Braving Boys

Blue crab was the catch of the day, and the 10-year-old fisherboy was happy. What a relief. I thought he might be disappointed since he’s been catching whopper Reds the past few weeks, but the guy was OK with the 17 beauties he brought home. Might have had something to do with the new crab trap he took on the trip (even though he hooked most with his fishing pole) or the fact that a friend who shared the waters this afternoon donated all of his crabs to our family cooler.

It could have been the overall winning spirit that ended the day. Today was the Suwannee River Take a Kid Fishing Tournament, you see, and along with a bucket full of Blues, Joey scored a trophy, some McDonalds gift dollars (this alone is enough to perk the boy right up), an oyster knife, some artificial bait, bug spray, even a red Coleman cooler.

Mostly, it was probably just the fishing that did the trick — not the trap, the crabs, the goodies and the gear. He really only wants some water, a pole, and a day with Dad, all of which he got today. It’s what makes him truly happy. And yea, the big scores don’t hurt either.

Kicked off July with a little canoe fishing at Lake Wauburg, University of Florida.

No fish caught.

Just a lizard.

And some air.

Joey attempted his very first back flip, with the help of a guy we met on the dock.

He calls them his casts, but really, they are just layers of bandages applied by me to the feet of my poor boy who did battle this weekend with some barnacles at Devil’s Elbow Fishing Resort in St. Augustine, Florida. Danny should have been wearing shoes — how many times have we told you to wear shoes outside? — but he wasn’t, and now he’s learning one really big and painful lesson.

"Those barnacles got the best of me," said Danny after sustaining his injury.

There are cuts all over the bottoms of Danny’s feet, mostly clustered on his heels, the sides, and on a few toes. At first, the gashes were filled with dark muck, and expert advice said it was imperative that we brush it out, so we did (ouch!), after he soaked in a hydrogen peroxide and water solution. A little Motrin, antibiotic ointment, band-aids, and wraps fixed things up, and somehow, the injured guy managed to run around docks and bounce all over boats the day after. He’s not entirely out of the woods — we’ll keep treating the wounds, wrapping them up, and watching for signs of infection, but we suspect Danny will be just fine. Ready for flag football practice Tuesday evening? Maybe not. But soon — probably when the casts come off.

Catch and Release

There’s not a whole lot this boy loves. Well, he does have a fondness for candy, his iPod Touch, lounging on his bed watching TV, and most anything that costs us money and counts as a toy or a treat. But out of all the life-enriching activities endorsed by us, the parents, there’s really only one biggie that makes the cut — fishing. (Well, there is gardening, too, but it comes in a distant second.)

Joey is good at lots of things, like school, piano, drama, football, and basketball, but none of these register as favorites in any way, shape, or form. Sure, he likes to tackle me in the aisles of Walmart just for fun, toss the ball around with his dad in random fields, and crush his little brother in backyard hoops. Put him on a team, though, or anything formal and organized, and while he’ll play along, he won’t be all that interested. A boat, now, or a dock — transport him to one or the other, and a happy boy, you will see. It’s beautiful, really, how our boy, who first started challenging us the day he was born, can become so still, peaceful, and patient. He has no problem rising in the wee and dark hours of the morning, trekking all over the state of Florida, working tirelessly for a good catch and release or a cast net full of shrimp, and while he does have a bit of an issue with cleaning the boat, he does it, because he knows it’s part of the deal.

I don’t know how it happened — how he came to pick fish over footballs — but ask him to head out to the water, and he’s there, content for the long haul, and plotting out the next big trip. Will his love affair continue? I’m not sure. But for now, we’re embracing this hobby that makes our boy happier than anything else in this big world. (Oh, and for good measure, we’re also forcing him to stick with piano, because, have you ever known an adult who gave up on lessons as a kid who doesn’t now regret the decision? Well, we haven’t, and if you have, please don’t tell Joey or Danny.)

Danny told me recently that he is going to teach his dad to play the piano. He’s become quite the pro since starting lessons in July (he and big bro Joe rocked their first recital in December), and he’s discovered he has the tools for teaching others.

“That’s great!” I responded. “You can teach me, too!”

His response: “No, it would be too complicated for you.”

This from the boy who paid me the nicest compliment last week — he said I look 14, not 40.

I think it’s a compliment, anyway.

Never a dull moment in a house with two growing kiddos. Here, some more bits about boys:

Someone once told me the appropriate time to talk about sex with kids is when they start asking questions about it. Well, on the way home from the grocery store one day, Joey asked a question, and I answered, and while there’s a lot more we need to cover on the topic, let’s just say he now knows exactly how the baby is made, and he’s declared that he will definitely be adopting his children.

Joey is 10 now, and I realize, sadly, that we are halfway done with him (well, in the controlling, we-are-in-charge-of-everything-you-do kinda way). If all goes according to his plan, in not so many years, he’ll be living in a condo on the beach, with a pet, a boat, and a bunch of hot babes. He’ll be working in a boat store, and he might let his little brother live with him, although he’d prefer him as a neighbor, and WOW, this is pretty heavy stuff. Yes, we still must advance through puberty, driving, dating, and who knows what else, but the prospect of an emptying nest is darn sobering.

