Im tired

It was a big night

I am sitting at the kitchen table while my daughter entertains a bunch of girls who I am told are having a sleepover tonight. After last night that thought takes a bit of getting used to.

I had a big week.

It wasn’t helped by the fact that Thursday night I went to a late meeting and had a coffee without thinking too much of it.. I am discovering that despite the fact my life is fueled by caffeine, if I have a coffee too late at night I find it hard to get to sleep. So Thursday night became early Friday morning and entered the last day of the week with bleary eyes anyway.

I hadn’t really engaged with the idea of the end of year camp out that Leeanne had volunteered me for last night. As the week came to an end I began to come to terms with sleeping in a tent instead of my comfortable bed.

The camp out was meant to be with both my sons, but Daniel was crook so just Josh and I packed the van and headed the 2km down the hill to the Valley Learning area.

As the two other dads arrived along with my friend Wendy, who is the senior teacher on that campus and Gerard, Josh’s teacher, the first item on the agenda was handball.

I am discovering that despite the fact the muscle memory remains from grade 5 and 6, my body just doesn’t have what it takes anymore.. ( a fact my doctor tells me I need to take more seriously). My theory in sport with my kids is to go hard in the first 30 seconds and try to create an aura of invincibility…. that strategy seems not to be working so well these days.

After handball we began the fun bit… burning stuff!

There were two piles of dead wood, one that was the normal bonfire kind of size, and one further up the hill that was more a small house size!

My friend Henk had a ‘drip torch’ which is a tool used by fire brigades to light fires for burning off purposes. The brand of his drip torch was “firebug”. I kid you not.

Eventually we got both pyres blazing. We guesstimated the flames from the bigger one were getting up to about 10m off the ground.

We tried to toast marshmallows on the smaller one, but it was too hot.. we mainly toasted ourselves.

Eventually it was time to turn in. Josh wasn’t all that excited by the idea but in the end we snuggled into our sleeping bags, and that’s where the story should have ended.

My son Josh though, who normally sleeps deeply, woke up at 3 a.m.

I heard noise and looked up through bleary eyes at the determined eyes of my eldest son. “Dad I can’t sleep anymore, I’m getting up.” In retrospect the fact that my brain wasn’t fast enough to formulate a rational argument at that point was a real shame. I simply said “you can go out, but you need to come back shortly and come to bed”. We then had a discussion about whether 3 a.m. was really the night or the morning.

I drifted back to sleep.

I was woken by Josh who was asking me where the bathroom was because he had burnt himself. The fact he was asking where the bathroom was in his own school was a clue that he was in a bit of shock. As I looked at his hand in the torchlight I could see some mild discoloration but not much else, so I told him where the tap was and told him to put it under water while I pulled my tracksuit pants on.

The cold water seemed to help, and I found some cream for burns in the first aid kit and an ice pack.  I decided the best strategy was to wait it out till morning, hoping that Josh might be able to get back to sleep. We went back to the tent and it soon became obvious that plan wouldn’t work. When the ice pack wore off Josh needed to run his finger under the cold tap again so I gave in and we got up at 4:30 and began to wander around in between trips to the tap to relieve the pain.

Josh’s fingers began to blister and it became clear he was in significant pain.

Mind you he suggested we play handball, so at 5am he beat me comprehensively while carrying an injury. I claimed that the early hour was hampering me more than the severe burn was hampering him.

As the pain increased it became clear we would need to do something. We packed the tent into the car.

Eventually Gerard woke up around sixish and when he looked at Josh’s finger he suggested that we really needed to get it seen to soon, so we decided to go home and check with Leeanne.

Leeanne looked a bit stunned at 6:30 a.m. to see us at the front door.

We ended up deciding to go back to have breakfast with the rest of the guys at camp because the doctors surgery didn’t open until 9 a.m. anyway. (I had a shower first)

It was a very nice breakfast of bacon and egg muffins, juice and coffee.

We finally got home and I needed to be in class by 9 a.m. for what ended up being a very stimulating session about project management and leadership. Leeanne took Josh to the doctors.

I then came home to discover both that Josh had suffered 3rd degree burns to three of his fingers (but everything would be o.k.) and that the Aussies were in trouble in the cricket. I flopped down on the couch.

I remember thinking through the haze of tiredness this morning as the sun rose on an absolutely beautiful morning, “Yeah this is what life is about”.

I remember thinking how tempting it was not to go on the camp, how tempting it was not to play handball, how tempting it was not to go back for the breakfast, how tempting it was not to go to class this morning, how tempting it was to try to reduce life to make it easier.

There is part of me that thinks being tired is a good reason to be selfish. I am sorry for all the times I have listened to that part.

I’m glad I went to the camp,I’m glad I played handball, I’m glad we went back for breakfast and I’m glad I went to class.

I’m glad I was there with my son in his adventures and I’m glad I was with him in his suffering.

I think I saw this morning how easy it is to reduce the dimensions of my life so I really only have work and rest.

Living in a community like Poatina, living with my wife and living with my kids are three gifts that I am very grateful to God for.

Without these gifts I think my life would be a lot simpler – and a lot poorer.

Community and family make life messy – and beautiful!

Now I’ve got to try to be hospitable to a bunch of screaming girls camping in our backyard…. God I’m going to need your help!