Halfway

We are halfway through summer vacation.  To be precise, thirty days have passed since my son’s last day of school (not including weekends), and there remain twenty-five days to fill until school resumes.  I don’t count the weekends because he wouldn’t go to school on the weekends anyway.

There are two weeks left of the library’s summer reading program.  I don’t know why it doesn’t continue until the start of the school year.  I suppose we can still go the library on Thursday afternoons even after summer reading is over.

My son is registered for one more week of summer camp.  Also, we have plans to spend a long weekend in the mountains on a short family vacation, so there’s that. 

We have not been swimming at the reservoir yet, nor downtown to play in the fountain and eat ice cream from the vendor’s cart.  I’m disappointed in myself for letting so much time pass, and now I’ve lost my enthusiasm.

My son and I haven’t been on a bike ride in a while.  We haven’t kicked the soccer ball around in a while, either.  We haven’t played any of our new games lately.  We’ve finished all the books we got at the school’s end-of-the-year give-away.

We did go on a picnic once.  We went on a nature walk with our wildflower field guide, too—but I only remember one of the flowers we identified.

Despite all my plans, it’s becoming a slog.

It’s time to dig deep.  I’m planning a hike and a picnic supper this weekend (cold fried chicken, potato salad with blue cheese and crumbled bacon, crudités, fresh berry salad, brownies), and I’ve promised to take the children swimming on Monday (weather permitting).  My son wants to go to the farm the weekend after that, and we’ve rented Mary Poppins from the library for a family movie night.  I won’t give up on having fun.

Last night at dinner my son prayed, “Thank you for the good day I had with Mommy.”  So there’s that.

Into the Kitchen

When we are away from home I think I enjoy letting other people cook for me, but as soon as we get home the first thing I do is make a grocery list.  I can’t wait to cook for myself and my family again, to make meals of my choice and to experience the pleasure of chopping vegetables, measuring ingredients, seasoning to taste, and turning out a dish exactly as I imagined it.  This week I’m going to make pasta primavera with julienned carrots, pea pods, and broccoli, garnished with shaved parmesan cheese and cashews; chicken marsala with green beans amandine and hot rolls; and salt-and-pepper shrimp with stir-fried spring vegetables (asparagus, snow peas, and leek) and sticky rice.  It’s great to be home.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Here are some things I like about visiting my parents (besides seeing my parents):

It is very dark at night.  There are no street lights outside our bedroom window; no cars pass.  It is blissful.

There is a two hour time difference between my parents’ time zone and ours at home, and my parents have a satellite dish.  This means that I can stay up “late” without getting too tired and watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report with my husband.

 I have not gained as much weight since high school as the classmates I bump into.

At breakfast I can watch the horses gambol in the pasture beyond my parents’ back fence.

My pixie haircut seems unconventional and daring.

My kids are so happy to be here.

Thoughts

We are visiting my parents.  In their basement I found a box of old papers I’d written in college and graduate school.  I remembered several of them; I still think those things about those books.  Maybe my thinking has not matured at all, but I believe that they were just good thoughts. 

The distance between those papers and my reading and thinking today seems very short, shorter than my experienced life.  Those papers seem less long ago than marrying my husband, moving west, having my babies.  Each of those life events is fixed in time.  Thinking, on the other hand, is always instantaneous, at this very moment in time.  Although each paper was dated, the ideas are not past.  They are still immediate because they are still in my head.  My thinking about new things incorporates those ideas, too.  Every moment contains every thought I’ve ever had, even ideas I’ve discarded and opinions I’ve changed.  I felt that those old papers are not part of my past, they are part of my present.  It was a relief to feel that I am still a thinking person, even though I am not doing hard core literary analysis anymore.

I threw the papers away.  I’m not interested in rereading them; I’m not going to reuse them.  The only thing that matters about them is that I started thinking once and haven’t stopped.

The Contents of My Fridge

In my refrigerator is a box of baking soda, a jar of green olives, a bottle of salad dressing, hot fudge sauce, eleven eggs, and a lovely broccoli salad with red onions, raisins, sunflower seeds, and crumbled bacon.  My son helped me make the salad with the last of the vegetables in my crisper.  I’ll serve it for lunch today.  Then we’re leaving town.

What I Learned From My Son

When my son was two, he was totally into dinosaurs and construction trucks.  They enthralled him.  Already the nerd that he promises to be, he wasn’t content to identify a few familiar specimens.  Dump trucks and stegosauruses did not satisfy him.  No, he wanted to learn the names of every type of construction truck and every species of dinosaur that ever existed.  He likes information, and he likes to be precise.  We got books, and I learned more about construction trucks and dinosaurs than I ever wanted to know.  We borrowed a dvd from the library called “Twenty Trucks.”  The theme song asked, “Can you name twenty trucks?  Well, I think you can.”  My son and I could.

Now dinosaurs and construction trucks have lost their fascination.  My son has mastered them.  His latest obsession is Pokémon.

The allure of Pokémon is both the fantastic creatures and the categorizing of them. There are different types, each with different powers.  They can gain new powers in battle, and they can use their powers in unexpected ways.  They can evolve into different forms, depending on various factors.  And there is always a new one to learn.  At lunch yesterday my son regaled me with hypotheses about the outcomes of possible match-ups and his explanations of the different types.  I was asked to weigh in on the likelihood of one Pokémon beating another.  I have to keep up.

I admit that I am proud of my knowledge of construction trucks and dinosaurs.  Occasionally I get to show it off, at the science museum or in the sand box.  I’m not sure who I can impress with my knowledge of Pokémon, but maybe someday I’ll dazzle seven-year-olds at a birthday party.  Being a mom has taught me more than I ever thought I would know. 

Dressing the Part

A stay-at-home mom has to dress the part.  Here is my stay-at-home mom costume.

• Wide-brimmed sun hat—ideal for picnics, playing at the park, hikes, and the beach
• Gray cotton t-shirt—breathable on long bike rides, loose fit for climbing trees, doesn’t show dirt
• Skirt—wrinkle-free, dries quickly, hidden key pocket
• Sandals—closed toes keep out rocks and sand, water-proof, heavy-duty soles for long walks

 A mom has to be prepared for anything!