Top 10 reasons for not blogging
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With a nod to Kristin von Ogtrop, from whom I borrowed the idea of this list (and, well, maybe from David Letterman, too), here are the top 10 reasons why I’ve been too preoccupied to blog much lately:
10. Our 12-year-old neighbor, demonstrating to my son how hard it is to skateboard after spinning around in circles to get dizzy, fell into our glass storm door and smashed it to smithereens. She was fine, the door was critical.
9. My son is graduating 5th grade this month, which really shouldn’t be a big deal seeing as it is his legal obligation to continue on to middle school, but these days requires preparation involving a jacket, a tie, dress slacks (who says “slacks” anymore? do the girls need frocks?) and dress shoes (black sneakers?), as well as a “luau,” an afternoon block party and the nearly obligatory gift of a cellphone.
8. Obtaining the cellphone requires long, convoluted conversations with a charming but fast-talking salesman named Shiv who changes his offer every time I hesitate. His latest proposal involved a discount, a mail-in rebate, an upgrade and a borrowing of the upgrade due on my au pair’s cell phone, all so that I would have to pay only $30 to get a phone Shiv promised would be “very bling bling” for a 10-year-old. I didn’t bite, and fear another offer from Shiv tomorrow.
7. In a single two-week period, my presence has been requested at a chorus concert, a band concert, a recorder concert, a PTA volunteer appreciation party, an education foundation meeting, and a “writing celebration” in which the children show their parents PowerPoint presentations (something they will learn later in life is really not cause for celebration).
6. I started a new job which not only requires me to get on a train, get into the city, and then accomplish something, but has taken my head out of parenting, which is pleasantly diverting, but not so good for the blog.
5. It’s Little League season, which means I’ve started knitting. Who knew knitting was so addictive?
4. My older son is going to sleep-away camp next month, which apparently requires more than a sleeping bag, some bathing suits and a sweatshirt. The packing list for his “back to basics” camp has 60 items, including a mattress pad, sheets, blankets, long underwear, a pair of cotton work gloves, a bandana, a flashlight and a waterproof durable rain suit, all of which must have name tags. Should I take solace in the fact that there is no need for dress slacks?
3. My younger son’s plans for the summer are currently limited to playing travel baseball, which he has tried out for but has not yet officially been selected for. And though I, like many in my generation, am nostalgic for the kind of free-form summers when kids were sent out to play in the woods after breakfast with instructions not to return until dinner, I’m thinking I need to find him a bit more…structure. Or woods.
2. I finally got a road bike and feel really guilty about having spent the money for it if I don’t ride it.
1. That’s a lie. I just really love riding my new road bike.
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You may have just overwhelmed me right out of wanting to have kids. But the bike sounds great!
Yes, there’s no birth control quite as powerful as listening to whining parents. (And the bike is fantastic!)
Sleep away camp lists and packing trunks to be picked up by Railway Express was regular part of my late spring adolescent life. I can still remember my mother commenting how disgusting the contents of our camps trucks were when we returned home in late August. Sleep away camp was also the first time I saw/heard the phrase “kosher style” used.
Sadly, trunks seem to be a thing of the past — now it’s only soft duffles. Which begs a question: what will my boys use as coffee tables when they go to college?
In response to another comment. See in context »The one you buy for them at Ikea!
In response to another comment. See in context »P.S. Glad your kid is ok, sucks about the door though. I accidentally put my hand and arm through a glass storm door when I was 11 and ended up in the hospital for 10 days and a full length arm cast for the summer. But hey it got me out of sleep away camp that summer and for one summer I got to experience the joys of being an only child!
Ah, well now you need to go read my latest post and reply and tell me what summer with camp vs. summer without camp was really like!
In response to another comment. See in context »I suggest you devote an upcoming post to the topic of getting your child ready for his or her first time at sleep away camp. Everyone talks about the child’s adjustment and the parent’s adjustment. But no one talk about the preparation. Unless you’ve been through it, it sounds ridiculous. When you have to deal with it, your attitude changes.
The good part is that the next year it’s a lot easier. You have a lot of stuff and you also know what is really needed and what will sit on the bottom of the trunk. Also, forget about name tags! Order a stamp with his name on it or use a sharpie.
Are you using that cell phone guy in town? Do not.
In the same vein how did you pick a camp that is right for your child/children. This became a big issue for me around the age of 13 as I hated the camp my parents sent me and my siblings to. It was a basically none stop sports, I was not an athletic kid, but rather nerdy who’s idea of a good time idea was being left alone in my “lab” I had built for myself in our basement. Luckily for me I had spotted an ad in the back in the Sunday Times Magazine for an arts & science camp (it was far more expensive than the camp I usually went to) located on the shore of Lake Placid and after two weeks of very unattractive moping around the house my mother gave into my request!
For a none athletic kid most summer camps are 8 weeks of hell, it’s no fun being the last one picked for the team for 8 weeks non-stop.
In response to another comment. See in context »OK, now I know why I haven’t been blogging much either. Different list, but similar vein. Kids, doctors, freelance work, kids, medical emergencies, kids, sports, school, class gifts, kids, ER visits, broken dishwasher, kids, looming work deadlines, kids. And so on.
Did I mention kids??
Enjoy your new bike! I just got mine tuned up.
Oh, god, teacher gifts! Thanks for reminding me.
In response to another comment. See in context »Too bad you don’t live near me – we could get away from the craziness with a bike ride!