The First Day of Preschool

Remember yesterday how I was all philosophical about embracing changes in my life? With all that "everything has a season" crap?

That was before today when I had to SAY GOODBYE to my BABY at the front of a drop-off line in a hallway and send him into his preschool classroom all by himself.

This baby:

is in preschool:

I woke up with a feeling of exhaustion and dread. Even though nothing is really all that different, there's just something about the day after Labor Day that makes you feel like a big heap of responsibility has been dropped back on the world.

I decided to devote 7-8 a.m. to getting myself ready, and then 8-9 a.m. on Nathan. I forced him out of bed. I made him eat half a cereal bar. He got dressed, not in the new shirt I bought him because you are supposed to wear a new shirt on the first day of school, but in a dinosaur t-shirt he insisted on wearing. That's not how it works! screamed my inner need to compartmentalize. That's a summer shirt! This is fall! Fall shirt! School shirt!

But, you know, whatever.

The back-to-school photo shoot was not awesome. As a mom, all I cared about was getting a back-to-school photo. The iconic photo in front of the front door, with the backpack and the forced smile. The one I will post on Facebook and e-mail to the grandparents today, and then put in his rehearsal dinner slideshow someday when he gets married.

But of course he was too excited. So we got shots like this:


and this:


and then this:
That last photo? That one's in THE HALL. The hall where you say goodbye. We waited in that hall, the one outside the classrooms, with the 3-year-olds on one side and the 4-year-olds on another. We waited ten or so minutes, because of course on the first day of school everyone is early.

The line started to move. At orientation the teacher told us that she wanted everyone to say goodbye out in the hall, and then the kids should walk into the room on their own.

As a teacher, I understand this policy. Physically there just isn't enough room to have a bunch of adults crowding the doorway. And it's a good idea to dismiss all those emotional, clingy parents before school starts, so you don't have a situation where they're unsure of when to leave. That's distracting for all involved parties.

And besides, I wasn't going to be one of those parents who couldn't let go.

Except, the line in the hallway started moving. Soon Nathan and I would be on deck to say goodbye. And there was something about the time-sensitive nature of it all, the fact that there was a deadline to say goodbye to your child, that began to stab me in the chest. I felt like I did when my parents dropped me off at college. We got my dorm room set up and my bed lofted, took a quick tour of the town, bought my textbooks, and then there was nothing left to do but say goodbye. I walked my parents down to their car, and I could just feel it coming. The anticipation of the goodbye was probably worse than the actual moment.

Same thing with all the times I had to say goodbye to Bill when he was in law school in Chicago and I still lived in Los Angeles. You'd get off the freeway for the airport. This was it. It's a quick drop-off at the curb, and the TSA isn't concerned about your emotional goodbyes. Move this car, lady! Get on with it.

Anyway, back to preschool. I did the quick kiss and drop off. And on the way home I cried. It was all too much.

Once at home, I sat for a minute and heard myself think. Then I spent an entire hour putting away laundry, something I hadn't done in at least 2 months. Why, why, why, do I let it get to this point?

When I went to pick Nathan up, I couldn't wait to see him. It was a near-perfect fall day, breezy and sunny, and I thought, This is one of those little moments in parenting that just feels so wonderfully rewarding. I pictured myself walking back to the car with him, hand in hand as I carried his backpack and listened to him chatter about his first day of school.

And then I found myself at the front of the line in the hallway again, and the teacher told me this:

We're still working on getting him to sit down and do his work, like we had trouble with in the summer at camp.

Umm, hello. We're in the big leagues now.

My eyes stung with tears. He isn't perfect! What I wanted to do was yell and scream and rake him across the coals right there in the parking lot, but I knew this was one of those moments when you need to tread lightly. I asked him some questions about school, told him I was proud of him, and then went into the speech about how you have to do things you don't like sometimes.

On the trip home he was completely beside himself. He was hungry! He was thirsty! He needed his blanket RIGHT NOW! I realized that he was completely overwhelmed. I imagined how hard it was for his irrational three-year-old brain to take in this situation where suddenly his mom was dropping him off in some new place where he was expected to conform to The System.

After he got some food and drink into him, I sat him down on my lap to have A Talk. More I'm proud of you. More I know preschool is scary. More for crying out loud please do your work when the teacher tells you to.

