Thirteen

Hello InterWebs,

M. Peevie here. I took a year off from guest blogging my annual birthday post on The Green Room. I was working on my post last year, didn't quite get it done, and then my brother Aidan died. As Mim has said, we lost our whimsy--and since these posts are generally chock-full of whimsy, I just could not hit "publish."

(Mim, or Mimsey, is one of my nicknames for my mom. C. Peevie came up with it. I am also fond of calling her by her first name, and I get a small rush of pleasure when her friends overhear this and make a shocked and horrified face. Mim doesn't mind, she said, as long as it doesn't feel like disrespect to her. I guess so far it doesn't.)

Me, Aidan and C. Peevie, December 2011

So. Aidan. Yeah. It's really hard to talk about that. I love to talk about Aidan, and I miss him all the time. Sometimes I wish my friends would talk to me more about him, and ask me about him. The part I don't want to talk about is how I feel about him dying or about how much I miss him, because I don't really have words for it, and I don't know how talking about it is going to make it any better. So I just sort of go along missing him, and remembering him, and telling Aidan stories when I get a chance.

So much has changed in my life since my last post when I turned 11. I am nearly thirteen now, and I am a different person.

I left my little school where I had lots of friends, and teachers who love worksheets and who sometimes seemed to love rules more than children, and went to a big school, Whitney Young. I went from having two brothers at home to no brothers at home because C. Peevie left for college in August. I went from being a pre-teen who likes big words like "anthropomorphism" to an actual teenager who still likes big words like "precipitously" and "petrichor" and "sesquipedalian." 

I went from getting straight As in school without breaking a sweat to getting almost straight As but definitely breaking a sweat. When I was 10, I wanted to go to DePaul on a softball scholarship. When I was 11, I wanted to go to MIT to study architecture and engineering. And now I have determined that it makes more sense to get a liberal arts education first, so I want to go to DePauw University, and then maybe MIT, or maybe somewhere else, depending on where the liberal arts take me.

My school is great. I have new friends (Hi MK! Hi BB! Hi Beckham!). I like that my classes help me understand important topics in our country like the Affordable Care Act, the debt ceiling, and the government shut-down. I made advanced honors band, which keeps me awake at night with anxiety. I have to keep up with kids who are in high school and who have A LOT more experience than I do. 

I am riding the school bus for the first time (boo) with other seventh and eighth graders who are loud and obnoxious and immature and annoying and stupid. They make me envy deaf people. I also take CTA now (yay), and have my own Ventra card.

It might interest you to know, InterWebs, that I have become a Fangirl. Fangirls are girls (duh) who are fans (duh) of certain TV shows, movies, and actors--but we are more than fans. We are obsessed. My particular areas of obsession include Doctor Who, Sherlock (the BBC version), Supernatural, and the Marvel Universe. I'm pretty sure that Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, and David Tennant all love me as much as I love them, which is a lot.

Oh, and I am now a card-carrying Nerdfighter--one who is not ashamed to be intelligent, and who fights to decrease WorldSuck. Nerdfighters are entirely composed of awesome. I highly recommend that you check out the books of the Nerdfighter in Chief, John Green, and in particular, The Fault in our Stars, which I have read multiple times.

That is about enough for now. This is M. Peevie, signing off.

RUOK?

Texting with Aidan was always fun. He spurned text shorthand, and tried to write everything grammatically. Here's one of the last exchanges we had; I was at work, and he was traveling to his home school co-op:
 
Aidan: Can you look up how long you need to wait before your bladder explodes?

Me: Why?

A: I really have to go to the bathroom and Im on the train.

A: Im starting to feel like Im going to faint.

Me: Put ur head down between ur knees.

Me: Ru ok? I tried to call u.

A: Im not sure.

Me: Answer your phone.

Me: How now?

A: Im on the train. I dont want to be rude.

A: How now?

A: How do you mean, brown cow?

Me: Its not rude when ur mom is worried that ur going to faint.

A: Im feeling less of that now, but can you answer my question about bladder eruption?

Me: No I can't right now. Sorry. It is not going to explode.

A: Just you wait...

and later...

