A Hunting Season to Remember

A Boring Weekend

By Allan Olson

Last weekend was mostly boring and uneventful, aside from getting all the kids over that pesky little flu bug that hit everyone in our family in the course of less than a week.

The kids, of course, were all anxious to hit the great outdoors again, once they felt better. Their bikes, once put away, are back to being scattered around the yard.

We spent the majority of the weekend at home. My brother arrived for the weekend on Friday night to help plan for a family reunion. While I worked on Saturday, some of them decided to try their hand at geocaching – something we’ve only done once. If we can get all the kids interested in this, we will hopefully be spending some free days hunting for the area treasure boxes on summer weekends.

This coming weekend, many people will celebrate Mother’s Day. Of course, some will celebrate it from a boat, as it just happens to coincide with one of the most popular weekends of the year in Minnesota – the opening of walleye season.

Mothers are important, and a great reason to celebrate any day. After all, they carried us around for nine months and still continue to put up with us. My mother was “fortunate” enough to have four boys. Of course, we’ve all had our disagreements and arguments with our mother over the course of our childhood, but the mother’s rule was always firm. We didn’t always listen, but it was always firm. As adults we get the enjoyment of giving our mother a hard time, and watching us now as parents she gets the privilege of laughing at us as we deal with our children while she gets to spoil the grandkids, just as our grandparents did with us.

Just like my brothers and I chose not to listen to our mother at times, our kids make those same decisions in not listening to their mom. And of course with that mistake comes consequences. It seems like usually the girls are the most defiant ones, and they know it’s “not good,” in the words of Abigail, if they don’t listen.

As a mother, my wife deals with many of the problems at home with the kids. If there is an owie, or someone isn’t feeling well, she is the first one they turn to. If the kids are hungry, they would far rather have mom cook than dad. Go figure.

My idea of cooking is simply throw it in the pan or oven, cook it and throw it on a plate – if they’re lucky. Depending on the meal (pizza or chicken nuggets) they might not even get a plate. The idea of food groups (i.e.,vegetables) rarely gets a second thought from me if I’m in charge of cooking. The kids don’t usually complain, but they also don’t get many of the important foods if I’m in charge.

Mom is much better about keeping the kids in healthy snack foods as well. My idea of a snack is: “You just ate two hours ago, why do you need a snack?” or “We’re gonna eat in a couple hours; you don’t need a snack.” Most of the time, the kids don’t even bother asking me.

If there are grapes or berries in the house, I don’t think Abigail even bothers with asking. This weekend, with fresh strawberries in the house, she took them out of the fridge, over to the sink, and started washing them. She might have asked her mom for permission, but I don’t think so; either way, soon she and Alivia were munching down on the fruit. More than once I’ve found Abigail standing at the sink washing grapes or an apple or another fruit. If I stocked the pantry or fridge with snacks, it would probably be more peanut butter, cookies, or snack crackers. That could be why mom does the grocery shopping.

There are many behind-the-scenes jobs that get done in every house where a mom is present. So be sure to thank your mom and the mother of your children for a job that well done – and not often appreciated enough.

A golden rule to remember: If mom isn’t happy, then nobody is happy.

Please be safe on the lakes this weekend – wear your life jacket, keep the kids safe, and remember to take a picture to preserve a lifetime memory.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week. Remember – watch out for school buses on the road. For more of my columns visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com.