I had mentioned the preschool report in my Facebook status, and since that's what passes for marital communication these days, my husband called when he read my status. And then he and Nathan had another Talk.

And then it was quiet time and I did a lot of taking it personally. Have I not been harsh enough in his discipline? Did I pick the wrong preschool? Why was I so harsh to all the parents whose students I taught all these years? Was it because I had no sympathy for the parents of problem students that I was destined to become one?

I know, I know. Overthink much?

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that this is a transition for us all. I guess I didn't realize what a Big Deal it was to start preschool. I feel like I did on every first day of school that I was a student or a teacher: I made it through the first day, but how can I do this again the next day?

I guess my spirits are a little bit crushed to have gotten a "bad" report on the first day, but ultimately I am glad the teacher was so communicative with me from the start, so we can hopefully nip this in the bud right off the bat. (Let me use a few more dumb sayings there.) And I think maybe she didn't sugar-coat it with me because I already know her from my running class at the gym. (Hey, let's bring up all my past failures!)

Plus, I need to remember that the point of school is to learn, not to demonstrate how perfect you are already.

And as much as I beat myself up as a parent today, I am giving myself credit for being a parent who takes education seriously.

It's been a tough day for us all.

To everything there is a season

I forgot to mention back in August that it was my Chicago-versary. It was six years ago that Bill and I, and our then-tiny cat, packed up our Toyota Corolla and headed across this great land of ours (Nebraska excepted) to start a new life in the Midwest.

Four days, one speeding ticket (mine), and countless moon pies later, we arrived in Chicago and eventually found a home in the south suburbs.

Six years, one child, and many cat-pounds (and, if I'm being honest, human-pounds) after that, I can't imagine calling anywhere else home.

Now, when people evaluate life in Chicago, they immediately mention the caveat of the weather. As in, "I love it here! Except for the weather, of course."

And it's true. There's some sucky weather here. The winter lasts way too long, and the summer is humid. Between bitter cold, uncomfortable humidity, and torrential rain, there are about ten days a year that are pleasant to be outdoors in Chicago.

But, underneath it all, there are some good things about Chicago weather. One, it gives us something to talk about. What would we talk about if not for the weather?

But also, I find a certain comfort in the changing of the seasons. As one season ends, you look forward to the beginning of the next. And then when that seasons ends, you look forward to the beginning of the one after that. And so on.

Back in May I was chomping at the bit for summer. And in June, we embraced summer activities. We went to the beach:


We swam in the pool:
And, as summer wore on, we packed in all kinds of other summer activities: waterparks, summer camp, swimming lessons, and playgrounds. We entertained out-of-town guests at our various Chicago-based tourist attractions. There were more camps, more outdoor enrichment activities, and more trips to the pool. So many bottles of sunscreen. So many towels in the laundry. So much fun.

But now, it is time for summer to end. And as eagerly as I anticipated the beginning of summer, I find myself happy to say goodbye to summer and welcome fall. So happy that we've already packed in some fall-based activities in the four days since the autumnal weather began.

We went on a nature hike:


We went apple-picking:


I bought Nathan some new jeans, and brought mine out of the closet (and, thankfully, they fit). I made chili. I put out a scarecrow.

And, tomorrow, my sweet baby will start preschool.

In my mind, I know that it's not a big deal. It's just a two-mornings-a-week preschool. It's not like I'm shipping him off to college.

But still. But still.

It is a new season. We will be in a routine. Back to the grind. School.

There will be a schedule. I love schedules. I love getting back into it. I will rally to be more disciplined in my eating, my exercising, my cleaning, my life.

And perhaps, I will start a new chapter in my life. Find new work. The new season reminds us that there are always new opportunities.

To everything there is a season.

Winter:


Spring:


Summer:


Fall:

Complicated as Pie

Nathan and I made these lemon meringue pies a couple of days ago. It was a boring day in the middle of a boring week, in the middle of a boring month. Nathan wanted to make lemon meringue pies because Amelia Bedelia made lemon meringue pies in his library book.

The pies were, if I do say so myself, delicious. I made 3 total, but by the time I took this picture I had already given one away to my friend, whose blog (side note) I want to plug right now. If you like scrapbooking, click on that link.

