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Dang

I have a really long (albeit knitting) post in the works but I had to interrupt myself to ask the eternal question: No matter how horrible and spoiled and awful your children have behaved in the long days of summer, why is it that taking them to a new camp experience still feels like delivering lambs to slaughter?

Ana (10) and Jane (7) are doing a tennis camp all this week from 9-12. I took them to the tennis courts a bit ago, lubed them up with sunscreen, paid my money and sent them on their way.

Then I had to manufacture an excuse to go back up there (they need hats to keep the sun out of their eyes, right? RIGHT?) and now here I am, with three free hours and all I can do is clean my house obsessively and worry that they're not having fun. Or that someone is being mean to them. Or that I missed a spot with the sunscreen. Or that they will bottom out blood-sugar wise and I'll have crying girls on my hands when I pick them up. Or they won't drink the water I sent with them and they will get dehydrated and suffer heat-stroke. Or they'll get hit by an errant tennis ball and become brain-injured and be hospitalized for weeks...

Or, you know, that they'll just really hate it and refuse to go back.

This motherhood gig...what would I do for neurosis if I didn't have it?
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Stefanie said…
Barb, you know that you're overthinking this. They'll have fun while they're there, and even if there are a few tears, they'll go back. Don't worry so much!
July 21, 2008 at 10:23 AM
Anonymous said…
Gawd Woman! Sit down, put your feet up, pour yourself a coffee and relax! I'm sure you've got a good book sitting around you could read. Or a half knit sweater you could finish.

You've got YEARS to worry about stuff worth worrying about. Take a break - you certainly deserve it.
July 21, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Ei said…
I know how you feel. Since the medication actually started helping, I've spent many anxious days, afraid the phone would ring, and at the same time hoping it wouldn't. We just worry about them, that's part of what we do. So what if it is fruitless? I guess it just oils the machinery for the day it comes in handy, when Lassie comes to tell us that Timmy has fallen down the well. Don't be too hard on yourself.

And invent a cure for the common cold with your free time, would ya? For me? Because I don't feel too good...sigh.
July 21, 2008 at 4:11 PM
Miri said…
This is JUST what I do. My mother gave me a break the other day (my mom is great) and I literally twiddled my thumbs. I could not think of a thing to do. I just worried, and thought about whether the baby would take the bottle, and whether anyone else would back-talk, and my mom would get stressed out and never give me a break again.
July 21, 2008 at 5:14 PM
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