A: I need my levothyroxine, my heart beats are super uneven.

Me: Levo does not affect ur heart. It's for your thyroid.

Me: R u worried?

A: Not really.

Me: Ok. I will try to pick up ur levo on way home tonight.

A: The only thing Im worried about is your text talk.

Me: Heh. 

What Home School is NOT Going to Look Like

I don't exactly know what home-schooling A. Peevie will look like--but I have a pretty good idea of what it will NOT look like.

It will not look like A. Peevie and me sitting at the dining room table, with me as teacher and A. Peevie as student. For one thing, our dining room table is far too cluttered for that to work.

It will not look like A. Peevie doing spelling workbooks and reading history textbooks and writing papers.

It will not look like traditional school--except when we choose a traditional classroom approach to a particular subject. We may, for example, request permission for A. Peevie to attend the freshman biology class at our local high school. Our initial forays into this experiment in part-time public schooling have been so far unsuccessful.

Illinois law stipulates that public schools are compelled

To accept in part-time attendance in the regular education program of the district pupils enrolled in nonpublic schools if there is sufficient space in the public school desired to be attended. Request for attendance in the following school year must be submitted by the nonpublic school principal to the public school before May 1. Request may be made only to those public schools located in the district where the child attending the nonpublic school resides.

So I called the school, and wrote a letter (from me, the principal of Peevie Academy of Fun and Learning, or PAFL) requesting possible part-time enrollment for A. Peevie for the fall. The counselor said she'd never heard of such an arrangement; and she referred me to the assistant principal. The assistant principal had also never received a request for part-time attendance by a home-schooled student; and he said he'd do some research and get back to me. One consideration, he said, is that the school is already at or above its intended capacity.

[It does not make sense to me that the school would be required to accept him for full-time enrollment, but would be permitted to deny him admittance for one class. Does that make sense to you? I believe that either way, the school received funding for every enrolled student, whether that student is enrolled part- or full-time.]

I hope that most of A. Peevie's learning will be autodidactic and driven by his own passions. I can envision him starting a reading group with other kids who want to read classic horror fiction by Poe, Shelley, Stevenson, et al. I think he might be interested in participating in a Model United Nations program. My friend Zaby directed my attention to RadioLab, a public radio show "where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy and human experience." Perhaps this might become part of A. Peevie's science curriculum.

As the word gets out about this whole nutty home school thing, some people are skeptical--but a surprising number are supportive beyond the call of friendship. The mom of one of A. Peevie's good friends offered to tutor him in math and chemistry. Zaby put together an annotated list of potential resources and ideas for us to investigate. And X-Mom has already offered her insider intel to help me begin to get my brain around the alien notions of home 
schooling and un-schooling; and she has offered to include A. Peevie in her own home school academy as we see fit, and we hope this will be a symbiotic relationship.

This whole process has raised the intriguing question: What does a kid need to learn in high school? and also: What does an 18-year-old need to make his way in the world? What are the foundational pillars of education?


I'm pretty sure that the traditional academic model does not have a corner on the market for the answers to these questions. It's still unsettling, and a bit scary; but also: I'm convinced that for A. Peevie, at least, we will be able to do at least as well, and probably better, than any high school at preparing him for what comes next.

Not the Call You Want to Get

I just got a call from my friend Mrs. D'Onofrio in Door County. It was not the call you want to receive when you have sent your kid off with a sleeping bag and a pat on the back and your last words to him were, "Please come back all in one piece!"

"We're taking C. Peevie to the ER," Mrs. D'Onofrio said. "He hurt his leg, and we're taking him for an X-ray just to be safe." There was lots of commotion and talking in the background.

"Really? Do you really think he needs to go to the ER?" I asked, thinking someone was possibly over-reacting.

Mrs. D turned away from the phone and asked someone in the background, "Does he really need to go to the ER?" I heard the answer, and then Mrs. D repeated it for me: "Yes. We need to get an X-ray." Keep me posted, I told her.

