It's the last few days of summer vacation, a bittersweet time of anxiety and repressed jubilation when you have school agers in the house. The summer is over- no more lazy days lying around in jammies or staying up too late to watch another movie. It's time to pack your bags and hit the road, Jack. Your life awaits you.
But hold on, wait a minute, gotta get one last blast out. That's why we headed up to the local water park a couple days ago, squeezing those last scorching bits of fun out of August. We pick up theme park season tickets every summer. Sure, it's a bang on the pocketbook that first time out, but after that it's sensible, easy fun. Pack a cooler for lunch or dinner, and head out. We wander around, doing whatever seems like fun. Sometimes we go out for the whole day; others we zip out for a few rides after dinner. The great thing is that we never feel like we have to do ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW TODAY BECAUSE THIS IS OUR ONLY CHANCE. You know that feeling... you paid twenty umpteen dollars and ,by goodness, you're going to get every penny's worth! So you turn into the Fun Nazi, dragging your tired, aching children from ride to exhibit to ride, demanding the good time you paid for.
Fun Nazis crack me up. I mean, I feel terribly for their children, who you know will someday crack in therapy, weeping uncontrollably. "And then... and then it was the MERRY GO ROUND! All it does is go around and around and around.... just like my life!" I expect to see them in certain places- the zoo, traditional theme parks, fairs. But for some reason I'm always suprised to see them at water parks. To me, water parks are filled with a land locked island spirit of sorts. You meander from place to place. There are rides, but it's so much more of a relaxed vibe. I mean, one of the main attractions is called a "Lazy" river! How can you get worked up in a place like this? Oh, but the Fun Nazis can.
At water parks, the true sign of a Fun Nazi is the camera. Yes, a camera. At a water park. And it's not just a disposable, or a cheap digital shoved in a plastic case (of which I'm guilty). We're talking hardware. Digital SLRs, primed and ready for the next great shot of Little Lola and Junior Johnny splashing at the frog pond. Rather than getting in and playing with the kids, the FNM (Fun Nazi Mom) stands at the side of every attraction, her $1000, decidedly NON waterproof camera in hand. "Lola! Lola, honey, look over here! LOOK! OVER HERE! LOLA!" "Johnny, stop going down the slide so fast! Mommy needs to take your picture! Go slower! No, Stop! STOP! RIGHT THERE! Now... no, DONT SPLASH MOMMY!"
Good times, good times.
As we splashed and played that last day of summer, I caught a FNM standing at the side of the pool, holding a camera that easily cost well over a grand- closer to two grand with the lens. I smiled at her and said "You are a braver woman than I!" With a frosty glare, she arched one perfect eyebrow and said "Well, their summer scrapbooks will NOT be complete without these pictures. I can't sacrifice quality." With that she fired off 27 frames per second of Little Lola, all of two years old, looking dejected and nervous amid the running, screaming kids.
Maybe I won't have perfect pictures of my kids at the water park. I'll have some, but they won't be the same quality as SuperPhotoMom has. But I'm okay with that. Because in the end, I want my kids to remember the time we spent together going down slides and racing through waves. I want them to remember it in their heads, and with their hearts, rather than th rough the pages of a scrapbook. I want them to remember it because it REALLY happened.. not because i was directing an artificial scene of fun.
I'll save that for my personal social life. "Here, stand over by this restaurant honey, and it will look like we went out for the night rather than just grocery shopping!"
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
School bells ring... are ya listening?
It's that time of year again! A time of cheer, a time of happiness, love, peace, and goodwill towards men. No, silly. It's not Christmas.
It's time for the kids to go back to school!
Don't get me wrong, I adore my children. I love them more than life itself. But I'd be lying through my teeth if I said that three months of vacation is a dream waiting to happen. Oh sure, the first month is fun. You have so many ideas and plans! You'll go swimming at least twice a week! You'll have picnics at the park and playdates at the playground! You'll host rousing barbeques on your back deck! You'll pee rainbows and poo bubbles!
Okay, maybe I got a little out of hand there.
