Camping frenzy

Oh, the great outdoors.

I'm sitting at a picnic table (save your Yogi Bear sayings please) this morning with a bit of a coldish breese at my back. It's 7:15 a.m. and the table cloth is a bit damp from morning dew. I'm sitting outside of my camper, which is parked at the KOA Baton Rouge RV site, where yesterday we scrambled and fought and disarmed and dragged down and tied up the two grand boys.

And I've come to a conclusion.

Parenting is incredible. How exactly did I come up with such wonderful children since I'm such a putz when it comes to kids?

Gabe is the good one. Gavin is the funny one.

But somewhere in there, they're both, well, for lack of a better word, they're kids. They tie 50 paperclips together and pull all of the little page markers out of pens.

Gavin wants to do whatever Gabe does though Gavin is three and Gabe six. Gabe tests Gavin by trying his best to do things that he knows, he KNOWS, Gavin shouldn't be doing.

Mawmaw is the referee. She oversees the three of us, even though it is so taxing her hair hasn't been brushed in like 9 days and she's about as haggard as am I.

Paul, remember, never married that we're aware of. I suspect it was because he was afraid of children. He even made a point of saying at one point that when he became an adult he put away childish things. I think he was talking about paper clips and such but I can't be sure.

Livvy, the 2-year-old, looks at me like I'm the stranger from the Black Lagoon, and Emma, the yet to be one-year-old, smiled at me for a brief moment the other day, after months of horrid squeals and tears and clutch yo mamma tighter moments.

Parker, the 4-year-old, is okay with me, but again, Mammaw is the queen.

That leaves these two, and they take me for what I am.

I wished I had some wonderful thoughts about grandparenting, but here's what I think. It's tough to take them for who they are, unless you think that is really what Jesus does for all of us.

All of us put together paper clips that can't be used again or tear up pens or as you might call it, lose our temper or have a moment of ego or whatever it might be.

Paul might have said he put away childish things, but I note that he seemed to retain a bit of anger and I know that he kept his pride. Love him, but that's just the truth if you really read the material.

So where does that leave us.

We're all on the same pathway to heaven, young and old. We just have to maintain our sanity along the way. In a 24-foot-trailer with four bikes and a growing stiffer coldish breeze, we might make it yet.