Danny is 7, going on 8, but acting a lot like 4. A therapist told me years ago she believes the 7-year-old has a foot firmly planted in toodlerhood, and Danny, on some days, could be her case study. Whining is his specialty, and if he must cry out in protest, he’ll do that, too. Overall, though, he is a sweet, smart, loving boy. His teacher reports he is her model student (a terrific turnaround from last year’s pinching and underwear incident), and his “brain cage,” as he calls it, holds so many fantastic facts and figures that we are mostly in awe of our second born, whose latest passion is the ipod Touch he got for Christmas. Uh-Oh, I just heard kids should have no more than an hour or two of daily screen time. He’s not going to be happy about that.

This Christmas marked a family travel milestone for us. We stuffed loads of gear and ourselves (plus one grandmother) in a rented van, and we headed for New York to see an uncle, aunt, and four cousins. New York, if you aren’t aware, is 21 horrendous hours away from where we live, and for someone like me, who doesn’t like to be on the road for more than two hours, the lead-up to this adventure can cause some distress. But I ended up managing just fine, and the sights and stops along the way (like Washington, DC) made for an experience that exceeded my expectations. Bonus: A blizzard, and the boys had never before seen snow (or felt such freezing cold weather), and what a treat that was!

Also on the boy radar: The guys are taking turns going to Gator basketball games with dad; school Read-A-Thon starts on Monday, which is good since all four of us need to hit the books more; mountain biking has commenced; fishing and boating are tops when the warm temps return; taking a break this season from sports, but flag football is up next this Spring; and gosh, so much more lies ahead. Will it be tackle football? Not sure, but I do know I’m up for anything. Well, except camping.

Bike Week 2010, Daytona Beach, Fla.

Among all of the duties we have as parents, exposing our boys to all sorts of stuff is a priority. That’s why we took them to Bike Week 2010 on Saturday. Danny’s had some “I love motorcycle” moments in his life (one Christmas, all he wanted was a toy dirt bike, and he always picks motorcycle racing when he games at my sister’s house), and Joey is usually up for anything car, boat or bike-related.

Now, don’t get me wrong — I really prefer that my guys don’t ride motorcycles at all, ever. Still, I thought the Daytona Beach event would be exciting. And for moments, it was (The Naked Cowboy and monster-sized snake were hits).

The Naked Cowboy and The Snake Guy

But Danny mostly moped, claiming his legs were too tired to walk up and down Main St., and Joey, well, he just wanted to get to the water to throw his cast net. And when I asked them both at the end of our maybe hour-long tour of this 69th annual extravaganza if they could see themselves as bikers when they grow up, the response was an overwhelming NO. And so we headed to a favorite fishing spot in Ormond Beach, where Joey and John dabbled at the shore and Danny sat with me in the car, playing his Nintendo DS. The game?

Yamaha Supercross.

Eight-year-old Joey said to me today, “I’d go back to all the bad times in my life to get back to some of the good ones.” Pretty profound for a young guy — and exactly how many bad times can the boy have encountered? I didn’t ask, just focused on the good instead.

“Which good times?” I asked.

“Just me and Daddy at Lake Wauburg, all by ourselves,” he said.

Knowing it must be a dad’s dream to hear something like this, I told John. Sure enough, his heart was warmed. And he can’t wait to get Joey back out on the lake, with the favorite cast net and a few fishing poles on a simple little Jon boat.

How about you — would you go back through the bad to get to the good?

We took our last big summer trip this weekend, to Joey’s birthplace — Daytona Beach. And while we stayed in this really nice condo right on the beach, we didn’t really spend much time on the sand or in the water. There was an hour or spent in the waves on Friday and two nighttime visits to the dark ocean, but mostly the boys wanted to fish. So we drove five miles away and spent most of Saturday and Sunday at the river, where Joey and Danny were content, and happy — and way productive. Joey’s favorite cast net delivered them trout, flounder and shrimp. And the shrimp on a hook scored them mullet and catfish (see above). They were in heaven. So were we. And if time permits and tropical storms stay away, my three guys will squeeze in one more fishing trip (this time on an uncle’s new boat) before school starts and vacation ends. I’ll hold down the home fort for this trip — I mean, fishing is great and all, but peace and quiet is quite a catch too.

“Let’s stop catching the fish,” I told Joey on Tuesday as he was throwing his cast net into the ocean at Cedar Key and scoring handfuls of baby fish, whose heads were getting stuck in the holes of the net. For the most part, the fish were surviving — Joey captured them, then he and Danny plucked them from the tangles and plunged them into a bucket of water — but we lost one, and that made me sad.

“Mom,” Joey said, “This is fishing. You catch fish, and some die. There are lots of fish in the world.”

Fair enough, I thought, and so I let Joey continue pulling in fish after fish. Then I saw the sign:

No Fishing or Swimming Allowed.

“Joey, I just noticed this sign,” I said, pointing. My almost third grader turned, read the words we both missed when we first arrived on the dock and said: “Uh-Oh, we better go.”

“Yep, we better.”

And we did.

And after a few minutes of admiring what he’d worked so hard for, Joey set his family of fish free into the waters of the West coast. And that made me feel so much better.