Next, I heard from the nurses in the ER at Door County Memorial Hospital, calling to confirm my permission to treat C. Peevie, and to make sure he wasn't allergic to whatever it is that gives hospitals their hospitally smell. Is he in a lot of pain?" I asked. He was deep breathing to control his pain, they said, and they'd give him some good meds soon. I did some deep breathing of my own.

Next I heard from the Nurse on the Case. "What medicines is he taking, Mrs. Peevie?" Nurse On the Case asked.

"None," I replied.

"C. Peevie said he takes allergy meds," Nurse OC said.

"Well, he's delirious," I said. "I have a prescription for him, but I haven't even filled it yet." We went back and forth a couple of times, and finally she understood that I was not withholding critical medical information.

Then I got a call from C. Peevie himself. "Mom," he said with barely any air behind his scratchy, deepening, adolescent voice, "Mom, I'm sorry."

I practically burst into tears. "Honey, what are you sorry for? You don't need to be sorry!"

"I'm...sorry," he said again, "I'm...just...sorry."

"C. Peevie, are you in a lot of pain?" I asked.

"No, mom," he barely croaked out--he, who never speaks at a volume below medium shout. "It doesn't hurt that much." I could tell he wanted it to be true.

At one point I got a call from the moms back at the shack, waiting for news. They filled me in on how the accident happened: the kids were using homemade ramps to play Tony Hawk and Trick Cycle Dudes. C. Peevie went up, came down, landed wrong, and didn't get up.

"It's not that he landed hard," Will'sMom said, "It's that he landed wrong. And then he didn't get up."

Finally, I got a call from the Doctor on the Case. "Well, it's a fracture," she said. His tibia was broken and the two pieces of bone were mis-aligned. They would need to line up the bone and put on a temporary cast.

"We'll give him some demerol before we do it," she said. Ah, demerol. Demerol would totally be the gorilla on my back if I were a medical professional with access to the good shit. I had some once, long ago, during a medical emergency, and to this day it is one of my fondest memories.

He'd need to see an orthopedic surgeon and have a permanent cast put on, the doc said. "What about school?" I asked. "It starts on Tuesday."

"No school until he sees the ortho and gets his cast," she said. I wonder how likely it is that we'll be able to get that done on a holiday weekend? I'm guessing, not so much likely--and this is before ObamaCare ruins health care for everyone. (You know I'm being sardonic, right?)

I kept wanting to cry all evening. I'm not really a worrier--I knew he was being well cared for, and that the moms and dads at Mrs. D'Onofrio's farm would ensure that he got everything he needed. But I wanted to be with him. I wanted to hold his hand when they straightened his leg. I wanted to push his hair off his face and kiss his cheek. I wanted to watch him experience his first narcotic high.

Finally, I got another call from Mrs. D'Onofrio. "It's a good thing it wasn't my son who broke his leg," she said, "because I would have killed him." Well, she can talk all blustery and stuff, but I know she's suffering because she feels responsible that C. Peevie got injured on her watch.

"Mrs. D.," I reassured her, "It was an accident. Accidents happen. He'll be fine."

"No," she said, "An accident is when you trip over a bump in the rug. This was not an accident, this was a broken leg waiting to happen because these kids insist on doing daredevil stunts like Evel Knievel." Problem is, we all knew they were doing it, and we didn't tell them to stop. It's what kids do!

It's what I did when I was a kid; and sometimes, someone gets hurt. If we forbade every activity that might involve someone getting hurt, we'd have to have our kids sitting naked on the floor in the middle of an empty room, instead of playing and exploring and riding and, occasionally, Evel Knieveling.

That's what I think, anyway. Of course you may not want to listen to me. I've had two kids with broken bones so far this year--although I'm just now realizing that I never blogged about M. Peevie's broken arm back in, what was it, May?

Bad mommy-blogger! Bad mommy-blogger!

But I digress. C. Peevie will be getting a ride home tomorrow, cutting his last pre-high school fling short by two days. I guess he'll be sleeping on the couch for the next six weeks, since I can't imagine him being able to climb up into his bunk bed with a broken leg.

And how the heck will he get to school with a heavy backpack and crutches, on the bus and the train and the walk across the Loop?

