Camp week

This week is camp week.

My oldest, Cole, will be gone at scout camp until Saturday. He left this morning at 6 am. He has a very experienced and competent scout leader, who I really do trust. But, still, I had to give him the little talk yesterday. The talk in which I express my expectations that my son be returned to me safe, sound, and intact. With two working legs, two arms, and still breathing. You know, minor details like that. He assured me that all would be fine.

My next oldest, Megan, will be gone to Clearcreek, which is Alpine District’s summer camp. She left this morning at 6:30 am, and will return on Friday. I really have no idea if the employees there are competent, but since Cole had such a good experience when he went two years ago, I’m confident and hopeful that Megan will also have a great time. She’s going with 5 of her friends from the neighborhood and school, so I’m sure it will be a blast, and she’ll come home singing all those silly camp songs until I want to rip my ears off of my head.

So, you ask yourself, what is Paige going to be doing this week with only 3 kids? That’s almost 1/2 the number of kids she usually has. Is she going somewhere fun? Hanging out and enjoying the quiet? Well, I would do those things, had we not embarked on a huge project this weekend. Yes, we have started the great bedroom migration of ’07.

I have been thinking about and trying to figure out the best room placement for the kids for quite some time, now. We have three bedrooms for 5 kids. Cole’s had his own room for quite some time, now. He also has the queen bed, so his room doubles as the “guest room”, and when we have guests, he goes down to the pull out couch in the unfinished basement. Well, Megan has been complaining about sharing a room with Jenna, Natalie has been complaining about sharing a room with John (she wrote a note to Dad saying that John was ruining her life, in fact). Plus there’s the closet issue. Cole’s room has a large closet. Natalie’s room has two closets (she uses one for clothes and one for toys and stuff). Megan’s room has one closet. Shouldn’t the room with only one closet house the smallest amount of people?

After discussing the possibilities, we called a family meeting to discuss the proposed changes, and everyone seemed agreeable to switching. So, John goes in with Cole, and they have the bunk beds that have been in Megan and Jenna’s room. The queen bed goes to Megan’s room, which will become the new “guest room”. Jenna moves in to Natalie’s room, and we buy them a new bunk bed. And everyone gets speakers in their rooms, thanks to Dad.

So we got to work on Saturday. We had to clean up stuff, vacuum, take apart beds, clean out closets, strip sheets, do about 100 loads of laundry, and put the bed together in their new places with clean sheets. That’s about as far as we got. Jenna has no bed at the moment, as I haven’t yet bought the new bunkbed that I promised them. Her dresser is also not moved to the new location because John’s car bed is still in there. John’s dresser is still in his old room, too. Megan’s room needs to be cleaned, vacuumed, and rearranged. It also needs to be painted. This week. Natalie and Jenna’s room also needs to be put together, bed bought, dressers arranged, and all of JOhn’s stuff taken out. It needs to be painted, too, but not neccesarily this week. What’s the rush on Megan’s room, then? Well, it’s houseguest season. My brother’s family will be staying with us in two weeks, and there’s a good possibility we will have Robin and kids here this weekend.

So, while my two oldest, most helpful kids (the ones who babysit) are gone, I will be moving furniture, cleaning up rooms, throwing away stuff, picking out paint, and hopefully actually doing the painting. I’d love some help, if you’d like to come over.