Lex and Alan play Minecraft most nights before bedtime so when Lex gets in to bed he has Minecraft on the mind. I mean, he always has Minecraft on the mind, but more so now that they are playing every night. I still lay with him at night, but instead of “Highs and Lows” like we used to do, now it’s just his steady stream of Minecraft talk until I leave. Some nights I tell him I really can’t deal with Minecraft thoughts and try to change the subject, but he just gets annoyed. Or offended. Or just tunes me out while he continues his Minecraft thoughts. Most nights I just let him ramble and my brain goes elsewhere. When I leave he keeps talking as I walk out the door. I wonder if I should feel guilty about this. Should I fake more of an interest in what he’s interested in, or is there a point where it’s fair to say I just don’t care! Will he grow up thinking his mother never listened to him. Sigh. Maybe I need another glass of wine. I’m sorry I ever let Minecraft into the house! I miss the days of varied interests, even though there were only ever three or four of them. Now we are down to just one and one alone. Minecraft.

I took Lex and a buddy rock climbing today. It was so cool! I’ve heard good things about the place but have never actually been there before. It was on our list of summer to-dos even though Eve insisted it would be awful and she would have absolutely no fun there at all. I figured with Eve at camp this week it would be the ideal time to take Lex. And boy did we have fun! I didn’t actually do any climbing myself because the walls are so high you need a belayer on the ground managing the rope. I had to take a training class an everything!

This was the training wall. They taught me (and two others) how to belay here and then we had to send someone up on the rope to practice. I made Lex go first, just in case!

The place was so big I couldn’t get a picture of all of it, but here is a good section.

Two tired boys! I wasn’t sure how long they would last. The timing was inconvenient because the place opened at noon and I was supposed to pick Eve up at 2pm, but I managed to work things out so we had plenty of time. When I called yesterday they said “Two 10 year old boys?! They will last for hours!” Fortunately the did not! :) I thought it would be muscle fatigue, which I’m sure there was some of, but mostly it ended up being tired fingers and toes!

For his final climb Lex went up this orange wall. It took him awhile, but he didn’t quit and he made it all the way up to the top! He was so proud! I couldn’t get a picture of him up there because I was holding the ropes and my photographer (the other boy) was taking off his climbing gear. I snapped this shot at the end though and I suspect Lex will like to hang it on his memory board. :)

A good time was had by all!

With Eve at Girls Camp this week Lex and I have been getting some serious quality time together. These kids, boy have they surprised me this summer. When Lex had camp last month and I was home with Eve for two weeks I expected to be go, go, go! I thought she would want tons of activity and playdates every day, but no, she was, for the most part, calm and content to just hang out. She spent a lot of time playing with her dolls and was happy to go places with me. We had two fairly calm and peaceful weeks.

This week, I thought Lex, my boy who can play Legos alone for hours and read by himself for the rest of the day, this week he has been full on attention demanding! He is chock full of Minecraft stories and wants to play games together and read Calvin and Hobbes out loud and go lots of places! Monday we had lunch with Alan and went to the skate park, Tuesday we had a doctor appt for him and went grocery shopping (he wasn’t very excited about either of those plans) and today we went to Quechee Gorge.

Can you guess where we are? :-)

This poor tree is hanging on for dear life!

We took off our shoes and did some wading. The water felt great!

I love this view.

He obliged me with a photo. :-)

The water is so low!

We hiked to the bottom, then back to the top to see the dam, then got ice cream. After that we played a round of mini-golf and then got lunch. By the time we got home I had just enough time to shower (sunscreen and sweat, ugh!) and then head out to pick up Eve! Tomorrow I’m taking Lex and a friend to a local rock-climbing place and on Friday he has already invited our neighbor over for some Lego Mindstorm building. I think he’s ready to get back to school. :) Despite the less than quiet week, I have been loving every minute of it! It is so nice to get one-on-one time with them occasionally, even if the primary conversation revolves around Minecraft!

Lex got stung by a bee yesterday! Yay! :) Seriously though, after the last incident we have been waiting with baited breath to see how his body reacts the next time. Turns out, pretty good. So good, in fact, that he didn’t even remember to tell me about it until this morning.

He’s at camp this week and yesterday they were sitting in the grass having lunch. Suddenly he felt a sting on his thigh. He said it hurt for a few minutes, but then it went away. Some of the other kids around said they saw a bee by his leg, so he assumed it was a bee sting.

This morning he told me about it in the car on the way to camp. I looked at his thigh when we got there and it has a red, swollen area, maybe 3″ in diameter (guessing, I didn’t measure). It was hot to the touch and he said a bit itchy, but otherwise it seemed ok. At pick up one of the counselors told me about it, apologizing for not telling me sooner, and said the field was definitely full of bees. I checked Lex’s leg again in the afternoon and it looked about the same.

Sooo much better than what I feared his next bee sting would be! I know this doesn’t ensure he won’t have a similar reaction some other time, but at least I think we can relax a bit. Alan think it has to do with the type of bee (or hornet), so I’ll ask at camp tomorrow what kind of bees they were. Test the memory of these poor counselor kids. :)