Summer Makes Them Smarter, Year 2

Summer Makes Them Smarter, year 2

Well, it’s that time of summer again. The time at which most of my friends’ kids have gone back to school, and we are just leaving for our family vacation. We have four.weeks.left. people. FOUR.

In this snail race to the finish, I am again of the mind that year-round school is a terrific idea for so many reasons:

• no summer “melt” when your kids forget everything they just spent 9 months learning
• no “what day is it today” blank-face stares because their regular schedule left with the last school bus back in June and their brains are haywire now
• no wild-eyed fatigue of their continued bickering about who gets your bathtub and whether or not each person takes his own head off the toothbrush or is allowed to leave it standing: they have too much time on their hands

Enough already.

You might recall my post from last August 14 (funny how without planning a matched date, I started writing this in the same week, one year later) about all the ways in which summer makes kids smarter. This summer is no exception, people. Here you go; you’re welcome.

I knew things were really coming along when I suggested a very inspired, if I say so myself, art project in which the kids would sketch in their art journals, all the things they loved about summer. Jack went for the gold, and I was thrilled.

Then I spied it: SUMER.

Amazing. This fourth grader is ON IT, people. He loves sumer and all it involves!

Oliver drew this masterpiece. I don't think his sophisticated work needs much explanation.

After a week of playing “Boujad and Piney: Where Did He Go?” an inane game that involved Piney (Oliver) walking around with a weird, butt-out posture and asking in an odd baby’ish voice, “Where is Boujad (Jack)? Where did he go?” it was, mercifully, time for Camp Calleva.

Oh to be in my quiet home for hours and hours while they were blissfully outdoors, kayaking, rock climbing, horseback riding and shooting bows and arrows. They burned loads of energy every day and came home filthy, bedazzled with all manner of woodland ornament.

It was all really wonderful except that it’s made me seriously ponder two somewhat terrifying questions:

1. Will Jack ever show interest in being clean? And, will he ever successfully bathe himself?
2. Is Oliver a hoarder?

Q1: Jack’s feet, neck and hands were about nine shades darker than his torso and thighs. His face looked like he’d cobbled together camo paint from natural sources. Dust and degraded plant matter snowed from his hair whenever he sneezed or nodded with even the slightest gusto. And yet he insisted, with a somewhat feral growl, “I am not dirty, Mom.” Did he lose his eyesight at camp? Does he not smell himself?

I decreed, on the very first day, “Baths happen as soon as we get home and then you can play and eat.” The water was so shockingly gray-brown that Oliver was moved to video it one evening. I dare say our tubs may never return to white.

Meanwhile, at the ripe old age of 9+, Jack still requires coaching on the intricacies of shampooing one's own hair. Was this difficult for me to learn and I have forgotten the challenge? I think not.

Two weeks ago, he got out of the bath, drained the water and got dressed before I could check him. His hair was slicked with conditioner. He vaguely resembled Kenickie in Grease. Then, his hair dried.

If you would like to style your hair such that it resembles a shellacked rat’s nest, follow Jack’s lead. When I tucked him in that night, I tried to run my fingers lovingly through his blond locks. They got stuck. I managed to retract my digits; they were sticky and looked as if they had dandruff. It was vile.

Why did this not faze my boy? He is dirty- plain and simple.

Q2: It pains me to consider this, but I believe Oliver is showing early hoarder tendencies. At the very least, he is entirely too interested in bringing the forest back to his bedroom. I feel we owe Calleva about 90 bags of assorted natural treasure: mulch, rocks, sticks, pinecones, whatever those revolting shriveled-cantaloupe-looking seed pods are…

This is ONE day’s example of what he’d crammed into his backpack and lunch box. I mean, did he actually go to camp? Or did he wander the woods, picking this shit up? I do wonder. In case you're wondering, that shiny blue thing is a noisemaker. It never belonged to Ol or anyone in our family, and yet he blew on it many times. #yuk

I throw things out in the dark of night, after having moved them around the house strategically, hoping he doesn't catch on to my plan. He has taken to going through many of our trashcans and removing things he deems treasures. This is stuff like used straws, y’all. That were never his. Gum wrappers, frizzled yarn, tape coated with dirt and crumbs. #nottreasures

We will never need to collect kindling again.

