Camp Joe Joe's in #CHA

Last week our little lady was quite trepidatious as Tuesday approached because she was headed to "Art Camp." She wouldn't know anyone. It was on the other part of town. And she'd never been before. We had confidence, based on the high reviews of our friends at Cobblestone Rue who sent their daughters there last year, that Art Camp, aka Camp Joe Joe's was going to rock our girl's socks off.

We were not mistaken.

We picked her up on Tuesday afternoon and she literally dove into the car yelling, BEST ART CAMP EVERRRR! Her confidence was a mile high and her enjoyment of all the activities was superlative.

The camp takes place for 3 days, from 9a-12p at the Clay Pot on the Northshore (which I call NoSho to be cool...so join me in the pool of cool and start saying it. Propagate it, baby. Ready? On three: 1-2-3, NoSho! Yeah, wanna be startin' sumthin'....). The Clay Pot is just such a funky and fabulous little shop of home decore and floral arrangements. I want to move in and learn the ways of the festive mason jar arrangement.

The counselors all seemed genuinely tickled about spending their mornings with exuberant young'ns and tweens. Counselor Nikki was a fan favorite of our girl's.

As for the camp's namesake and fearless leader Joe Jumper, the man is a cartoon. I really think he just walked out of an Archie comic book and opened up an interior design shop and appointed himself Captain Fun of the art camp scene. His enthusiasm for teaching children to love art and make uber cool things at an hour in the day when most folks haven't even drained their coffee mug is just really admirable.

Our girl and our little man can't wait for next summer when they can both go.

In the meantime, we'll enjoy the memories and the masterpieces. Thanks, Camp Joe-Joe!

P.S. Don't forget to enter the Easy Canvas Prints giveaway!

Dynamite

Dear Baby Girl, So far you've had a pretty dynamite summer. Not just because of the places you've traveled and the vistas you've seen, which include a trip to the greatest amusement park on earth where you survived a huge scary thunderstorm, but also because of the fears you've overcome.

Just in the last month, you've shed your training wheels and you confidently ride your bike, like you are the Gywneth Paltrow of biking. Talk show hosts are probably getting ready to call and ask you to come sit on their couch and relate the story of your harrowing defeat of training wheels.

You've also become quite the mermaid in the pool. Last year at this time, you were loathe to get your face wet in a body of water, which may or may not have included the bathtub. Now, you barely come up for air. This is awesome. Except for when we need to--tell--you--some--BABY GIRL, YOU AREN'T AMPHIBIOUS.

I am glad that you are realizing what the second book of Timothy tells us: that we are not given a spirit of fear. Rather, we are given a spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind. There are so many wonderful things to experience in this life, and it is such a gift to be a girl, it really is, and I am glad you are discovering these things and letting me rediscover them right along with you.

Tonight we were watching "Soul Surfer" and you were very brave through the shark scene and the subsequent blood scenes. You had started watching the movie and were adamant that you were going to visit your uncle Joe in California and take a surf lesson. Mid-way through the movie, you had sworn off surfing to infinity.

Then there was a scene where Soul Surfer goes to Thailand for a mission trip to help the people recover post tsunami. You remembered that a tsunami was a "giant tidal wave." You asked if you could go to Thailand someday and I said, Sure. So you said you were going to go pick out your outfit for Thailand. Which seemed not so mission-minded to me, but okay.

When you came back into the room, you informed me that you had your outfit ready and wanted to go help the children whose city had gotten covered by the salami. In Tykes Land.

I tried super hard to keep a straight face.

You asked if you could go to Thailand on Wednesday.

I said, No.

But I was really proud of you, my little Soul Swimmer Biker Missionary Girl. You are quite the intrepid.

Love,

Mama

P.S. Oh yeah. And this happened. I don't know how I feel about it yet. The important thing is that you felt dandy about it.

The Wonder Years

The wisdom of the sitcom series "The Wonder Years," now streaming on Netflix for my procrastination enjoyment, is the parallel between the main character Kevin Arnold's coming-of-age and the U.S. as a young nation navigating some tumultuous times. If this were a literary essay, I would generously bandy about the words bildungsroman and juxtapose so that I sound very proffy indeed.

But this is not for a grade.

[showmyads]

As I rewatch Kevin Arnold fumble as an adolescent, scored by his retrospective as an adult, I see how the opposite is mostly true for me. I was not a young person who stammered or who minced words. I look back at my younger life and I regret more the things I said than the things left unspoken. As Jane Austen writes in Sense and Sensibility (This is not a literary essay? Surrrre, Kennndra.), I didn't know how to govern my tongue. I was blunt and often biting. I thought sarcasm was a high shelf brand of humor, rather than the lowest form.

There was one time in high school, in particular, when there was a boy who was interested in me, and let's be honest, I think he was interested in getting some action, which--c'mon. Barking up the wrong tree, bro.

He dropped me off after taking me to a horror film (1-800-CLICHE) and I think he was expecting something from me. So, I said. "Yeah, I think I'm gonna go inside because I just put flannel sheets on my bed."

Which to him probably meant, Oh, you guys, I can't even imagine.

But I was just over here, YAAAY, I'll be warm and toasty in my flannels all night long!

That relationship sort of fizzled a couple weeks later. What I congratulate myself for that time was a resolve to just be true to myself.

This has not been the problem, however. Being true to who I am has not been my struggle. It is more the words that I have used to convey the truths that have been so troubling. There are so many words I wish I could catch with a butterfly net and cast back into the ocean. I trust that my God can do the work I am not able to do....

Take a wild guess --who am I? ***

Yesterday Baby Girl and I were talking to one of the high schoolers who works at the gym. After the high school gal passed, Baby Girl implored, "Mama? I notice some spots on her face. Why are they still there?" I asked if she meant freckles. "No, they're red." Ah. Those are called zits, I explained, and I said that sometimes people's skin gets them but then they go away.

That was probably a poor explanation. Seriously, it was all I could do not to say, OH honey. Mommy's skin is still an oilspill in her twirties. Do you SEE this? But one thing struck me. My girl asked me privately as to the blemishes of another. There was so much wisdom in that moment and I wanted to place my girl on a conveyer belt headed toward adulthood and say, Just stay on this track of judicious and well-timed words, my sweet one. And just step to the right if others need to get by.

But she's still has a few wonder years ahead of her to figure all that out. I just pray that those who stand in front of her continue to keep her on track. And I pray that she'll allow herself to look back every now and again from whence she came.