Musings on Summer Camp

he summer is waning, the days are getting shorter, and my neighbor the teacher is easing herself back into her classroom. And in two very short days, my husband and I are heading back to the wilds of Maine to pick up our ten-year-old son from his first overnight camp experience. I am sure when we see him, he will be different from the child we left at camp two weeks ago - much more self-sufficient, much more sure of himself, and maybe (dare I dream) much more responsible. And these are all qualities that I hoped the camp would help him develop, so from his viewpoint, I think these two weeks have been a rousing success. He has conquered so much, including, I'm sure, wrenching homesickness, and is coming home that much stronger for it.

Signing him up for camp, I focused on all the reasons why this was a good idea: he was old enough to begin to learn to fend for himself (in a limited way), he was growing beyond what the local day camp could offer, and I really needed him not to be at loose ends for more of the summer than necessary. And, as we came closer and closer to his departure date, I was completely involved in making sure he had everything on the all-encompassing list the camp provided of things he needed to bring.

I never wasted a moment thinking how I would be affected with my only child out of the house. I assumed that, with two weeks to work without interruption, I would scale the mountains of work that are piled on my desk, accomplishing the previously unachievable, and clearing enough space to see the bare wood. In the evenings, my husband and I would go to concerts, movies and the theatre, and have a generally vacation-like two weeks, enjoying all the benefits of our hometown, but without having to make every activity child-friendly.

So, what have I really learned since my son has been away?

He really is the source of all laundry in our house. In the two weeks he's been gone, we've done a total of 4 loads of laundry, one each of whites and darks per week. When he's in residence, we tend to do between 5 and 7 loads each week.

A constantly quiet house does not necessarily make a constructive work environment. My head has clearly become accustomed to a certain level of chaos, and the longer the house remains quiet, the more difficult it is becoming for me to be productive.

Dogs really can mope, and ours is showing us this in spades. I thought our dog would delight in two weeks without being teased, tickled, and otherwise tormented by his non-furry brother, but I was mistaken. Our German shepherd has taken up residence in our son's bedroom, and can usually be found with his head stapled to his pillow. I'm not sure if we'll ever get all of the dog hair out of the bedding, but I don't have the heart to kick him off.

My grocery bill has shrunk precipitously. Just like the laundry, clearly one ten-year-old is responsible for approximately seventy percent of the food eaten in our house. Or maybe its more than one ten-year-old; with him gone, none of his friends are hanging at our house, either.

Did I mention that we're running the dishwasher much less frequently? In fact, I'm finding that I have to run it with a partial load because we're running out of cutlery and tea mugs long before the dishwasher is actually full. And that goes for the trash, too. With just me, my husband and the dog in residence, we're generating almost no trash.

I miss him tremendously, and feel like I've lost an appendage. I am so accustomed to framing almost everything I do in terms of my son (can he eat this, will he wear that, is this book or movie something he would enjoy, and is it appropriate), and am so used to planning my day around his schedule that, without him, my days seem endless and without form. Morning bleeds into afternoon and then evening. Since my husband and I both work very flexible schedules, and since we no longer have to plan our lives around making sure our son is fed and watered (this is the child who explained the principals of parenting to his father by saying, ”If you have a child, you must feed it.”), we've adopted a much more laissez-faire attitude towards our own needs. A meal in mid-afternoon often serves as both lunch and dinner, which cuts down on the dishes tremendously, but makes the evening stretch on forever.

I am certain that, given a day or two, I will once again be aggravated by the clothes on the floor, the dishes on the counter, the constant winding up of the dog, and the continual whine about playing a video game or watching the television. This is how life plays out in our house, and there's a comforting normality to that level of noise and confusion. But I also like to think that these last two weeks have been an eye-opener - that as much as I think I crave the peace and quiet of childlessness, that's a place I prefer to visit. I really don't want to live there.