2010
journey to the center of the earth
maura @ 11:08 pm
Post-vacation re-entry can be hard. Especially when it’s 100 million billion jillion degrees out. I spent the early morning trying to pull the fuzz from my head only to have to go out into the inferno for my eye doctor appointment in the afternoon, record-breaking temperatures be dammed! I now have a spiffy new prescription, though, so it was worth it (though I still have to get some glasses somewhere…).
We spent the long holiday weekend up in the northlands visiting extended family, where it was almost as hot as it is here. Gus got his fill of vacation awesomeness: swimming in the pool (for literally 4 hours straight on Saturday!), smores via campfire, snuggling with grandparents, and videogames + watching The Last Airbender with his teenage cousins. (The movie kinda sucked, but that’s a post for another day.)
This morning he trooped off to camp, sleep-deprived, of course, since staying up too late is another hallmark of vacationing. I try not to wallow in the murk of parent martyrdom, but I couldn’t help feeling kind of bummed all day. He was not very excited to go to camp. It’s a perfectly fine camp — lots of activities, swimming twice each week and the beach on Fridays. He went last year and had a good time, but this year he doesn’t really know anyone there. He’s well into the putting on a brave face in a new situation phase, but I changed schools enough as a kid to remember how yucky it can be walking into the first day in a new place.
Mainly I felt kind of sad that we can’t give him the summer he wants, which is clearly to swim, play videogames and burn things, maybe with some reading + hanging out with friends thrown in there for good measure. I’m hyperbolizing, but I do wish there were some way to give him some more unstructured time that’s *not* just sitting around our apartment playing videogames, as well as some outdoor and swimming time. For the first time ever Gus said he wished we had a yard, though he did concede one advantage of the city: it’s relatively light on bugs (mosquitos, at least).
Of course, noplace is perfect. Houses, yards + pools are lovely but require maintenance; living apart from others is peaceful but requires driving to get anywhere. Would that there was some sort of hybrid location *between* urban and rural. I guess this is why people move to the suburbs? Though the suburbs always strike me as the worst of both worlds: almost as much driving as rural and twice the strip malls, ugh.
Swimming lessons start up for Gus on the weekend, and maybe that’s the key to a nice summer: oodles of time by the pool. And we have lots of pools here in the city, all bug-free.
3 comments on “journey to the center of the earth”
I know, we do have parks, and they’re lovely and require no maintenance from me at all. I think it was some sort of weird longing for some mythical summer in which I would work part-time from home while he played in yard/pool. But I would miss the city too much.
Glad to hear that Max had fun — you guys are welcome again anytime! I am working on hatching a crazy plan to come visit you so Gus can play in your yard. :)
And Gus seems to be having a great time at camp. His activities are moviemaking, blogging (finally!) and photography, and tomorrow he wants to bring a notebook + pen so he can write down the phone number of a new friend. Martyr Mommy, begone!
Yes! You should come out. We’ll teach him to mow grass and pick up sticks :-)
I guess our neighborhood was considered a suburb about a century ago — not downtown, but not country. Now it’s considered downtown by asshats who don’t know any better, but probably more like an inurb? Or is it exurb? Inside city limits, close to downtown. Neighborhood, that works.
What about parks? We have a yard (maintenance! aughhh!) but I swear they go to the park almost as often (unfortunately they can’t go alone — that is the advantage of the yard).
For the record, Max says his favorite place he’s ever visited was NYC!!! So grass, meet greener!