Dear husband, during this time, ordered one of those Google cardboard thing. That ridiculous looking adult-viewfinder into which you put your smart phone. You then walk around wearing this contraption and looking like a complete dork. Naturally, the kids were as thrilled as Tom. Mah gah. With whom do I live?? Let’s pay even less attention to our surroundings, shall we?

Now we're off for that family vacation, y'all! Sayonara!!

**Epilogue: We spent five hours at the airport today but are back home now. Our bags have gone to London, and we have not because the air traffic control center for the DC-area crashed. For so many hours. We try again tomorrow night, to leave. ON THIS EFFING VACATION! Do you hear my relaxed tone?????

Just a wee bit of WTF

Now hear this, friends. I am happy to have obliged Ol's doe-eyed request to stay home with me this week rather than attending any camp. But I will tell you that if you are like me and require a certain amount of quietude, do not agree to Camp Mommy the week immediately following the family trip from which you've just returned. 

But Em, you may say, "Wouldn't I be relaxed and fully rested after a week at the beach with my brood?"

Let me put it simply: You will in no way be fully rested after said week. Especially if you spent the last 7 hours of said week driving home together in the same car. 

You will then, come Monday afternoon, find yourself wild-eyed and with terrible hair. Your home will look like you're a hoarder who enjoys playing on the floor with blocks and costumes. Quite possibly you'll have agreed that you and your camper could of course paint one wall of his room. In two new colors. Stripes!

Then, you'll remember that you have a second child. He needs to be picked up at camp five minutes ago, and you are still unsure as to whether or not you have brushed your teeth. Ever today.

You will go to camp, pick him up, cringe when he says "what's the snack?" because not only did you not bring a snack but also you haven't yet told either child that guess what, it's time to run to the pharmacy for a prescription refill. 

You do these things, spend $4 on a croissant and scone to fill their pieholes with food rather than words and then return home to realize that the night is young. Hell, the day is young.

You instruct the children to play together, old-school style. #noscreens Then you quickly and desperately Facebook messenger a friend and start to vent. Twenty minutes later, your children are in nothing but underpants and one, also wearing one pleather glove by the way, is licking the other while you and your friend are discussing the many ridiculous names given to babies these days.

At, "No, don't put that in the litter box," you pause. This, if any, might be a reasonable time to intervene in whatever mofo crazy game your children have invented. Like I always say, summer makes 'em smart. You cautiously glance over your right shoulder to see what's happening. You find that child 2 now has TWO pleather gloves on, and you spin your head so quickly back to the screen that you give yourself whiplash. Your friend says, "Hmm....two pleather gloves sounds ominous."

Indeed. 

Because you're awesome, even when you're on FB and your kids are acting like S&M lunatics straight outta Pulp Fiction, you will make a gorgeous, healthful dinner of whole wheat (obviously, people; you're not an asshole) spaghetti with spring-green pesto; just-picked strawberries from the farmers market (double duh; you are that woman); sugar snap peas AND pea tendrils; and wholesome milk, chilled just right. 

The gloved and gloveless wonders sit down and begin to eat the spaghetti with their hands. You have raised.them.right. #allthemanners

You pour some wine, curse your ever-hopeful dog, and give thanks for the "who gives a shit" cat who's skulking to and fro with his tail high. "Bless that feline" you think as you sip some lovely whatever it is in your glass.

A stroke of maternal genius overcomes you about two years late, and you inform child 1 that as he is almost 9, you will no longer be bathing him. (Maybe you are an asshole. I mean, NINE?). He takes it well. You wonder if he'll ever be truly clean again but as you start to fret, your worry is wholly and successfully tossed back into the current by the utter liberation of NOT bathing your extremely capable child.

