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?!