Is it too late for him to transfer?

Magical Moments

Have you ever had one of those moments when time slowed way down and you felt like you had entered a magical alternate dimension where you were eternally young and you were surrounded by happy children, friendly adults, sounds of laughter and cheering, and there was cake, too?

Me neither.

However. This week we came pretty close to that moment. The eighth-graders challenged their parents to a softball game to celebrate their emancipation from grade school and to demonstrate their "superior" athletic ability.

We creamed them. It was awesome.

But wait: let me backtrack for a moment. First of all, we (and by "we" I mean Poor Man's Ricardo Antonio Chavira (PMRAC), who is a 4th grade parent; yay, PMRAC!)) reserved a field at Thillens Stadium for two hours on Wednesday night. Thillens Stadium is an iconic part of Chicago history, where generations of Little Leaguers played under the lights, and Jack Brickhouse announced the play-by-play during the 1950s.


To play under the lights at Thillens is to be a part of something bigger than yourself. To play third base at Thillens as a 48-year-old, mini-van-driving, capri-pants-wearing mother of three, against about 40 eighth-graders and their younger siblings and schoolmates, and to throw your own son out at first base* in a slo-mo-replay moment, is to make history that will never be written, but will also never be forgotten.

After we shut the kids down in the first half inning, we grabbed our bats and took the kids to school. I put myself first in the grown-ups' line-up because I got there first, and the dads were too polite to object. I smashed a single between the cocky teenaged infielders, who were no doubt thinking to themselves, "Sink in, boys, sink in; it's just C. Peevie's mom; she can't hit!"

I rounded the bases when Eddie "The Babe" sent one into orbit, and crossed home plate gasping for air and begging for the paramedics to administer oxygen. "I need a defibrillator!" I wheezed, and Mr. Peevie said, "You need a work-out program." Like I have mentioned in the past, he has a bit of a mean streak.

Since there were little kids playing on the kid team, we let them have five outs per inning. We let them swing until they got a hit, and we "accidentally" fumbled the ball in the field. See, we wanted the little ones to have fun and success, but we had no such concern for the big kids.

O-Daddy and I formed an unbreachable wall covering third and short. I think he took one look at my out-of-shape self and thought to himself, "Oh well, it's just a game." But then! Then I fielded a short-hopper to third and threw to first with precision and grace (if I do say so myself), and O-Daddy's jaw dropped to the ground.

"Wo, Momma!" he said with admiration. "You got some mad skilz!"

"Yes, O-Daddy," I said. "I may look like a zaftig, past-her-softball-prime mama, but when I'm in ready position in the infield, I am still 17!"

The rest of the Mamas and the Papas did great as well, recalling the skills of their lost youths ("yutes," for those of you who are fans of My Cousin Vinny, one of the funniest movies of all time), some of them more lost than others.

The bleachers were filled with additional moms, dads, siblings, and friends who opted to watch the game in the comfort of their blankets (yay! Chicago in June!), coolers, and snacks. I joined them after the first game, having already caused enough damage to my so-called muscles and joints to keep me sore for three full days.

We beat the kids soundly in the first game, and then we sang "Happy Birthday to" C. Peevie because it was his actual b-day, and then I served homemade sheet cake, passing the slices around the bleachers and to the players on the field. The playing, the talking, the trash-talking, the celebrating, the remembering, the laughing, the hanging out in a truly cool locale--these were all gifts of grace and beauty in a troubled world.

It was magical. In the Presbyterian sense of the word, of course.

*My son remembers this differently. In his version, I bobble the grounder, and he's safe at first. But he's been known to have a distorted view of reality.

Relentless Love

A super-long time ago, back when Mr. Peevie and I were young and carefree (read: no kids yet), our pastor asked us if we'd be willing to unofficially foster a teenage boy for a few months. His mom was having some substance abuse issues, and the boy--we'll call him L. Peevie--needed stability and support. We were willing, but clueless--barely more than children ourselves.

(Well, I guess we were around 30 years old, which, from the side of life that's brushing up against AARP membership, seems practically infantile.)

