Страница 32 из 37
Abby gives me a look of confidence and requests Power bait for her red fishing pole. She takes a seat in a lawn chair and begins practicing casting and reeling it in, over and over again instead of letting the line sit in the water.
Olivia isn’t the slightest bit interested in fishing and has focused her energy on the butterflies in the grass behind us. Thank goodness for the dual leash invention I’ve attached to her and Hendrix. As long as she doesn’t eat any of the bugs, we should be good to go.
Emma and Grace have a different plan in mind. I give them a look and a nod when Casen asks about their lines. “We want the good the stuff,” Emma a
“We’re going to catch the biggest fish, huh, Jen?” Grace adds as they each pull out handfuls of their breakfast leftovers. Apparently, we had a breakdown in communication or at least a mistranslation.
“You plan on fishing with scrambled eggs, girls? I’ve never heard of that,” Casen inquires as he puts together his own line.
“Jen said you would try and make us use worms, but we aren’t falling for it,” Grace explains with her clean hand securely on her hip to emphasize her point.
“Yeah, we’re going to help Jen win!” Emma says, throwing her hand in the air and then looking for a high-five from me. Playing the middle ground, I give her a gentle tap in the middle of her palm as a reluctant, half-assed high-five. I figure it still counts.
“Oh, really?” Blake interrupts.
“Um, yeah,” Grace responds, throwing as much attitude as her little voice and body can put together.
“How about the loser has to make lunch?” Casen says. “You guys and your scrambled eggs versus us boys and our worms.”
I look back and forth, unsure how to proceed. If we were using salmon eggs against his worms I would totally take the bet, but freakin’ scrambled eggs? Those girls are killing me. If I end up having to cook lunch, our trip may get cut short because of food poisoning. There is no sense in pretending I can cook anything except popcorn; and let’s face it, even that isn’t a sure thing.
Before I can give my opinion on the bet, the girls are jumping up to shake Casen’s hand to accept the challenge. They rush to me and help load up their lines. I pack them as best I can with their eggs and launch their lines into the lake.
“Oh my God! My line is moving,” Abby shouts just as I get everyone settled. She’s jumping up and down, waving her hands around, unsure of what to do with the bobbling pole. I grab it from where it’s wedged on her chair and hand it to her.
“Start reeling it in, hun,” I tell her, helping her to hold the rod. Skipping along the top of the water as the line is brought in, her fish is gorgeous. Huge and slippery, we struggle to get it off the hook and onto the cord we have set up to store the fish we catch, but we accomplish it with gigantic smiles on our faces.
Just as we finish loading up Abby’s line with bait again, our Barbie and Hello Kitty poles baited with scrambled eggs begin to wobble. “We got one, too!” the girls scream.
“Um, since your pole isn’t really doing much, you think you could help for a second?” I ask Casen triumphantly. Surprisingly he hops up and helps Emma with her line.
“Wow, girls, I think you might be on to something,” he says as uses the net to capture Emma’s fish, which is the size of a whale.
The girls couldn’t lose; they would throw out their lines and immediately reel them back in. It isn’t long before Blake makes his way to our area begging for scrambled eggs. Thankfully, the girls take pity on him and share their eggs. Soon he, too, catches a fish.
By the time we’re done, there is no question who won our battle of the sexes challenge. At camp, everyone enjoys the fish Blake and Casen prepare and the girls are even decent sports about wi
By mid-afternoon the heat of day has us sweating to death and we veto the hiking idea, opting instead for the water gun fight.
“Kids versus adults,” Blake suggests. “We’ll even let you have Henri,” he adds to sell his idea. The kids all cheer and we have no option but to agree to the teams.
“Our only stipulation is you stay in our camp area and you have to keep Olivia with you at all times so she doesn’t wander off,” I declare.
“Agreed,” Blake and Abby both say. “We need time to prepare, though,” Blake adds.
We nod and hand over a pile of water guns, which are already filled, and a bucket to fill with water to refill their guns. Everyone separates and prepares for the water war of the century.
Casen and I work together to fill our guns and devise a plan to pick off each kid, one at a time. Grabbing our rubber bucket, loading our pants with water pistols, and holding super soaker Nerf guns, we exit the camper ready for battle.
Our competition has been hard at work as well. Each kid is decorated in war paint, either with mud or makeup. The minions are all armed and ready to take us out.
“Ready! Set! Go!” Casen shouts, prompting everyone to scream and run toward each other firing their weapons in a steady stream of water. Judging from the soaked status of everyone involved, I’m not seeing how there can be a clear wi
One-by-one, we each surrender when we run out of water. When it’s all over we each find a place in the sunshine and lie out to dry off. With Abby on one side of me and Olivia on the other, I relax and enjoy the moment. That is until my nose senses something vile. No, vile isn’t a strong enough word, pungently horrendous might do a better job.
I follow my nose and it directs me to our little Olivia. I take a deep whiff and instantly pull away. Poop, she smells like human shit. Turning to the group, I begin my interrogation. “Guys, what did you use for your war paint?”
“We used mud,” Blake answers, pointing to himself and Abby.
I look to Grace and she immediately shakes her head. “No way, mud is gross. Emma and I used our makeup.”
I look to Casen, and he looks as confused as I feel. “Who painted Olivia?” I ask. Everyone looks around shaking their heads. No one fesses up to painting her, so I go to the source. “Olivia, how did you get your war paint?”
“Me painted,” she says, pointing to the stripes ru
“Very nice, baby. What did you use to paint?”
“Poop!” she shouts with a smile. “Me made poopy paint.”
My compassionate smile fades into a look of disgust. I slowly turn to Casen as my dry heaves begin. “I can’t. You have to deal, Casen,” I whisper in-between heaves. “I just can’t do poop.”
“To the camper everyone, let’s cleanup for di
The cars are packed, and we make it back to Vivian’s house in record time. More than likely it’s because they slept the whole way home, thus no potty breaks. The entire drive home, I replay the weekend over and over in my head and think about how surprisingly well Casen and I handled it.
Feeling relatively proud of my parenting experience and even happier about spending the weekend with Abby, I pull into Vivian and Brooks’ driveway, content with how things went, yet ready to hand over the keys to the mom van.
I turn off the ignition and turn in my seat to face the kids who’ve begun to wake up. “Rise and shine, everyone. Review time. What are we going to share with your moms and dads?”