Just spent half an hour -- I, who dread vacations and feel deeply uncomfortable about anything supposed to be "fun" and get stressed if I have to spend a day without reading a book of some kind (Henry is getting to be the same way) and hasten to chasten anyone who thinks academics "have the summer off" -- writing an elegaic ode of a post (which Picasa then ate) describing the sweet lazy summer Henry and I are having together. Esti is in year-round preschool and Ken has been wrapping up his book manuscript, now in press. So we've been left to our own devices. And yesterday, because it was like 101 degrees in Boston, and Ken had to finish up his copy edits (he did it! expecting proofs back next month!), my parents and I took the kids up to Wingaersheek Beach in Gloucester. Anything to let Daddy work, right?
The beach seems about a mile wide, soft white sand, knee-deep clear water, warm tide pools, quick tide, lots of funny humans. Some very picturesque, most not. I don't feel like describing it all again (but get this: overweight woman with her striped lawn chair ankle-deep in the water, lazily reading... Cheryl Sandberg's Lean In!). Just a nice day, that's all. For once I feel a bit more like a human than a whale, and it's no thanks to my research. Since I got back from my (inconsiderately timed but glorious) conference/vacation trip to Paris, Moscow, and White Nights St. Petersburg on June 24, I've basically just been Mom.
Henry is really fun to be around. We've been dropping off Esti (usually late) then going to museums, swimming (Walden Pond, Harold Parker where a park ranger busted us for illegal swimming, now Wingaersheek), hanging out with our friends down the block (we are so lucky that way - what if we had boring neighbors?). He reads chess books sent by his Grampa Ken; I pitch in a bit with Ken's copy editing. My dad helps out sometimes. It's been three weeks, and that's still not enough time. I am actually sorry Henry's starting two weeks of day camp on Monday. After that the summer will fly.
As a child I loved my parents plenty but never understood what it might mean to miss them -- the idea of feeling "homesick" at sleepaway camp seemed preposterous. As a mom I am basically the same: never miss my kids when I'm away, don't carry their pictures around, felt trapped and anxious during my maternity leave. And it's early yet: the end of summer still six weeks off, the end of his childhood perhaps five to ten years away. What am I doing then, hoarding these summer moments? Maybe this (and not a fidgety desire for something to do, as I had always thought) is why people take pictures of their families during vacations? Maybe it's time to take some pictures again?
The beach seems about a mile wide, soft white sand, knee-deep clear water, warm tide pools, quick tide, lots of funny humans. Some very picturesque, most not. I don't feel like describing it all again (but get this: overweight woman with her striped lawn chair ankle-deep in the water, lazily reading... Cheryl Sandberg's Lean In!). Just a nice day, that's all. For once I feel a bit more like a human than a whale, and it's no thanks to my research. Since I got back from my (inconsiderately timed but glorious) conference/vacation trip to Paris, Moscow, and White Nights St. Petersburg on June 24, I've basically just been Mom.
Henry is really fun to be around. We've been dropping off Esti (usually late) then going to museums, swimming (Walden Pond, Harold Parker where a park ranger busted us for illegal swimming, now Wingaersheek), hanging out with our friends down the block (we are so lucky that way - what if we had boring neighbors?). He reads chess books sent by his Grampa Ken; I pitch in a bit with Ken's copy editing. My dad helps out sometimes. It's been three weeks, and that's still not enough time. I am actually sorry Henry's starting two weeks of day camp on Monday. After that the summer will fly.
As a child I loved my parents plenty but never understood what it might mean to miss them -- the idea of feeling "homesick" at sleepaway camp seemed preposterous. As a mom I am basically the same: never miss my kids when I'm away, don't carry their pictures around, felt trapped and anxious during my maternity leave. And it's early yet: the end of summer still six weeks off, the end of his childhood perhaps five to ten years away. What am I doing then, hoarding these summer moments? Maybe this (and not a fidgety desire for something to do, as I had always thought) is why people take pictures of their families during vacations? Maybe it's time to take some pictures again?
