Ever since I got married relatives have been sending their kids to visit during the summer when they’re out of school. First it was my little brother and sisters. When they grew up and had children, it’s been nieces and nephews too. Then it was adopted children, semi-adopted children and then their children – my grandkids. Since I’ve generally been a mostly at-home Mom and Grandma, this (wherever we’re living at the time is ‘this’) is where the kids come. We don’t mind.

Yet the visitors are mostly “city kids,” who aren’t trained and accustomed to looking out for issues here in the country that simply don’t arise in the city. Looking both ways before crossing the street, knowing how to trigger the crossing light, being wary of strangers, keeping the doors and windows locked and being in constant cell-phone distance from a parent or caregiver are all very useful skills in the city. Out here where the nearest paved road is half a mile away and nobody can “drive by” there’s other things to worry about.

The grandson who has lived here with us for 16 of his 18 years has never run into serious trouble. Grandson #2 and nephew #1 from baby sister have both had losing run-ins with copperheads, another nephew nearly broke his ankle trying to run straight down the terraces (but at least he didn’t take a nose-dive off the cliff), and we’ve installed a stop sign at the railroad crossing because we’ve always been paranoid of that. Only a few visitors ever got really lost, luckily we have very good girl-dogs who will always tell us if a kid’s in trouble, lead us right to them.

So we’ve installed some activities that will keep visiting kids close and entertained. We can’t move the swimming hole any closer (it’s about a mile), so we insist that an elder teen or adult ALWAYS accompany the young’uns – swimming hole totally off-limits until someone becomes available. We’ve also closed off the bottomland to kids, enforce it with horror stories about campers who had to go to the hospital with total-body poison ivy, whole families attacked by swarms of yellow jackets. Copperheads and timber rattlers. Even the ghosts of the prisoners who built the railroad’s great wall across the cove. You name it, we’ve tried it. Now nobody goes down there in the summer unless we make ‘em help clean out the spring.

We’ve got 10 holes of frisbee disc golf course right here on the ridge. Nephew did manage to break a total of 6 kitchen and library windows when learning how, but we’ll get those replaced eventually. With plexiglass. There are occasional snakes, but generally people playing are making enough noise for them to get out of the way. Plus, the little girl-dogs are on constant patrol, take kid-duty seriously.

We have horseshoes and badminton, a large and always in need of help garden that grows delicacies that never actually make it back to the kitchen before getting eaten. There’s the back yard campfire pit and the forest is chock full of sticks to burn. This year we’ve stocked up on boxes of Peeps, on sale the week after Easter and chunked into the freezer. If you love roasted marshmallows, you’ve just gotta try roasted Peeps!

We have a regular armory stuffed with the entire range of water weapons, from derringer to tactical nuke. Plus several gross of balloons for making grenades. We have an archery and BB range. We have an entire array of mock battle gear, your basic wooden and PVC spears and swords and battle axes and clubs covered with pipe foam and duct tape so nobody can get really hurt. And, for when worst comes to worst, we’ve got a well-stocked library room, every board game ever invented, some challenging jigsaw puzzles, cards, not one but two bar-quality dart boards and a box full of darts. We’ve a junk drawer full of dice and pick-up sticks, a DVD/VCR, and art/craft supplies galore. Daughter works at a supply store…

We also keep large supplies of mosquito repellant on hand. There’s the deep woods DEET stuff (use sparingly, it causes cancer eventually even though it prevents West Nile and Yellow Fever right now), there’s Avon Skin-So-Soft, and there’s a mint-based concoction I make and put in a mister spray jar. Here in the Appalachian forest, bug repellant is a lot more useful than sun screen (but we keep SPF 30+ in big bottles).

For the inevitable stings, bites, cuts, bends, scrapes and pokes, I stock poundage of baking soda and jars of ammonia and rubbing alcohol, industrial-size containers of your basic no-frills bandaids and bandages, 4 sizes of ace elastic bandages, some elastic joint supporters and some velcro splints.

Being well stocked and well prepared for summertime guests of the “I’m Bored!” variety is a temper-saver extraordinaire. We’ve always had to lay down some hard and fast rules for when other people’s children are here for any length of time, but that doesn’t prevent the inevitable.