Anyway, we said yes, even though I had no idea if it was even legal for a non-relative to arrange an unlicensed, unofficial foster care home instead of calling DCFS; and the next day a 13-year-old kid from the West Side moved into our spare bedroom. He was sweet, polite, funny, smart and affectionate, and he had the brightest smile I had ever seen. I instantly loved him.

“Hey, mom!” he told his mother happily a few days later, “there’s even a computer in my room!” The walls were soon plastered with posters of Vanessa Williams and Mariah Carey.

L. Peevie was motivated to do well in school, had tons of friends, and loved to sing and dance. Soon every radio in the house was tuned to black hip-hop stations (if it was even called hip-hop back then; what do I know? I'm just a geriatric white woman); and there was hair grease on every piece of furniture.

This teen used more hair and beauty products than I did. We had one tiny bathroom on the second floor, which became cluttered with an astonishing array of skin care and hair care equipment and supplies. I didn't even know what most of them were used for. There were picks, gels, hairnets, colognes, bottles of stuff.

And then I discovered that the few beauty supplies that I did keep in the house seemed to be fair game for our new, curious teenager. Even my white-woman make-up, my white-woman hairbrushes, my bottle of Jean Nate (yes, Jean Nate. Get over it. I did.) attracted L. Peevie’s experimentation.

It became hard to keep food in the house. L. Peevie would come home from school , often with pals from school, and like a swarm of locusts, they’d devour everything in their path. One time I looked in the refrigerator a day after dropping a couple of bills at the grocery store, and my jaw fell open.

“There’s nothing in here!” I said. “What happened to all the food I just bought yesterday?”

L. Peevie brought an unfamiliar cultural perspective to the situation. “When white people say ‘there’s nothing in the ‘fridge,’ there’s tons of stuff in the ‘fridge,” he said philosophically. “When black people say ‘there’s nothing in the ‘fridge,’ the only thing in the ‘fridge is mustard.”

I looked in the refrigerator again—and he was right. Leftover pizza, lunchmeat and cheese, a few vegetables in the crisper: enough food to make a meal for a family of four, if they weren’t spoiled by comparative wealth.

When his friends came over, they’d hang out in the backyard, practicing their “stepping.” My neighbors peered suspiciously over the fence, wondering why there were six black kids hopping around between the hostas; there weren’t many persons of color in my neighborhood, and unless they were standing behind the counter at the Post Office, they were often looked upon with mistrust.

A couple of neighbors at different times asked us about our new family member. No one said anything overtly offensive, but I had the impression that they were calculating the drop in their home values if L. Peevie stuck around.

Meanwhile, even though we loved L. Peevie, we were reeling with all the changes wrought by suddenly having a teenager in the household. I talked and talked and talked to my friend Dr. Paradigm Shift, processing the seismic shifts in my life and getting her advice on how to handle the unfamiliar territory of parenting an adolescent. But things were harder on Mr. Peevie, who did not happen to have a social worker for a best friend.

One time L. Peevie asked to borrow a couple of bucks for a snack or music or something. We decided that a teenager needed to have his own spending money, so we set up an allowance for him. It wasn't much, but I think it helped him have more of a normal teenage existence.

In many ways, those four or five months of trial-run parenting were excellent training for the real thing: having L. Peevie living with us made our lives far more complex, interesting, frustrating, and hilarious. One time L.P. and I went to Six Flags for the day. It was practically deserted for some reason, and we rode the roller coasters over and over.

I was ready to hop on the American Eagle for one more ride, but poor little L. Peevie had had enough.

"Phew!" he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead and plopping down on a wooden bench. "They sure don't make old white women the way they used to!"

"Hmmmph," I told him, "Apparently they don't make young black punks the way they used to."

On the walk back to the car, L. Peevie spontaneously broke out into the national anthem, adding some pitchy warbling to his high notes like a young, tone-deaf male Beyonce.

"L. Peevie," I told him, "You are way off key."

"No I'm not," he contradicted me, "That's just the way black people sing."

Eventually, L. Peevie returned to his family, and our household returned to boring. L. Peevie went on to become an authentic Big Shot, styling hair for Victoria Beckham, Missy Elliot, and Eve, and for big shot advertising campaigns.

