Summer and Summer Camp
Summer and I are having a love hate relationship.
Things I love:
Summer camp! I thought getting Erik to camp by 9 am would be impossible, but we’ve only been a few minutes late a few days. Getting up earlier and out of the house has been really good for us all. It seems to give us more of a purpose and a schedule. Best of all, the time fits well with the gym classes I like to take so I’ve been getting back into BodyPump and Zumba. I just have to remember not to put too much weight on the squats so my ass doesn’t enlarge itself again.
Also, summer camp is four glorious hours and it is only a five minute commute. Way, way better than his preschool, which was two and a half hours with a 15 minute commute. I suppose I could feel guilty for enjoying four Erik free hours, but he loves it so why feel guilt? He is a high maintenance extrovert. He needs lots of people and stimulation and it exhausts me to be the sole provider of such things. I am so glad that Elsa is content to play by herself for long periods, as long as I am in the room. She doesn’t insist on being right on top of me 24/7.
The neighborhood! The kids are outside all the time and it’s so wonderful that we have a place where Erik can run free and enjoy all that sort of kid fun freedom that I enjoyed as a kid. Things are so different from when I was young and in a lot of places you really can’t just let your kid free range, but we are very comfortable with it in our neighborhood. We have kids in and out of our house all day long and most of the time they are really good kids and are all just enjoying being alive.
Things I don’t like:
The gnats! Egads, the gnats. I know I’ve complained about it before, but it bears repeating. I even bought this personal bug zapper thing that looks like a tennis racket, but the strings are electric. Sounds really safe around children, doesn’t it? You have to press two buttons at the same time to activate it. Problem is, the gnats are too small so they go right through the holes.
The heat! I am so not cut out for this type of heat and humidity. Being outside is unbearable. I would love to throw Erik out and tell him not to bring his friends in my house, but there’s no way that’s responsible. I don’t particular like having a house full of random boys, but they can’t play outside in this heat.
Weird neighbors! Ok, so I love our neighborhood. That has been well established. I love the way the kids all roam around together and have fun. I just don’t necessarily love everything they do. The good outweighs the bad, by far, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get irked.
I get irked when kids just walk into my house without knocking. There’s a couple of preschoolers who have been doing that (where are their parents???) and I am trying to train them not to do it. They come in with Erik, fine. They can’t just walk in, though.
I am irked with a mother who keeps having Erik over for dinner without asking me. I think it is cultural, but she really needs to contact me or have Erik come ask me before feeding him dinner. It wouldn’t be a big thing if it was rare (still, just ASK, you know?) but it happened three nights in a row and each night she served chicken nuggets. I am trying to train Erik to not eat dinner and people’s houses without asking, but I know this lady and know how insistent she can be. It’s difficult for an adult to resist her social pressure to eat what’s on offer. How is Erik supposed to navigate those waters, particularly when he just wants to eat some chicken nuggets?
I asked a question about this on a parenting debate community because I was just curious about what people do when neighbor kids are hanging at their house around dinner time. I always send the kids away with a “Sorry kiddos, time for us to eat. Erik will be out to play later.” If it was just one particular kid and I knew his parents well, I might invite him over for dinner if I checked with the parent. I don’t feel any obligation to feed random kids who are running in and out of my house.
I was surprised that I am in the firm minority on that one. Several people thought it was rude not to offer food, though I am wondering if they really understood how casual the situation is. They kept talking about guests in their home being offered food, but I don’t really consider these children guests. They are just. . . there. I consider a guest more of a person or child that I’ve invited and made particular plans with the other parent.
Anyway, it was interesting to get different perspectives about it. I know many cultures consider it quite rude to turn someone away without giving them food. Food has such power and strings attached. Ugh.
How about some summer camp?
Today’s prompt was about how we dress and how bloggers in general dress. I sport a casual stay-at-home mom look. Jeans or shorts, t-shirt or blouse. Nothing fancy, but I do like a bit of bling or design detail.
I don’t have any clue how bloggers in general dress. Is there a blogging dress code? I used to follow a blogger who prided herself on dressing fancy even though she was a stay-at-home mom. I finally had to stop reading her blog when I figured out she was a judgmental bitch who only cared about appearances. Duh. Took me long enough. She was interesting, but not interesting enough to keep in my feed after she made rude comments about people with big feet.
I missed the prompt about best and worst job.
My best job is difficult to figure out. I’ve had a lot of jobs. A lot. Dishwasher, waitress, cook, English teacher, bookstore employee, at-risk youth trainer, youth center coordinator, Apple help desk, professor’s assistant, perfume counter at Dillard’s, yearbook editor (got paid for that one year in college), substitute teacher. The list goes on and on.
