apparently

I'm the sort of parent that last summer signed up for no camps at all, on the theory that in this county kids are pushed harder than is needed and can easily end up with lives that are over organized, and out of missing my school-age daughter during the school year. Not that there weren't certain types of camp I had to hide the existence of from my daughter (I'd scowl when my neighbors started talking about the great horse riding camp they managed to get a spot in) to carry out that plan. I've always had a love of the more labor intensive solution.

We did have fun, though. Picnics (albeit brief due to PM toddler naps) on the rocks of Great Falls. Metro trips to China Town to buy Dragon Bowls and Mountain Bowls. Art trips to the Sackler where I got to practice my authoritative hissing by hissing at them both not to touch anything or run or bother the guards or too much fun of any sort. Riding the carousel on the Mall. Using all the science project kits I'd bought during the school year. Lazy mornings at the Y pool with friends. My personal favorite, not waking children up in the morning or after nap. Throwing rocks into Rock Creek for hours at a time. More nouns than verbs really. So little rush.

My son who scares so many other two year olds (they are scared on account of his trying to harm them) didn't get his naps interrupted every day and didn't try to bite or hit anyone during the summer. He wasn't inherently mean during school, he was just tired!

The only problem we had with the summer was that we kept going out of town for family trips. I remember really liking family vacations, enjoying the relaxed time at the ocean or where ever. As a parent of course, a vacation is no longer a vacation. Each one week vacation wasn't just a tiring week with no schedule and curiously unhelpful relatives, but it was a full four disrupted weeks of routine.

The week ahead of the vacation of course is packing. I actually know some parents that pack well and in just a few hours, but it takes me a week and I still manage to show up places with no socks for my daughter or perhaps myself. At least I am now skilled enough (or, we bought a larger car that has a luggage rack on top) so that there's nothing actually packed above the children. The week of vacation is great, we had a kayak all week and we'd go mucking in the marshes. It's been fun to watch the rise and fall of fears at the beach. One year olds will just run right into surf. Two year olds are more wary. My daughter wouldn't go in much at all when she was three or four. Now, she loves the water enough to play there in a tidal pool for quite a while, chasing the birds and playing her games.

It should be perfect, but I still have a piece of my brain making me expect to read lots of books and nap everyday as though somehow I left the kids behind in Maryland for the vacation. So while fun, the week away is exhausting and tinged with disappointment. Then it takes two weeks to get our sleeping and eating routines back to normal, and over one week just to process all the sandy laundry and newspapers, and I still haven't had the long days of reading and napping. I think that this may have been when we had a movie marathon or two.

One surprise benefit about not having plans was that it was very easy to "crank up the boredom" in the weeks before school started, so that school came as a welcome blessing to my daughter.

For the next summer, we've signed up for one week long camp (with a former favorite teacher of my daughter's), but I hope to keep it at that. Unless of course my daughter or wife overrule me. But we are going to the beach again, and I have already stocked up on science project kits and books.