Anyway, in typical Shannon fashion, a pie cannot just be a pie. A pie had me thinking about a couple of my latest issues.

Issue 1: Why am I eating pie?
Remember how I said I was doing Weight Watchers? Yeah, umm. I fell off the wagon and I can't quite climb back on. At this point, I'm just figuring I'll restart some form of healthy eating/exercising after Labor Day, when we're back in a routine. Right now there's no structure in our lives in the form of school or activities for Nathan, and the gym has drained the pool/closed the group exercise studio for its annual "spiff up" week. So I just feel like there is no routine, and I'm just stringing together a bunch of days, and I think the point of this paragraph was Weight Watchers, but now I'm off on a tangent. The point is, no schedule, no dieting, no routine. Which brings me to Issue 2 ...

Issue 2: Why don't I have better things to do with my time than make 3 pies in the middle of a random Monday?
Now, let me just state that the pie-making was a great bonding time with Nathan. (If you can call me standing over a hot stove while yelling at Nathan to stop sticking his hands in flour "bonding time.") If I was one of those braggy moms, I might even go so far as to say that baking provides a sort of rudimentary math lesson. And at the very least, he learned how to crack an egg (well, toddler-style), so maybe he won't grow up to be as clueless in the kitchen as his, cough, father. I know my mother-in-law tried with Bill. Just the other day we came across a photo of little Bill in the kitchen making cookies. And all the other men in his family cook. It's just that young Bill developed an interest in other things, like reading and board games. Because those are really useful when we're starving. How come for a man, cooking can just be an "interest"? What if I wasn't interested in cooking? Who would make dinner for our family? Ooh, feminist tangent.

Anyway, what was I saying before I painted myself as a martyr and implied that we have no take-out restaurants in the area?

Ahh, yes, why don't I have anything better to do than make pies in the middle of the day on a Monday?

Now, let me say that pie-making is actually very important. Aside from the afore-mentioned benefit of mother-son bonding, I think pie makes people very happy. I gave the pies away to two friends, and we kept one for ourselves. Now, assuming a pie can be cut into 8 slices, that means a total of 24 people could potentially get some enjoyment out of my pies. (See, there goes that math lesson again.) I suspect it was more like 6 people, but that just means those people get 4 doses of happiness, right? So, see, pies are very useful, because the pursuit of happiness is one of the most important pursuits there is. Just ask Will Smith. Or, you know, the Declaration of Independence.

But, in our society, you are not useful if you make people happy. You are not useful if you keep a child alive for another day. You are useful if you make money.

I have had this sense lately that I need to make money. I have not been paid anything, not one cent, since October of 2008. I wasn't even on jury duty, for crying out loud.

But, what to do? I know I don't want to go back to full-time work downtown. That was one end of an extreme on a continuum, the other extreme being what I'm doing now for work, which is nothing. How much would I love to cobble together one of those new hybrid flexible careers that can be defined by acronyms, like WAHM or PT WOHM?

But, what to do? I could try my hand at freelance editing, but I'm finding the breaking-in process daunting. (I'm not so much a "strike out on my own" type. If there's not a clear-cut application process, I tend to give up.) And is that what I want to do?

Short answer: no. I want to be a flower-arranger. And if attempting to find freelance work in a field where you have experience is daunting, imagine doing it in a field where you have no experience. Like, "Here's my resume. As you can see I have been an elementary teacher and a textbook editor. I'm very qualified to arrange flowers."

And anyway, the economy is bad, and there aren't any flower-arranging jobs. Though let me say that I'm thankful that this minor setback to my career-of-fancy is the worst problem I have in this economy.

I also like to write ... but. You know, you can't just go and put in your application at the writing factory. It takes years and years of rejection and tenacity before you even eke out an inkling of a living as a writer.

And then I just get overwhelmed with all the possibilities. I decided to simplify this decision and ask my kid:

Me: Nathan, you know how Daddy's job is to teach law school? What should Mommy do for a job?

Nathan: But then, who will watch me? I don't think you should have a job.

Somehow this irrational 3-year-old seemed to hit the nail right on the head. Or at least, one of the nails. How will we handle childcare if I work?

