For most of my childhood, school seemed like the purgatory I had to endure between summer vacations, which were mostly spent at sleepaway camp. I thought my parents were simply evil when they suggested I go to camp for only one month and spend the rest of the summer hanging out or travelling with them (take that, viral video mocking sleepaway camp!). Then came adulthood, graduate school, and a busy career; summer was barely a blip on my radar… It meant a change of wardrobe and high electricity bills as I cranked up the AC.
Having school-aged children has brought summer back to me, as I again dance to the rhythm of the school calendar and “camp” is somewhere to go, not something to do. I remember with love my mother sitting in front of the television sewing labels on piles of clothing, as I myself gratefully peel and stick my daughters’ names to their little t-shirts and shorts.
Many New York City kids commute out of the city in the summer so their parents don’t have to commute in all year. For all our vehement denials of the need for backyards, waxing rhapsodic over the cultural delights available to our kids, during the summer we know they deserve a break from the city heat and a chance to get good and muddy.
My older daughter leaves and returns on a bus and is gone for an inordinately long day. My little one will likely follow her next summer, but her city day camp hours are still longer than her preschool. After a week of long lunch dates and reorganizing closets, I really start to miss them. Their friends and their counselors have them for the best part of the day and I am left with rushed breakfasts and dinners.
Despite my rigid bedtimes and obsessive sunscreen-ing, the ladybugs come home both tired and tanned. They are dirty and sticky, with tangled hair and popsicle-stained mouths. They are starving but barely able to sit up at the dinner table. Throughout the summer, I have no compunction about feeding them Pinkberry for dinner (literally).
Every couple of weeks, I declare a “camp mommy” day, and fortunately have the luxury of doing so. The three of us play hooky from our respective summer activities and do, well…stuff. Any Manhattan museum is a cool respite from the baking sidewalks and oppressive humidity. We have a great time, but they soon want to get back to their friends, art projects, swim lessons, and gaga games.
Sleepaway camp for my little ones is coming at me like the taxi driven by a madman who wildly cuts off the first cab driver to see me and slows down (you know what I’m talking about). Fortunately, I have a skill set that can be applied at camp, and good friends who own one, so I just may be on that departing bus with them.
Lani Serota is the mother of two young girls, besotted wife, sleep aficionado (both her own and that of children), and celebrity child name enthusiast who loves a good giggle. When she is not working at one of her three jobs, taking advantage of everything New York City has to offer, or procrastinating, she loves to write.