The jobs I hated the most are a toss up between subsitute teacher in Sweden and Apple help desk person.
The school district in Kiruna, Sweden was run very differently from any school system I’d ever taught in. Basically, the monkeys were running the zoo. The kids had to be treated with respect, but they were not expected or taught to teach adults with respect. They were allowed to do whatever they wanted in the classroom because it was their choice on whether or not they wanted to learn. They could come in late, leave early, talk on their cell phones. I subbed for two weeks and it was the most miserable time I’ve ever had in a classroom. I had asked the teacher what to do about detention slips or just basic consequences and she didn’t have a freakin’ clue what I was talking about. As far as I could tell there was no way to discipline students.
And my God, did those kids need discipline. I’ve never, ever experienced such horrible treatment at the hands of students (except that time I literally thought some teen boys were going to pull a gun on me and kill me). It was unreal. I’m so happy it was only two weeks.
The other worst job was working for a company that provided support for Apple products. As far as the callers knew, we worked for Apple, but we didn’t really. There were all kinds of companies represented in our call center. I hated sitting in a cube for 10 hours a day. I hated that we weren’t really supposed to help the people. We were just supposed to do whatever we could to get them off the phone fast so our call volume was good. I hated the people. I hated the smell. I hated everything about that job.
Oh, I suppose teaching English was a hell job too. It’s the only job I’ve ever had that literally had me contemplating suicide, so I guess that makes it the worst job by default. I think all first year teachers should be required to go to an employer provided therapist. It’s a very demanding job with very little rewards and it is very, very isolating.
As far as best jobs go, I really enjoyed selling perfume at Dillard’s. I only did it for three months so I didn’t get into the politics of it. It would suck to have that as your career because they increase your sales per hour as you have experience so eventually you will get fired if you start making too much money because you can’t possibly keep up with the sales. Since I knew it was just temporary, it was really fun. I got to learn all about these fancy perfumes and win lots of prizes. The work was super easy. I mainly worked on the men’s cologne side, so I took training on how to sell to men. I was always very shy, but since I was doing a job I did it like I was trained to do it, which mainly meant I spent all day flirting with men. I was fresh out of college and really enjoyed that. Who wouldn’t?
I also really like substitute teaching. If I can’t think of anything else to do after the kids are in school, I’ll probably sign up as a sub. I haven’t looked into it here to see if it is worth the money. The money is usually not that great and there are no benefits, but it could be nice for a mom since you don’t work if there is no school and you don’t have to work any time you don’t want to work.
Jennifer said,
July 15, 2011 @ 10:53 am
I like our neighborhood but i think we have fewer kids overall around. My boy is just starting to be much more social than he used to be (at 6 years old). In terms of food – I always have my freezer stocked with ‘freezies’ – those super cheap flavored water things you freeze. Peter and any kids he has over can have those any time they want – well I usually limit him to one a day but we are only there usually in the evenings so that works. They are not really healthy but they ain’t full of fat and they are super cheap so I dont care how many of those I give out to the neighborhood.
As for Peter eating over with others and vice versa – it really only happens with the girl directly behind us who is Peter’s same age and an only child – i joke that its is first girlfriend. 🙂 every once and awhile she will have lunch with us or he will eat lunch there on the weekends but its fairly rare. Mostly I can’t get Peter to come in and eat dinner with us because he’s ‘too busy’ – we get home late enough that typically he doesn’t get invited over. when he was 4 he would eat a lot more i think because he was bored – now he thinks about way too much stuff to be interested in stopping to eat.
Speaking of neighborhoods – i had set up some of our water stuff – a slip and slide and pool – we set the pool up so the slide runs into it. the kids across the street (9 and 4) were over for 3.5 hours – and no parent came and looked at them once. you can’t see our back yard from their house at all. I was so so glad I could offer ‘free’ daycare all afternoon. /sarcasm. Especially the 9 year old who is a bully – but i get right back in his face and bully him back because he’s in my yard, its my rules. He’s a ‘half-er’ (meaning its the guys kid but not hers) so he isn’t there all the time which is nice.
anyway. that story has nothing to do with food. Oh, yeah it does. *LOL* – i did offer snakcs at that endeavor but we had friends over and I had terrible snacks (scooby doo graham crackers which i think are too hard and mini cheeze its but the kids ate them). I didn’t even have juice so i had to give out water (which I was ok with). but that is one of the few times i’ve ever offered food that wasnt a freezie to the neighborhood kids.