I'm very pro-daycare, but I'm anti- putting Nathan back in full-time daycare because it gutted me emotionally. On the other hand, it makes no sense for me to have basically removed myself from productive society for the sake of one human being. But somebody has to watch him. I can't just leave him to fend for himself because I'm being unproductive.

I realize I'm putting the cart before the horse here. I should maybe secure employment before I figure out childcare. It's just that, at this point, daycare is something to consider, and that just adds a whole other wrinkle to the already daunting question about what to do in the future. And it's not really so much a question of who would watch him, as it is a question of whether or not it's worth it for somebody to watch him. The question of whether it's worth it financially is the most
concrete manifestation of this issue, but there's also sort of a more nebulous question of "Is it worth my time and energy to juggle all this stuff, just in the name of being a productive member of society who has it all?"

Now, of course I'm not the only mother who asks these questions. I can practically hear every mother in America asking these questions, right this very minute. I'm aware that, by virtue of socio-economic status and the freedoms offered to modern women, I am lucky enough to have the luxury of choice in these matters.

But the uncertainty of it all is so daunting. And so instead I make pies.

Whoa, lighten up

In case you didn't see, I wrote a nice, heavy blog post below this one. Heavy, heavy, heavy. So heavy. You might need a dolly to move it.

So, it's time for some lighter, update-y miscellany.

First off, a book update. I joined the adult summer reading club at the library. It lasted from June 10 to July 30, which was about 7 weeks. I read 8 books, which I consider a success. Unfortunately, not a single one of those books translated into winning raffle ticket for the summer reading club.

After the club was over, I continued on with my attempt to read 52 books in 2010. I figured out that I have to have completed 34 books by the end of August if I want to keep up the pace to finish 52 by the end of the year. I have fallen behind. But the thing is, do I want to treat every book like it's just something to be marked off on a chart? Shouldn't I focus more on enjoying the books? I mean, the days of required reading for me are over.

Anyway, these are the books I read this summer:

1. Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok: I got this for free as part of the one-and-only book club I participated in for the now-defunct Chicago Moms Blog. It was really good. It's the story of a girl who emigrates from Hong Kong with her mom, and they work in a sweatshop.

2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson: I read this because it's the "it" book everyone's reading. While I appreciated the author's story-crafting skills, this is just not my genre.

3. Family Ties by Danielle Steel: This was my first-ever Danielle Steel novel, and I figured as an American woman I had to read at least one. Let me say, I was so pleasantly surprised. The writing wasn't fabulous--I mean, she does have to churn out approximately 17 books a year--but I liked the story.

4. Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan: Another pleasant surprise. The story is light: four girls meet their freshman year at a women's college, and then remain friends through the struggles of early adulthood. What I liked about this story was that the characters could easily have been sort of stereotypical stock characters, but the author made them much more multi-dimensional.

5. My Name is Memory by Ann Brasheres: This book by the author of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series seemed like a fun summer read along the lines of Twilight and other sort of fantasy-grounded-in-reality books. But, somehow, it didn't work for me.

6. Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler: Anne is always good for a light-but-not-too-light read with interesting characters. I liked this story and read it quickly, although I must say that those interesting characters were, for the most part, also very annoying characters. And the book is more of a "slice of life" than an actual story with a climax and resolution.

7. A Soft Place to Land by Susan Rebecca White: Stupid, stupid story about the relationship between two sisters after their parents die in a plane crash. (Oh and BTW, ratio of parents dying in plane crashes in books to ratio of parents dying in plane crashes in real life: 100 to 1. The Danielle Steel book also featured parents dying in a plane crash.)

8. The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton: This is the story of some moms in the 60s who form a writing group. I liked learning about the life of mothers in the 60s (so hot right now! Mad Men! The Help!) as well as the sort of roots of mom blogs.

9. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford: A great historical fiction book centered around the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII.

10. The Icing on the Cupcake by Jennifer Ross: OMG bad. So bad. I thought it would be a light read that would allow me to live vicariously through the main character, who experiences a personal setback and then goes on to realize her dream of opening her own cupcake store. But the story was so ridiculous. Stupid, contrived stuff like the kind of thing you see in soap operas, like pathetic revenge plots and and a woman who gets pregnant during an extra-marital affair and can't pass it off as her husband's because everyone knows he was rendered sterile in an auto accident years ago. Yeah.

11. Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern: What can I say? Hilarious.

12. This Must Be the Place by Kate Racculia: I wanted to like this book more. The writing was good and the characters were interesting. But, there was only one major, suspenseful Super Big Reveal that they kept stringing you along with, and it was so easy to figure out so early on. Plus this book suffered from Too Much Description. I hate TMD.

13. Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith: This book, by the author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, was an interesting look into the everyday lives of people in the 1920s.

Okay, that's it. I'm on Book #14, but I'm not going to count it because I have 100 pages left. Anyway, 13 books in approximately 10 weeks. That's good, right? That just goes to show you what you can accomplish when you have one occasionally independent child and zero jobs.

In the interests of accuracy, I must say that I also started 4 books that I didn't like enough to finish. I like to keep track of these things.

Now, movie-wise, I was a lot less accomplished. I was too busy trying to keep up with stupid book-reading goals. Anyway, I saw two movies in the theater: Toy Story 3 (cute) and The Kids are Alright (thought-provoking). I saw Valentine's Day (predictable), The Hangover (hilarious), and Shutter Island (creepy as hell) on DVD.

Not, let's not suggest I was so high-brow that all I did was read. I watched a lot of TV. Like, crap TV such as I Didn't Know I was Pregnant. And good TV, like Mad Men. And approximately 3 viewings of each episode of Seinfeld ever aired. Because as fun as new TV can be (I thought I had to take a giant crap, but it was really a baby!), nothing will ever top Seinfeld.

Other bits of news:

• I got a new iPod. It's this one.
  
• Damn, I can't think of a second one.

And yesterday we went to two birthday parties. I didn't take pictures. But the second one was at the splash pad. My kid always refuses to get in the splash pad. Here's a picture from two years ago of him hating the splash pad when he was 18 months old:


He doesn't hate all splash pads. Just, you know, the one that is closest to us and free.

Into each life a little rain must fall

Well, it has been rather rainy this summer, but I'm actually talking about rain in the figurative sense, as our good friend Henry Wadsworth Longfellow meant it in the above quote.

Now, obviously, this quote means that there will be sad times in everyone's life. (I know you knew that. I wasn't trying to underestimate your intelligence. That explanation was just a lead-in to this paragraph.) So, yes, there is sadness in everyone's life. There are rainy days. But there are, of course, sunny days as well.

But what I didn't realize until now is that there are days when you can be happy and sad simultaneously. What I mean is, it's okay to have a little bit of sadness that is always present in your life.

Let me explain. It's not as though I'm saying I go through life with some persistent depressive funk following me around, like those personal rain clouds they used to have in some old antidepressant commercial. I'm actually more-or-less happy most of the time. What I'm saying is, there can be problems in life that make you sad, but you don't have to fix them so you'll be happy. You have to become comfortable with the presence of some things in your life that make you sad.

Perhaps I should give a specific example. My great sadness in life is that I know it would be bad for me to have another kid. I always pictured myself having two kids, and so to say that a second child might never be created is to say that the second child I always imagined having has, effectively, died. I know it makes no sense. But apparently that's what happens. And I thought I'd have a daughter. She's dead, too. And yeah, I would NEVER trade Nathan for any daughter in the whole world, but still, she's dead.

Sad yet?

Anyway, I think as humans we have this tendency to want to banish anything that makes us feel the least bit sad. I think this is especially true for people with depression issues, because every little sad situation that happens, it's all ohmygosh am I depressed again? Must. Get. Rid. Of. All. Sadness. There is sad and there is happy, and the only way you can be happy is to erase all the sad.

Except, the options for erasing my sad situation RE: not having another kid are (1) to have another kid, or (2) to just get over it. As previously mentioned, Item (1) is a bad idea. Babies and my general body chemistry do not mesh well. But Item (2) is also not possible. You can't just get over it. We're talking about creating people here. It's the most basic, primal, biological drive we have, even though of course the whole "perpetuation of the species" campaign is totally unnecessary these days. (I mean, yeah, somebody has to do it. But other people have kind of taken over that task for me. For crying out loud, the Duggars alone give at least 20 of us a free pass to stop procreating.)

So, if there are no logical ways to erase the sadness, I must learn to live with it.

Learn to live with it. With sadness.

