Every Boy Needs a Ditch to Play In

My baby boy left for church camp yesterday.

Can I get an Amen to that????

My plans are to venture into his room and give it a good cleaning.

I hope my haz-mat suit gets here soon. I'm more than a little apprehensive about what I might find.

On the up side, I will probably get some good sleep this week because his neighborhood comrades will not be going with him and I'm pretty sure there is not a bayou to play in at camp.

There is just something about a big ditch that is muddy, smelly, and has who knows what living in it that makes it irresistible to young boys. This being Houston we have a lot of bayous in our area, and anytime Trey says he is going to "hang out" with his friends it's pretty much a guarantee they are going to make their way to the bayou. When he gets home the drill is - go straight into the shower and then bring me the stinky clothes. After he is clean the conversation will usually come around to him telling us what type of fun he had in the mud and muck. Here is a partial list of things he has done at the bayou through the years:

Peed on a snake. - That was a proud mama moment.
Fished a bike out of the mud because he was sure he it was a fixer-upper. - It wasn't.
Had mud fights. - I love my washing machine.
Found a cat's skeleton. - Lovely
Found matches and burned stuff. - OMG!
Skateboarded in his underwear in the bayou. OMG! Again!

Lest I ruin my June Cleaver image and have you think that there are no governing rules about the bayou, I have to clarify that there are certain times when it is off limits and the boys know it. Like when we had Hurricane Ike and the bayou was actually doing what it was designed to do, keeping flood waters out of Houston, the boys were not allowed to go near it. But most of the time there is little or no water in it and it is relatively safe to go around it. Well at least that is what I tell my self but "safe" might be too strong of a word.

So when he came home from "hanging out" on Friday, after he took a shower and brought me the usual stinky clothes to be washed, he told me that he and the guys came up with a great new game called "Nutball" Remember the ages of these boys..... the name Nutball should be taken literally.

The gist of the game was to take pears off of a nearby tree and try to hit the other opponents in their.... well.... Nutballs.

Lord help me I will never understand boys!

When I asked him how a game like that could possibly be fun, he told me it was a lot of fun as long as you were winning..... that made sense. In the end he was able to walk home and I didn't get any calls from the other moms stating they had to make a trip to the ER, so I guess the game ended alright.

When I dropped him off yesterday I told the youth pastor that I hoped there would be a lot of bible reading, hymn singing and time for quiet introspection at camp this week. I also told her not to let Trey be in charge of games. I don't think that church camp is ready for a rousing game of Nutball.