What kind of supplies do readers suggest for guests in-town? Things have changed a lot since I was a kid and my parents didn’t want to know I was around unless it’s dinnertime and I’m late. The rainy weather indoor stuff would be as good, I think. Lots of scrap paper, colored pencils, waterpaints, charcoals, beads and beading supplies, various other art/crafty things, video and DVD entertainment options, board games, cards, darts, dice, etc. What do you do with kids if they can’t go outside, apart from formal activities you’ve planned for evenings and days-out (movies, out to dinner, trip to the museum, picnics, hiking excursions, swimming at the pool or lake, etc.)?

It was an action-packed weekend. A total of 4 daughters (one by birth, three by stray whose kids call me “Aunt Granny”) one stray son and five semi-grands plus #1 grandson. Here for the youngest semi-grandson’s eighth birthday on Sunday. To make matters worse, the weather was absolutely dismal so there could be no friendly campfire for Peep-roasting, the ins and outs of having all those people coming and going from the cold and wet into the house completely trashed the place so that it’s taken two days just to reclaim the living area.

There were some issues that arose, particularly in regards to the younger boys (8 and 10) and 17-year old #1 grandson’s ample collection of serious weaponry that he just can’t seem to keep put safely away because he practices with them so often. I had to collect ninja knives and Samurai swords, one rapier and several heavy fantasy swords from them at various times, which they’d managed to fish out of some gawd-awful corner of grandson’s outrageously messy room when nobody was looking. The girls (4 and 14) were, as usual, perfect angels – ratted out those boys every time…

#1 Grandson lives here, graduates high school this year, and is an only child. This place is far out in the country with no immediate neighbors, surrounded by National Forest. When he was younger (about 8), we began allowing him to collect wooden practice swords and staffs, gave him form lessons to keep him busy. Our son (who died when grandson was just 2) had a double black belt in a weapons form of Kung-Fu (was also an amazing juggler and seasoned performer who once toured demonstrating his weapons skills on stage with his master). Grandson had inherited a lot of practice and show weapons, bought more once we allowed that beginning when he was 12. He makes spectacularly detailed Samurai armor by hand too, as well as fantasy chess sets from Sculpy – he’s extremely talented, we’ve always encouraged it.

He orders the swords and knives through a mail order company that sends him a catalog every 3 months, and he has amassed quite the collection. We’ve also allowed long bow and crossbow for target practice, and he’s very good at it. The problem is that he doesn’t always put his weapons safely away. When it’s just him it’s not a problem. When there’s little ones present, it IS a problem.

Now, I don’t mind if the younger boys target practice with the long bows. There’s a full dirt-bank target, and so long as there aren’t other kids or dogs in the area, they can’t hurt anything. There’s usually adults or elder grandson around to help keep them in line. The 10-year old has phenomenal aim, has his own bow and a straw target in his own yard and practices regularly. We’ve never allowed play guns that aren’t SuperSoakers or Nerf. No knife fights or sword fights using real weapons. There are well padded PVC and duct tape practice staffs and swords they can hit each other with all day and never leave a bruise.

But because elder grandson didn’t even try to get all his real weapons stashed where the kids couldn’t get them this past weekend, I’ve laid down the law. Summer’s coming, there will be lots of young-uns in and out, he graduates (and has his 18th birthday) in May, and while I understand his teenage distraction and inattention to detail, that distraction is WHY I’m laying down the law.

ALL of the metal weapons must be boxed atop the closet in the shed, where the unicycles, puppets and various impressive implements of snake-death are hung in rafters, in the building where we store the DR brush mower, the super Craftsman tiller, the chainsaws and chains, axes, mauls, pitchforks and other sharp implements that are necessary to keeping the land and crops. When (if?) he ever gets a place of his own, he can use them as steak knives for all I care. But since he’s going to college just 20 miles away, he’ll still be here for awhile. Besides, if he were living on-campus they’d never allow those weapons anyway.

He’s sulking, of course. “It’s so unfair!” he whines, knowing deep down that it’s his own fault. Being responsible with his weapons is a good lesson to learn, as well as remembering that he’s not the only grandkid we’ve got. He is much older than the rest of the brood, will be voting this year! That makes him a legal adult for most purposes, and despite all the distractions he very much needs to pay attention to these things.

Nobody’s perfect. That’s why being a parent and grandparent can still be such a challenge well after that kid gets to be a foot taller than you! The teenage brain is stuck somewhere between childhood and adult, there is still work to do. And, just to add to the observations from this end of the spectrum, they never really do grow up. They’ll always be your babies, so you’ll always be wanting to protect them. You can’t always succeed at that, but it’s just automatic to try.

When it comes to weapons, there is no try. There is do or not do, and the best advice is to DO!