And I think it's only natural to wonder, when will it all be okay?

But of course, it's okay now. It's okay if I have this sad little issue in my life. It's okay if it makes me uncomfortable when I think about it, every single day of my life. It does not mean I have to find a way to banish it. It's an issue, for sure. It's my issue. And it's something I will live with.

So, I think, happiness does not mean the total absence of sadness. Happiness means the acceptance of sadness.

Floating

Nathan on a raft of noodles, July 2010

Last week Nathan watched a library DVD of Wow, Wow Wubzy approximately 75 times. While I don't entirely understand the appeal of an ambiguous animal and his/her friends repeatedly saying "wow, wow," something good did come out of this particular DVD. On one episode, Wubzy and friends went to the beach, which led Nathan to repeatedly beg me to go to the beach every single day.

Well, twist my arm.

We went last Friday. We only had about two hours to go before Nathan had to get back for his toddler enrichment activity du jour, and I almost think the limited time contributed to making this one of the most magical days at the beach we have ever had.

We got there at 10, which at California beaches would mean that the beach would already be crowded and the parking lots would have filled up hours earlier. But that's with the overly-ambitious, wheatgrass shake-drinking Californians. Here in the Midwest, people apparently approach beach trips at a more leisurely pace, which means that when we got there at 10, we got parking in the front row of the lot and only had to share the beach with a couple of other groups. It was so peaceful. By the time we left around noon, the beach had filled and boats had arrived, making the beach quite festive, which was actually fun too.

Anyway, we brought along a raft I purchased at the grocery store about a month ago. I just love to float on a raft, I tell you. Now, let me say that when you're alone with a toddler, there is not a lot of leisurely floating time, so you have to appreciate what little you get.

But no matter how much time you get, there is always that moment when you're floating and you can just feel all the energy draining out of you. You realize you are no longer in control. The water is in control. You have to just go with the flow, as it were.

You might as well just check all that pointless, nervous energy at the door (shore?) , because it doesn't do you any good while you're on a raft. Your only job is to just stare up at the gorgeous blue sky with the puffy white clouds and try to think of ways that you can hold onto this moment when you're shoveling four inches of snow off your driveway in January.

I'm hesitant to go all "this is a metaphor for life" on you, but I have been trying to think of ways that I can be a little more floaty in my everyday life. You know, like ways I can just let it go and give trying to control everything? And to accept that worrying about everything isn't going to do any good?

I think people with strong religious faiths have an easier time giving up control. My brother, the priest, talks about being a sheep in Christ's flock, and how the sheep don't need to be in control, because the shepherd is in control. I am not a good sheep.

I worry about everything. Nathan's preschool. My weight. Will we ever have another baby? Do I have a good marriage? Do I spoil my child? Is he being raised with an appropriate amount of stimulation, but not so much that he can't entertain himself? Do I do enough crafts with him? What about music? Is that other kid better than Nathan at talking/sleeping/behaving/swimming/identifying letters? Why is my basement so disorganized, and why does my yard have so many weeds? Why don't I go to the gym more? Why do I spend so much money? What if Nathan gets hit by a car/kidnapped/[insert horrible fate here]?

And so, when I get bogged down in my own thoughts, which usually happens about 2 minutes after I become conscious each day, I remind myself to just float. Point my raft in the right direction, then put my hands up and give up a little control. If I'm heading into a speedboat, I'll put my arms in the water and paddle. Because, in the immortal words of P!nk:

I'm not dead, just floating.

Twenty-Eight Days

No, I have not been in rehab, as the title suggests. Nor is this about my monthly menstrual cycle. It's just that it has been 28 days since I last posted.

You all mostly know what's been going on with me, because the only people who read this blog know me in real-life and/or on Facebook. But to fuel my obsessive need to officially chronicle everything, let me just do a few quick sum-up paragraphs.

At the beginning of July we took a trip to Indiana Beach, which is an old-fashioned boardwalk amusement park built on a small lake in Indiana. Except "old-fashioned" ended up meaning "run-down" in this case. And our hotel room was nasty, with a bright-orange bathtub courtesy of rust from lake water. So we got a partial refund and high-tailed it out of there after less than 24 hours.