You become brazen and tell child 2 that "Hey, you're six. I KNOW you can do it too." You might sit with him in the bathroom as he bathes because possibly you're still terrified he could drown. Remember that babysitter who always fell asleep on the job BUT had been a lifeguard and reminded you regularly that "kids can drown in even an inch of water"? Yeah, that stuck with you. And so there you find yourself. On a toilet, with a three-month-old magazine that you still won't read, watching your six-year-old kinda not bathe himself but at least you're not doing it.

LIBERATION! Maybe this is what summer is all about?!

Excitement with a tinge of trepidation

Fuuuuuccccckkkkk.

The end is barreling down on us: just a day and change to go. I can't tell if I'm glad or terrified by that, but come it quickly will so I guess I best just go with it.

Let's be honest, people. Terrified is tipping the scales right now. Cue the wine pour.

The children are vacillating between angelic loves and rabid loons. Tics I'd thought were long gone are making irritating resurgences. The "heh-heh-heh" constant cough from Ol? Making me batshit crazy because it is SO fake and omnipresent. Also, he has a bizarre chafing on the side of his face in which the first four of his cavities were filled. Swear to god, I have zero tolerance for a latex allergy.

As an aside, did y'all know that when cats drink from a bowl, they take mini-breaks with their tongues? It's like lick-lick-lick-fake lick and repeat. 

I'm taking breaths where I can. Today that meant a 6-mile run in drizzling rain as well as crafting multiple raffia bows and using Stickles pretty glitter to make Thank You tags that much more special. 

A) My legs are like, "Shit, girl. Too far." But really, Some Nights and, then, Raise Your Glass (Fun./Pink) came on, and I was like, "Shit legs, this playlist is the bomb." And there you have it. Plus, I did register for that damn race, so I best get my training on.

B) Raffia bows. Raffia is an underrated craft material. It looks like something homespun from natural fibers in a fantastic shabby chic way. And then. You can stretch it to a thin, papyrus width which makes it both infinitely more elegant and fun AND all the more homespun and natural. #winning

C) Stickles. One of my top three favorite Paper Source finds. Wanna bedazzle any paper good with a bit of flair? Grab a squirt bottle of Stickles and dot away. It's upscale glitter glue y'all, and boy is it fun. A glittery golden dot at the top point of a stamped star? Fabulous! I needed those shiny little stars today.

In spite of escapist running and crafting fun though, the lows, regressive behavior, tics and generalized mayhem right now are just fucking exhausting. Tears spurt forth randomly as if I've moved into a convent of pubescent gals. I can say that because I was one. And I know.

Tonight, after many hours of loving bonding (by which I mean SO MUCH togetherness), Oliver's face crumbled, the tears poured forth as if that kid pulled his finger from the damn dike, and he begged me to "get my kitchen back." The one Santa brought three years ago and had not been played with in two. The one we sold for $50 and replaced with a pimped out, made-for-small-spaces "office" because Oliver said, "I have work to do!" 

Meanwhile, Lunatic the Elder, having spent hours waxing rhapsodic about the magical and singular experience of 3rd grade, proceeded to fall apart in a spiral of angst + ennui. "I'm OVER IT, Mom. I'm over 3rd grade." 

I attempted to make him a nice dinner, but after freaking out over black beans and a pluot, it became clear that sleep was the only solution.

Also, wine.

Scab face attempted to sneak out of bed under the guise of being "unable to cool off." He was just fishing for me to say, "Get naked, honey." So, I did. I just said, "Take your darn underpants off if that's what you want, man." 

And then I seared the heck out of some filets while masterfully keeping the insides nearly walking for T and much less so for me. And making a freaking awesome brown butter succotash'ish thingy for our side and messaging wildly with writer friends.

Cheers!