Eldest Daughter, who is 11, is at sleep-away camp. This is her third year so we've got the drill down. Still, I'd forgotten how much work I have to do for her to have the best two weeks of her summer.
1. Beginning in November when next summer's schedule comes out, coordinate with other campers' parents to find out when previous years' favorite bunkmates are going.
2. Convince child that two weeks is plenty -- she can go for longer when she gets older.
3. Schedule doctor's appointment for physical and for health release forms to filled out. Ask husband to take her to said appointment so I don't have to sit through shots with her.
4. Evaluate contents of closet so we know what to shop for. Query child why she has to have an outfit in every color of the rainbow. (The answer: the Color Wars game.)
5. Remind child that she cannot bring her cell, iPod or digital camera. Using best stern face, and repeat when she says her bunkmates are bringing them
even though she signed a form saying they were against camp rules and that she would not bring them.
6. Mail her a letter three days before camp starts so she is the first one in her cabin to receive mail.
7. Shop for additional items of clothing and toiletries. Tell her we cannot do a spur-of-the-moment shopping trip with favorite bunkmate from last year because she lives 105 miles away.
8. Iron labels on all clothing items we hope come home with her.
9. Print address labels for the friends and family she thinks she will write letters to. Insist she does not pre-stamp the envelopes because history has shown how many will actually be written.
10. Email friends and family her camp snail mail address. Encourage them to write her as mail is a big deal at camp.
11. Throw all items in
bright turquoise rolling duffel. Take iPod out of pocket where she has hidden it.
12. Drop her off at bus stop. Try not to be offended when she hops out of the car to join her friends and doesn't look back. (Best practice: carpool to bus stop next year so only one parent has to have their feelings hurt.)
13. Relax for 24 hours knowing she is still not thinking about us at all.
14. Pack and mail care package. It cannot contain food, even sewn into a stuffed animal, as she has suggested. This year's contents include: black nail polish that her father would never let her wear and nail polish remover,
Abercrombie shorts, tween magazines M, Twist and
J-14, three lip glosses, book of jokes and most coveted item of all: pillowcase that her friends have written greetings on with puffy fabric paint.
15. Try not to mope around the house until her return feeling like I'm missing an appendage.
I'm such a good mother.
goes to my dear husband for most patient.
My Ice Cream SIL taught me this expression. It's the delicious way your own child smells after time in the sun, often with traces of sunscreen still on them.
riven one before!) and meet friends at Legoland.
e's a Twilight junkie, too, and I think I convinced her to try Vampire Porn. We came home mid afternoon, bathed and went to IHOP for a late lunch. (I had to have the no-bacon-in-front-of-our-cousins-who-keep-Kosher talk with the kids at the restaurant.) Then they dropped us off at the airport.
This weekend I met up with Jeff, a friend I previously blogged about, that I had not seen in more than 20 years. Facebook enables these things.
Dave and Thing 1 for Tastiest. The mosquitoes were relentless. You would have thought this was a camping trip!
Mom and Dad, for Most Improved Participants. During our Italy trip in 2005 they were the first ones out the door in the morning and the last ones home at night. We actually got to spend time with them this year. Nice job Mom and Dad!
Las Ramblas was made for people watching. The wide pedestrian street runs from Plaza Cataluna to the Mediterranean, where it ends at a statue of Christopher Columbus commemorating his return to Spain after discovering the Americas. It reminded me a bit of Fisherman's Wharf.
During college I took a life-changing elective course: European Architecture. The images of Antoni Gaudi's whimsical, Modernista creations have stayed with me 20+ years and this week I got to see them.
was hit by a streetcar, at age 75, while still working on it. He never married, so obsessed was he by his life's work. The foundation hopes the church will be completed by 2030 using funds from the visitation of it. We took the elevator to the top, where I shot this first picture. I also popped this next picture, looking up while inside the church.
and an esplanade, at the park's centerpiece. The mosaic lizard just inside is often photographed. While none of these pictures show Gaudi's mosaics, he is known for that, too: small tiles of playful assemblies in bright colors.
