill, the boys were playing on top of the hot tub, which is drained ( bad thermostat ). I know that there are wasps in the hot tub, so I told them to get down and not play. Not two minutes later and the Almond has been stung in the neck. I really wanted to say I told you so, but I couldn’t. He was hurt, and crying and needed comfort. After checking to make sure he wasn’t going to have a nasty allergic reaction, a little cream, and ice on the sting. He fell asleep in my lap. Now that he is awake, you can’t really tell he was stung. Perhaps I should try the same thing. Dad, I’m on my way with my ice, and I plan on falling asleep in your lap, and when I wake up, I expect my ankle to be better, ok?