Nathan took swimming lessons the week before and after that failed weekend trip. It was a production getting him out the door every day because he didn't really want to go, and so we were late, which made it even harder for him to just jump in the water and transition to the class. Despite the fact that he was fairly competent in the water and enjoyed the class each day once it got going, he had to spend at least the first 5-10 minutes of each class whining that he didn't want to get in. And then he got a whole private teacher just to himself, so that was a perk of being difficult.

Oh, and now he hates going to the pool, and the splash pad. Which is just seriously a !@#@$% for me because both of these activities are such pleasant, low-key ways to fill a summer afternoon. And also, we have such a limited time to enjoy them, but that argument never works on a 3-year-old.

The following week Nathan was signed up for camp, and I decided to withdraw him because of the whole peeing issue with the last camp session. And also it's just so much work to get him out the door every single day, complete with the 57 items the camp checklist instructed us to bring.

So I decided to do my own camp. And I have to say, my camp was fun. On Monday we went to get haircuts at the super funnest haircut place ever, which I consider an activity in and of itself because they have a train table there, and kids get to sit on little cars while they get their haircuts. Anyway, the haircut place is across from the movie theater, where we saw Despicable Me, or at least the first 45 minutes of it, because Nathan was whining that he hated it, and since I kind of did, too, I just let us leave. And then we went to a newly-opened nature center at The Little Red School House.

Tuesday we drove to Michigan. I had heard that Michigan has much nicer beaches than Indiana, so we made the trip. You can reach the Indiana border in about an hour, but we drove a little farther in to go to a beach my friend had recommended. Let me paint the picture for you: after a bunch of packing, hauling, driving, and walking, we arrived at a beautiful beach with soft sand and a gorgeous lake. (I mean, technically it's the same lake as in Indiana, but it just looked so beautiful and blue on this particular day in Michigan.) I had purchased a floating raft to hang out on while I watched Nathan play with the sand at the water's edge. It was about as relaxing as you can get with a 3-year-old. And then, about an hour in, there was an announcement over the loudspeaker that the county health department (of whatever county we were in) was recommending that everybody get out of the water due to a high bacteria level. The water we were just in. Ick. So that trip was a minor FAIL, but at least I learned about a nice place to go in Michigan.

Wednesday was a rest day, and I think we just went to the pool, where Nathan refused to get in. And Thursday we went to Ikea, and for $250 I solved all my organization problems, in the living room at least. Friday we cleaned out the living room and Nathan's room. So I guess my DIY camp was the most boring camp ever, at least on Friday.

So that puts us at the weekend of July 17-18, which we spent cleaning in anticipation of Guestfest 2010. Sunday night I hosted the most embarrassing dinner party ever, wherein I ordered pizza and made my guests chip in for it.

Monday my mother-in-law, father-in-law, oldest nephew (age 12), and father-in-law's cousin (age 60-something) came for a visit. My mother-in-law and father-in-law come all the time, so I didn't feel the pressure to do the whole Chicago tourist bit, but the other two guests never get here. So on Tuesday we all embarked upon the mother of all downtown trips: Buckingham Fountain, Millennium Park, Macy's, The Eye, Navy Pier with boat ride, John Hancock/Sears Tower (the group split up and half went to each building), and Portillo's hot dogs for dinner.

Wednesday we went to a waterpark, which was my nephew's special request. The guests left early Thursday, and then we were off on our next adventure, a trip to Grizzly Jack's waterpark resort in Starved Rock with my mom and stepdad. The place not only had a waterpark, but also an amusement park and arcade ... and a small train that went around and took you to the different locations! Oh, and there was some natural beauty in the form of the state park, but I must admit that due to weather and tantrums, we didn't get to see much of that.

So, we returned home Saturday, and my mom and stepdad followed us. They are staying an additional week while my stepdad competes in a disc golf tournament just over the border in Indiana. (Most of my mom and stepdad's travel involves Frisbee competition.) And we're back in swim lessons this week, where Nathan has moved up to the big pool. And so far my current guests haven't seen much more than our local parks and restaurants, but I have a few big trips planned. Today's trips are more medium-sized: we're going to the bouncy castle place, out to lunch at Joe's Crab Shack (they have a playground!), and to the gummy bear factory in Indiana.

And now we're caught up. Don't you feel better?