Summer Camp...

I never really went to Summer Camp as a kid... I always imagined it would be really exciting to be away from home, on your own, with all kinds of friends to hang out with and activities going on...and that the overnights would be all about telling stories under the covers by the light of the flashlight. I once went to a Girl Scouts day-camp for a week, but all I remember from that are some craft projects and that we made homemade ice cream one day.

Our family spent the past weekend at a family reunion...it was a three+ hour road trip to a farm in the middle of nowhere that was converted to a conference center. This could possibly be my first Summer Camp-like experience... My brother's family and mine shared a room in the basement with four long, dorm-style beds. The adults took the four beds and the kids were relegated to cots on the floor. It all seemed kind of fun until Little O decided she needed to be in my bed rather than on the floor...that decision she made about 3am Friday night. Needless to say, she was in the pack-n-play night 2.

True to form, the most senior adults in attendance were all in arguments over one thing or another...and most of the weekend you could probably cut the tension with a knife. Thankfully, the non-Summer Camp part of this weekend was my generation's ability to kick back with a glass (bottle) of wine and ignore their parents. It does in fact seem like trying to recreate the feeling of Summer Camp isn't so easy when you are an adult and trying to "manage" everyone/everything. Perhaps that is why Summer Camp is for kids...I know the littlest kids at the reunion certainly were the ones who had the most fun!

Vacation?

When I was a little girl I couldn't wait until it was summer...a break from school, my birthday coming up in June, and always there was a family vacation to look forward to. Now that I am all grown up, I find that thinking about vacation is almost as stressful as just not having one at all!

I am officially one week from taking some time off work...ten full days without any financial statements, meetings, projects, etc. I should be excited, right?! Instead I am feeling anxious...I have to literally pack most of the house and shove it into the trunk of our car for our family reunion weekend trip. Then just three days after getting home from the reunion, I have to re-pack myself up and fly to Boston to visit my sister and the newest addition to our family, Little A. These are all events that I thought I was looking forward to...I just forgot about the part where I have to single-handedly get all of us where we need to be, on time, with all of the things we need. By the time I do this twice in one week, I am betting that work will look like the vacation.

So, how does a busy, working mom, who really does need a vacation, get a break? My one consolation is that I am going to Boston completely on my own...while it will be hard for me to not have Little O as my companion, I know that it will give me a chance to catch up with my sister, have the new baby to myself, and who knows...maybe even have a little down time for me?! If nothing else, I can spend the plane ride to Boston listening to my ipod, reading a book, or catching up on some much needed sleep...