C'mon over!

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Please visit my new blog, www.karriemcallister.com, for all of this good Outdoor Mama stuff!

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Needs and wants and dirty feet

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There are few things as humorous as trying to explain the difference between “needs” and “wants” to a group of young children.  For reasons our adult brains cannot understand, they honestly believe they need certain things to survive, including the newest plastic doll, video game, or the latest in absurd fashion crazes.   I remember this feeling quite well, trying to convince my parents in the early 1980’s that I needed parachute pants or else life would just not go on. In my attempt to avoid having to enlighten my own kids, I find that nothing better puts life into perspective than a good ol’ family camping trip.  And I’m not talking about loading up an RV and driving to campground where you plug in your satellite dish and the dangly Christmas-type lights from your instant front porch.  I’m talking about the sort of camping that involves a tent, a fire, the hum of a Coleman lantern, and walking a half a mile to use the bathroom. It’s a beautiful thing, really. With the lim
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Bedtime

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            It is a cruel world we live in, when the time for sleep is never the time we want it to be. Ever.             There are, of course, exceptions, but speaking from my own personal experience, I’m not sure I’ve ever really been able to go to sleep exactly when I wanted. I can’t remember a single time (although I also can’t remember what I had for dinner last night) that I’ve had the pleasure of announcing, “I’m tired. I’m going to bed and no one or nothing is going to stop me.”             As tiny infants we know no better and haven’t yet adjusted to any sort of schedule. After living in darkness for all of our lives, we suddenly find ourselves with lights and sun and lovely people who are trying to train us to sleep at times when we really don’t want to, but aren’t sure why.             As toddlers and preschoolers, we start to slowly learn about all of the fun things we are missing when those big, lovely people make us go to bed. We may not understand anything like
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The world's greatest soup

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            The story itself reads like a fable or a twisted children’s book that ends up with the entire town dining on soup. In reality, it ended up in our basement freezer where just our family had the pleasure of dining on it for months to come.             My mother and I were away at Girl Scout camp, and my father, left to tend to his own needs, decided to make us a pot of Hamburg’ Soup (we always left off the “er”) to celebrate our week away in the woods fighting mosquitos, mice, and raccoons. Like any great chef or soup connoisseur, no recipe was needed. He just started digging in the fridge and the pantry and throwing things in the pot.             A handful of this, a pinch of that. And then he’d taste it and think, “Boy, this could use some [whatever].” And in that would go, followed by a repeat of the last few steps until he had added so many things that it no longer fit in one pot.             So he got out another.             By the time we got home, there wer
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