He sent me an email last week, which included these lines that brought me to tears:

I often think about that moment in my life and am so grateful to God for you both. The relentless love that you guys showed me will never leave my heart.

"Relentless love." Relentless love is not what comes to my mind--although we did love that boy. I mostly remember feeling like I had no idea what the hell I was doing, trying to parent a teenager. I remember talking, talking, talking--with him, with Mr. Peevie, and with my built-in therapist, to try to figure things out.

If L.P. remembers relentless love, instead of relentless talking and relentless cluelessness, then God gets the credit.

And one final note: L. Peevie told me that his mom has been clean for 15 years and runs a Chicago program in Austin called Sister House which offers a temporary home to women after incarceration or recovery from substance abuse.

Happy endings all around!

[Photo courtesy of Joe Schwartz at www.joyrides.com.]

It's All About the Kids, Part II

Sometime during our stay in Door County, we lost the Sangria Poltergeist--although we still have the fumes and fruit flies. Maybe my mechanic is not so crazy after all. I'm kind of going to miss the Korean alt hip-hop, though.

On Saturday we took the herd to a campground to swim and to somehow lose six golf balls in the water hazard on the miniature golf course. (The only reason the golf balls matter is that it was my driver's license that was being held hostage until the golf balls were found and returned.)

We set up camp in a picnic table clearing, and while the kids splashed and dunked and slid down pool slides, Mr. D'Onofrio cooked up a storm. Actually, it was more like an entire tornado system.

Earlier that day Mr. D had created a huge batch of homemade potato salad, complete with hard-boiled eggs. We were originally planning on having deviled eggs, but we waited too long to peel the dang things, and the peeled eggs were so pock-marked they looked like ovoid golf balls.

I do not know what Mr. D included in his mayonnaise mixture, but it was so delicious that if they had trading cards for picnic side dishes, the Mr. D Unbelievably Delicious Potato Salad card would be as coveted as the 1909 Honus Wagner.

He laid out a feast of burgers, hot dogs, sausages, and a huge pan of BBQ ribs. Then, after everyone had piled their paper plates to the tipping point, he said, "I guess I'll throw the steaks on now." Oh yes, he did. We all just looked at him like, "Dude, you're insane." Then we looked at each other and shrugged. "OK," we said; and we proceeded to eat ourselves into the greatest meat coma of all time.

After we all regained consciousness, we drove north for the Big Sister Bay Fireworks Extravaganza. We spread our blankets and folding chairs on the lawn overlooking the bay, and waited for dusk to turn into dark. Someone near us had what sounded like a transistor radio tuned to a station playing patriotic numbers.

As the fireworks began, I suddenly missed Mr. Peevie, so I borrowed a cell phone. It was hard to hear, what with the bombs bursting in air and the rockets' red glare and all. We passed the phone around for a few peeps to say hi; and when C. Peevie started talking, I almost cried. "I really, really miss you, Dad," he said. "I wish you were here." He might be almost as tall as me, way smarter, and with twice as much B.O.--but inside, he's still just a little boy who needs his daddy. Aw.

When I saw that A. Peevie had snuggled into the lap of C. Peevie's friend X-Man to watch the light show, I got all misty again. (Anytime somebody is kind and gentle with one of my kids, it just makes me all verklempt. I can't help myself. Sometimes I am just a big crybaby.)

Eventually we made it home to the shack. The adults were exhausted, but the teenagers found a second wind and decided to hang out by the bonfire until the wee hours of the morning. Several had brought guitars, both acoustic and electric. They played music and talked and made s'mores--it was like a scene out of a teenage-angst-but-with-a-happy-ending movie.

Most of these eighth graders have been together since kindergarten. A couple have even left our school for other education options--but they still choose to be a part of this unique and diverse collection of kids from all across the city: black, Asian, white, faithful, faith-free, long-hairs, crew cuts. They are actors, musicians, artists, athletes.

