Sardines

Part of the fun of summertime, and camping, is the ability to relax… to not have dinnertime, bath time, and bedtime set in stone. One of the things we most look forward to about hitting the road is no more punching a time clock, so to speak. No one will be telling us to be at school at 7:45, at ball practice at 5:30, at the skating party from 6-9:30, or at work till midnight on our anniversary. Up until school got out, I felt like that was almost the only interaction I had with my kids: “Hurry up and get out of bed. Hurry up and get ready. Run into the building. We’re late for school. Hurry up and let’s go home. Do your homework in the car. We have 30 minutes to get home and get ready for ball. Hurry up, forget the snack after the game; we need to get home and eat dinner. Hurry up and go to sleep…” And on and on and on. We’ll be able to make our own schedules with what suits us. No more beating myself up because the kids didn’t get home from football until 10:30, and their bedtime is usually 9:00, and they have to be up at 5:30 to get to school on time, and they’ll be tired at school today, and I’m a failure as a mom because my kids are missing a whole 90 minutes of sleep, and what if they fail a test or get sick because they’re tired, and…… Excuse me. I need to go breathe into a paper bag now.

Tonight we let bedtime know exactly what we thought of it! We waited till it got pitch black dark and played a family game of Sardines. What? You’ve never played Sardines? You must! You simply must! It’s hide and seek… in reverse…in the dark. One person hides, and everyone else goes looking for “it”. When you find “it”, you hide too. The last person to find everyone in the hiding place is “it” next! I cannot explain to you how much fun this is! “It” needs to be sure that the hiding place is big enough to accommodate everyone. You may want to carry flashlights. If “it” does a really good job of hiding and can’t be found, he/she might choose to blink the flashlight once or twice to help out.