By month two, reality begins to click in. It's been raining the last two weeks and swimming has been out of the question. When it's not raining, the park is too muddy to play in. Your kids are sick of peanut butter sandwiches, and no one is hosting a BBQ since that big e-coli scare. The only one peeing anything of note is the family dog- you should probably have that checked out by the vet.
Don't even get me started on month three.
The point is, twelve weeks is a long time for the average family to be stuck in 80% humidity plus happiness. It's not just the parents. My son is secretly gleeful that soon he'll be racing around the playground with his buddies again, not having to deal with his four year old brother All Day, Every Day. And the four year old? Well, lets just say that I've seen him looking longingly at the occasional school bus a time or two this past week. The wait is almost over. In just fifteen days they'll be dressed in their back to school finest, waiting for their golden hued chariots to whisk them back to a life of friends, structure, and milk in cartons.
It hasn't been the summer of our dreams. Somewhere amidst the sunburns and peanut butter, my husband got sick. Really sick. We thought it was food poisoning to start- a bad slice of pizza was surely the culprit. But he didn't get better, no matter how much Pepto we poured down him. So while I ran to baseball games and birthday parties and figured out grocery shopping and carpools, he stayed home, in bed, sick. And when July reared it's head and my favorite holiday- the 4th- approached, rather than celebrating with us by buying explosives for small children, he could barely make it through the day. He spent the holiday weekend in the hospital, getting steroids and antibiotics. Instead of lighting the candles on our youngest's birthday cake, he watched from his hospital room via webcam. He came home after a week, but it's been a roller coaster of medications, tests, many questions, and few answers.
Life- and Summer- go on though, blood draws and colonoscopies be damned. And truth be told, this summer is heading towards it's close. Fall bedtimes have been reestablished, much to my children's chagrin. And while I may not look b ack at Summer 2009 with the fondest of glances, I can say beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was memorable in it's own ways. Even if I didn't pee any rainbows.
It's time for the kids to go back to school!
Don't get me wrong, I adore my children. I love them more than life itself. But I'd be lying through my teeth if I said that three months of vacation is a dream waiting to happen. Oh sure, the first month is fun. You have so many ideas and plans! You'll go swimming at least twice a week! You'll have picnics at the park and playdates at the playground! You'll host rousing barbeques on your back deck! You'll pee rainbows and poo bubbles!
Okay, maybe I got a little out of hand there.
By month two, reality begins to click in. It's been raining the last two weeks and swimming has been out of the question. When it's not raining, the park is too muddy to play in. Your kids are sick of peanut butter sandwiches, and no one is hosting a BBQ since that big e-coli scare. The only one peeing anything of note is the family dog- you should probably have that checked out by the vet.
Don't even get me started on month three.
The point is, twelve weeks is a long time for the average family to be stuck in 80% humidity plus happiness. It's not just the parents. My son is secretly gleeful that soon he'll be racing around the playground with his buddies again, not having to deal with his four year old brother All Day, Every Day. And the four year old? Well, lets just say that I've seen him looking longingly at the occasional school bus a time or two this past week. The wait is almost over. In just fifteen days they'll be dressed in their back to school finest, waiting for their golden hued chariots to whisk them back to a life of friends, structure, and milk in cartons.
It hasn't been the summer of our dreams. Somewhere amidst the sunburns and peanut butter, my husband got sick. Really sick. We thought it was food poisoning to start- a bad slice of pizza was surely the culprit. But he didn't get better, no matter how much Pepto we poured down him. So while I ran to baseball games and birthday parties and figured out grocery shopping and carpools, he stayed home, in bed, sick. And when July reared it's head and my favorite holiday- the 4th- approached, rather than celebrating with us by buying explosives for small children, he could barely make it through the day. He spent the holiday weekend in the hospital, getting steroids and antibiotics. Instead of lighting the candles on our youngest's birthday cake, he watched from his hospital room via webcam. He came home after a week, but it's been a roller coaster of medications, tests, many questions, and few answers.
Life- and Summer- go on though, blood draws and colonoscopies be damned. And truth be told, this summer is heading towards it's close. Fall bedtimes have been reestablished, much to my children's chagrin. And while I may not look b ack at Summer 2009 with the fondest of glances, I can say beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was memorable in it's own ways. Even if I didn't pee any rainbows.
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