Monday, June 14, 2010

Adventures in Not Parenting

This morning, I drove The Kid through winding mountain passes, in the cold snow and rain (yes, snow. It's Colorado, what can I say?) to summer camp. It's a special camp run by occupational therapists and a few other specialists in adaptive, expeditionary learning. He'll be there for four days.

I really don't know what the hell I'm going to do for the next four days. I mean, WHAT AM I? WHO AM I? I can promise I won't be having some kind of lifetime movie reawakening or anything. I will probably work a few 10 hour days. I'll watch an R rated movie of an evening. Dinner will be unabashedly not kid friendly.

I do know, without a doubt, that I will send my thoughts up into the mountains towards his camp, that he's making friends, that he's proving himself a leader, that he's finding himself capable of things he never dreamed himself able to do. I hope he has smores.

But because this is a camp that is designed for kids with sensory issues, I hope he comes away with more than the regular camp stuff of learning some silly songs and how to macrame and winning the canoeing championship. I hope the seeds we've been planting will start to sprout. I hope he realizes that some of the fun activities he takes on this week help him self-regulate. I hope that he learns to go with the flow when he inevitably gets his socks wet. I hope he finds an avocation up there (rock climbing, boating, hiking etc) that interests him enough that he'll want to continue doing it on his own... Banking on the rock climbing here, actually...

I see so much potential in my little guy. He's so intelligent. He's so strong. He's so charismatic. He is just on a different schedule from most kids, and in some areas, he'll never catch up. But I'm still convinced that he'll find his THING and his PEOPLE. My job is to continually introduce him to as many opportunities to find them as I can.

Even if that means I have to hang out all week and a spookily quiet house. Or maybe especially.

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