I'm home, after 1300 + miles in the car in 5 days. On our trip from Maine to New York this weekend, I managed to talk to My Sis on the cell phone through 3 states - Maine into New Hampshire into Massachusetts. (You'd think we would have covered everything on our Sister Trip, but evidently not...) As icing on the cake, I caught up with My Daughter from Massachusetts into Connecticut. Gotta love those unlimited calling plans.
Anyway, Maine was great. The women from Boys to Men were very helpful - we had a particularly interesting discussion about the role of Moms and the violence that is so prevalent in our sons' lives. If it sounds abstract, it was anything but - real world stories about how insecure we are in helping our sons navigate bullying on the playground (is this Dad territory? Should we stay out of it and let Dad teach him how to fight? Why is it that when things turn physical, we feel so out of our league as mothers?) Then there were the gender issues. So what if our young son wants to wear pink shoes? We don't really believe there are "boy colors" and "girl colors." But do we feel so strongly about it that we'll keep quiet and let our sons take a beating on the playground?
It was a great cross section of Moms - some the mothers of toddlers, some with grown children. There were lawyers and teachers and therapists and all in all a lot of insightful women who were very helpful.
The next day The Weatherman and I went to visit The Boy, who I found to be a bit beleaguered. Camp counseling sounds like a breeze, but this year the camp is short-staffed (the economy), it has rained nearly every day, The Boy has had a cold the entire camp season, and this was only his second day off since June.
Next week he will probably chaperone some of the half-season boys home and then escort the second season boys back to camp. He will do so with a disposable temperature gage. The camp is so worried about Swine Flu that no campers are allowed in if they have a fever.
But Maine is Maine. Portland is a very cool city and Bridgton, where The Boy's camp is, was beautiful the day we were there - a rare sunny, dry day. The photo today was taken by The Boy from his tent. You can see the classic Maine weather - beautiful sunset, with impending storm clouds on the right.
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