He's off again

Sent Mark off to his second week of sleepaway camp. He spent a nice weekend with his cousins, slept in Monday morning, and enjoyed a leisurely morning playing with his cats and Matchbox cars. I forgot how easy life is when you're 8.

My morning was not as calm. I rushed around, rooting through his closet for old, expendable clothes that 1) still fit and 2) he would wear. This was not an easy task--he'd lost 90% of his expendable clothes at camp last week, and of the clothes he had left, he refused to wear the "teeny tiny" school shorts. I figured meeting both criteria was too difficult, so I just settled on clothes that fit. I partially solved the dilemma by transforming two pair of thrashed school pants into cutoffs. He loved them, and I bit my tongue to not point out the striking resemblance their length bore to my own cropped pants. I didn't say the words "male capri pants," but I certainly thought them.

While I loaded his luggage into the car, I asked him to take the garbage cans out to the street. This was met with immediate resistance, and a shocked, "Why do I have to do everything around here?" Then the mention of chores triggered another thought and he reminded me that I owed him allowance from last week.

"For what?" I asked. "You weren't even here!"

"So? I still get allowance."

Now this debate I had to hear. "Um, did you feed the cats last week?" I asked.

"No, but I made my bed every day!"

I shook my head. "Doesn't count. It's a sleeping bag--it was already made!"

He could've debated forever, so I shut him down with a quick, "No chores, no money" and finished packing the car. We were off to the hospital lobby to meet the bus.

However, the bus was not as anxious to meet us. In fact, it was nowhere in sight. I crammed into line to check Mark in. I passed off his pump supplies, checked in his luggage and got him a spiffy new name badge. He busied himself playing with the hospital house phone and the pay phone next to it.

The bus was to leave at 1, but 1 dragged on to 1:30, which dragged on to 2. Meanwhile, I argued with my squirrelly child to get off the grubby floor, to not touch the dirty trashcan, to stop trying to wedge his fingers into the elevator doors, and to PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE not crack his head open on the tiled floors 20 minutes before he left for camp. I finally relented on the last one, because he was intent on cracking it open, and I figured, well, we're already in the hospital, so if he's gonna crack his head open, at least he picked the right place to do it.

By the time he finally got on the bus, I was ready for him to go. I watched him climb aboard, waited around a couple minutes, and figured I was clear. They weren't gonna let him off the bus, so I headed to my car. I'd enjoyed having him back the past three days, and I'll miss him over the next few days. But right then my head was pounding, and I was irritated.

"Child-free again," I sighed, and that soothed my head a bit. I sure love my kid, and I wouldn't trade him for anything. But as I enjoyed the peace and quiet walking by myself to the car...well, let me just say, I finally understood why people send their kids away to boarding school!