It’s early. I’m on Marion’s back porch. I’m out here because I’m in the middle of Cousin Camp and this is the only “quiet” I’ve had in the last 36 hours.

Sleep does not count. Studies show that adults need a daily time of quiet reflection apart from the routine of sleep. Sleep rejuvenates the body and mind. Solitude recharges the soul.

Studies also show that extended periods of time in the presence of preadolescent chaos can A.) damage the inner ear drum, and B.) cause one to pull out his credit card and unexpectedly book a flight to St. Thomas.

I hear the islands are nice this time of year.

When you think about it, the idea of Cousin Camp actually makes sense conceptually. You plan a few days where all the older grandkids can hang out together. They come from different sides of the family. They live in different towns around the state. You have dreams of how nice it will be for them to get to know one another, and to form lasting memories that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Images of children playing together in perfect peace and harmony danced in my head. We’d go on long walks. Swim the afternoon away. There would be games and movies and popcorn. Everyone would go to bed quietly and they would all rise up in the morning and call me Blessed.

My dreams have been shattered.

Imagine a house that, on most days, is restful. The owner is retired and has earned that solitude through years of dealing with the hard knocks of life. He/she has survived all the chaos of raising a family once upon a time. And nothing compares to being home where one can relax and appreciate the quiet.

Then Cousin Camp comes.

Enter five children, ages 7 to 11. Three boys and two girls. And although you were once a parent yourself, you have forgotten what it was like to wrangle a bunch of active kiddos together to do anything normal; like eat supper, or get dressed, or find shoes, or take a bath.

Confession. I can’t be sure any of them have had a bath since Wednesday night.

It’s late afternoon. Marion and I are huddled up in the kitchen. We’ve been swimming and bowling today. We are letting the herd play on their own while we get supper ready.

The floor inside the house is rumbling like thunder. Kids are running upstairs. Other kids are running downstairs. I’m pretty sure that objects are being tossed from the balcony above to the floor below. Laughing has given way to argument, and the decibels are beginning to rattle the glass in the kitchen windows.

I walk around the corner.

“HEY. Hey, heeey. Y’all stop yelling so much at each other.”

The first “HEY” is loud enough to be heard over the roar of ballistic missiles. Each subsequent “hey” gets softer and softer in an attempt to bring some civility into the fray.

All faces immediately turn and look. I don’t how they do it, but they actually look innocent.

“We’re just playing.”

I give them all the grandpa head nod with my hands on my hips. I stare them down until I have their full attention.

“Well, it sounds more like somebody’s about to die in here.”

The judge in the group speaks up. “He’s not playing fair.”

“Life’s not fair,” I say. “Get over it…and do it quietly.”

That lasted about three minutes.

It’s actually been a very good couple of days. Last year, Lord help us, we did six days of camp with these kids. I needed medication after that one. So, this year we reeled it back to about two and a half days.

We started out with a service project at the local Crisis Pregnancy Center in town. We wanted them to know what it means to help others. They sorted through boxes of children’s books that had been donated, culling out the ones that were marked up or torn. They sorted and stocked diapers in the storeroom. And they used Clorox wipes to sanitize some of the toys and furniture.

“Why are we doing this?” they asked.

“Because it needed to be done. It helps the staff out. And it’s good for the community.”

“Okay,” they said.

We picked peaches on Friday at Gregg Farm near Concord, Georgia. We walked through the orchard filling buckets with beautiful Freestone peaches. A few green ones got in there. We ate a few of the ripe ones. A couple of the kids got a little itchy from the peach fuzz on their hands.

After we filled up the back of the Suburban with peaches, we walked over to the shed to order up some treats. Homemade peach and strawberry cups of ice cream, some of the smoothest around. Small drinks of blackberry and peach Slushies. This was basically lunch, and a good one at that.

Marion’s daughter let us borrow her Suburban for camp. This way we could transport all the kids in one vehicle wherever we went. Most of the time little heads were buried in Kindle or Nintendo Switch screens. Even so there was the typical kid banter going back and forth all the time.

When they weren’t calling somebody “dumb”, they were asking “how much longer.” This is apparently their favorite question, because they asked it every five minutes, to which I would reply that it was five minutes shorter than the last time you asked.

And, of course, we traveled almost nowhere without somebody pleading urgently, “I gotta pee.”

“We’ll be home soon. Hold it.” I could say this because it wasn’t my vehicle.

I think the hardest thing about Cousin Camp is feeding this group. They are hungry every minute of every day. They will consume entire plates of food, get up from the table, and immediately ask if they can have a bag of chips.

They are also finnicky, picky, squirrelly, and hard to please. They will eat a chocolate paste and marshmallow fluff on bread and call it a sandwich. I’m not even sure that’s food. But if you offer them Lasagna with garlic bread, they offer up a collective “Yuk!” Then, after you serve it up, they say, “I forgot I liked Lasagna.”

Marion turns and gives me a raised eyebrow. I offer to snap their sweet little heads off, like picking okra, for disrespecting the cook.

We have a theme this year. It’s called, “May I please…” You fill in the blank. May I please have a drink? May I please have a towel? May I please have a snack?

After repeatedly refusing to respond to “give me” without a formal “may I please,” they finally got comfortable with using this phrase. They haven’t been perfect at it. We’re not changing the world. But maybe they’ll take it with them when they go home.

By the time you read this, Cousin Camp 2025 will be winding down. The kids will leave. I will prop up my feet. And the quiet will embrace this house once again.

We might just be insane. But we’re smiling.