Mrs. D'Onofrio might be a tiny bit insane for putting together this "It's all about the kids" Door County farm weekend--but sometimes insanity is a good thing. What a great finale to what feels like not just the end of the summer, but the end of an era. Next summer, these kids will be getting ready to head off to high schools across the city. Some will keep in touch; some won't.

But I bet when they're 20, or 30, or--heaven help us--40, memories from this farm weekend will still crop up from their subconscious. They'll smile, and one or two of them may even press a button on whatever cell phones have evolved into, and reach out to one of their eighth-grade buddies, and say, "Hey, remember when we went up to Door County that one week with that crazy Mrs. D'Onofrio? Fun times. Wanna get together for lunch sometime?"

Thanks for that, Mr. and Mrs. D.

(The fireworks photo comes from PD Photo.org. The other photos courtesy of J.Ro.)

It's All About the Children, Part the First

That's what my insane friend Mrs. D'Onofrio says: "It's all about the children."

The hell you say.

I might be willing to spend my entire Labor Day weekend at a "shack" in Door County with 400 eighth-graders and their assorted siblings and pets--but I refuse to get on board with this "it's all about the children" insanity.

But I'm ahead of myself. Mr. and Mrs. D'Onofrio invited the whole eighth grade class to hang out at their Door County farm property for an end-of-summer-eat-play-chill-fest. From Monday to Labor Day Monday, people came and went. Mostly, they came. Twenty-two children, ten adults, two dogs, three goats, and a pot-bellied pig swarmed over the property, in and out of the two small farmhouses, up the hayloft, and across the soybean fields.

By the time I arrived with the two younger Peevies on Friday evening in my sangria-infused van, I was ready to sit back, put my feet up, and partake of an adult beverage. Seven or eight sweaty teenagers were playing basketball against the side of the barn, dribbling and passing on the packed dirt "court." C. Peevie, the clear leader in the Sweatiest Boy of All Time contest, held up the game to come over and say hi.

I hugged him gingerly, trying to avoid a massive sweat transfer. "C. Peevie!" I said, happily, "I missed you!"

"Hi, mom," he said. "Missed you, too." He had been at the farm since Wednesday afternoon, and I suspected that I was looking at two or more days of accumulated sweat and grime. I saw it as a positive thing: three girls had bravely joined the class outing--but what 13-year-old girl would want to get within a yard of a boy that smelled that bad? Apparently an eighth-grade boy's aversion to showering was the equivalent of an adolescent prophylactic.

Mr. D'Onofrio whipped up a dozen frozen pizzas for the younger set while the grown-ups patiently sipped margaritas. Then he set to work putting a more mature feast out, including steak, Boursin-and-spinach-stuffed chicken breasts, rice pilaf, fresh green beans, and gravy. If this is what Mrs. D. means by "it's all about the children," then I'm totally on board.

Between the six bedrooms and the four tents in the yard, everyone found a place to sleep. Mr. and Mrs. D. selflessly gave up their air-conditioned Chinese bedroom (adorably decorated with Chinese checkerboards and Chinese-themed art and bedspread) to me because I was cranky, seasonally allergic, sweaty, and menopausal. I believe that Mr. D'Onofrio actually slept in his car.

I'm pretty sure they were all a little afraid of me.

During the night, the tent that housed the three younger boys mysteriously collapsed. I believe it had something to do with the teenagers jumping up and down on it. So the pre-teens abandoned their collapsing abode and dragged their sleeping bags upstairs to the stuffy corner bedroom where Mrs. D. had finally collapsed at about 2 a.m.

Then, because "it's all about the children," she cheerfully got up with A. Peevie at 5 a.m. to take him downstairs to the bathroom. (He was too afraid to go down the dark stairs by himself.) Meanwhile, I slept blissfully, the white noise of the AC drowning out the sounds of things going tinkle in the night.

I awoke refreshed and cool as a cucumber, thanks to Mr. and Mrs. D's insane level of hospitality. When I left the Chinese Room, delicious smells of pancakes and sausage wafted toward me. Mr. D. was hard at work preparing breakfast for the tribe, which had grown since I went to sleep the night before.

Tune in tomorrow for It's All About the Children, Part the Second.