Long Days...

This is one of those dreaded weekends...  well, sort of... just half of a dreaded weekend I guess.  As much as I love my job at Strong Rock Camp, it often forces me into some super long hours.  In the summer, that's not so bad since I live on the property during those months and the summer ministry is what I am most passionate about.  But this time of year, the weekend retreats bring the good and bad.  The good part is it breaks up the monotony and keeps things interesting.  The bad part is we don't have those 30+ summer staffers around to help run the show.  The net result is that we often work 16 hour days on Friday and Saturday, followed by 8 - 10 hours on Sunday and then back to work as usual Monday morning. 

Yesterday was another one of those days.  At camp by 6:30 am preparing for the group, doing my normal Friday office work and then greeting the group around 4:00 when normal folks would've been knocking off for the weekend.  Not us though.  That just marked the beginning.  I had another 6 or 7 hours left before I could head home.  Back at work by 6:30 Saturday morning to do it all over again.

The hardest part of the weekends is missing out on family time.  It is not unusual for me to not even see Carver from Thursday night until Sunday afternoon.  I see Kristi, but only when I roll over in the bed as she is usually in bed before I get home and still asleep when I leave.  It makes for some tough weekends in regards to the family.

Luckily Kristi is a trooper with all of this.  She hangs in there while I'm away and keeps the house running smoothly.  It's just tough not to get to hang out with them, especially as Carver is getting into this latest mobile stage.

Our hope is to one day move onto, or very close to the camp property so that I can at least hang out with them a little more on these weekends.  Short breaks exist but since I can't leave the property, I don't have enough time to go home.

All right, enough venting...  just missing my boy (and his mom).  Back to work for now...  there's 160 burgers waiting on me to grill them to perfection and about 100 hungry teenagers demanding the same.  Off to get my grill on...

THAT BOY!

Well, it happened again...  that boy decided he didn't want to let us sleep last night.  I told him I had a busy day at work, needed to get up at 5:30 and all that jazz, but he just doesn't seem to care.  Right about midnight, just as I was nice and settled in, Carver decided it was time to wake up.  Mommy usually comes to the rescue, but for some reason I took the bait last night. 

So, being the dutiful loving husband and father that I am (when it's convenient my wife says), I swept the boy up out of his crying frenzy and tried to rock him back to sleep.  Of course, I kept all the lights out and tried to be as calming as possible so we wouldn't make mommy get up.  We settled into the rocking chair, Carver resting his head on my shoulder and all looked hopeful for a quick and easy put back.  Then it happened...  15 minutes into the soothing routine I had carefully mapped out I started feeling a bit of dampness on my bare chest.  I'm an idiot.  I neglected to thoroughly investigate the source of Carver's cries, but now it's clear to me that he had soaked through his diaper, his pajamas, his sheets and now his daddy.

I guess it was fitting.  After all, I had been the one to put on the last diaper before bedtime, so I'm sure I did something wrong.  Maybe I'll learn eventually.

Regardless of the unfortunate moisture on my chest and the putrid odor that went along with that, there is a sense of joy in rocking Carver during the night.  You see, during the day, he rarely ever slows down enough to allow us to just sit there and hold him.  Nope, he's far too busy to be bothered with being held in a rocking chair.  So, despite the inconvenience of being awakened in the middle of the night, these times are special.  Holding that boy, rocking him, soothing him, protecting him, praying for him, planning for him - all reasons that make those nightly interruptions bearable.

So, Carver, next time daddy tells you I need to sleep so don't wake me up, know that I don't really mean that.  You can wake me up anytime you need me, just as long as you let me hold you and rock you for a while.

I love THAT BOY!

A Hint of Spring

Crazy good weather these days.  I'm sure it's just a tease, but we've hit 70 degrees with sunshine a couple of times this week. Hard to believe that just a week ago we woke up to a snow covered lawn.  Anyway, we've decided to make the most of it while it's here so Carver and I have been playing outside a lot this week.  Now that he's so mobile, this has been so much fun.  Carver loves to be outdoors, loves to go to the park, loves to play in the grass, loves to carry leaves and sticks.  It's so cool.

Today I rushed home from work, dropped Winston off, picked Carver up and headed to Pitts Park.  Mommy had a girls night out planned, so it was just us guys tonight.  This was the second park visit in three days and third time we had gotten to play outside this week.  Carver had a great time on the swings and even tried to climb up the slides for a while. The climbing was pretty unsuccessful, but I think he'll get the hang of it. We also walked around the big grassy field for a while and of course Carver picked up pretty much every leaf he saw and held on to them all the way back to the big truck.  Luckily, daddy figured out a fun game to get the leaves out of the hands so we could avoid the huge meltdown that was bound to happen if I just grabbed his treasure and tossed it.

I can't wait for this weather to settle in to stay.  Carver is going to be a blast this spring and summer.  He loves being outside so we should have a great time together at camp this summer.  I guess I will miss some of the past stages from year one, but this daddy wants to play with his kid, so I'm super pumped he's walking and ready to play.