One Here, One There: The Summer of Coming and Going

Summer is half over, and its been a weird one so far. My two teenagers were around for the first couple of weeks after school let out, lounging languidly on the couch, fighting over the remote; the rest of time plugged into their cell phones, iPods, or computers, texting and IMing until I forced them off to sports camp in the afternoons. Then, three weeks ago, we left for a week at a family camp in the Sierras.

The camp is couched amongst pine and oak trees surrounded by flowering meadows, immense mountains, rivers with waterfalls to play in; nature truly at its finest, with sunny warm days and gently chilled nights. Once there, you settle into your rustic cabin with its creaky beds and ancient wooden dressers and commence to do a whole lot of nothing. There is a lake, an unheated pool, tennis courts, a basketball court, ping-pong tables, a horseshoe pit, a playground for the little ones, and loosely scheduled activities such as tie-dye, lanyards, nature hikes, and star gazing. Meals are served cafeteria-style in the huge, old dining hall with its spacious deck, and the food is a plentiful, calorie-laden joy. Where else are you going to eat pancakes and bacon for breakfast, grilled cheese or Thai chicken wraps and onion rings for lunch, and lasagna, veggies, garlic bread and homemade chocolate cake for dinner? Without grocery shopping, cooking or washing dishes for seven days. Heaven on many levels. Everyone brings plenty of wine, beer, or their beverage of choice, and no one has to be the designated driver. We read, swim, bike, and hike to burn off those immense meals. I think it's the only place where I pretty much forgo makeup.

One of the best things about family camp is that if your kids are old enough, like ours, they pretty much have free reign. They eat their meals with other kids, ride around in packs on their mountain bike, and play games in the lake and out with their new and old friends. The family sleeps together in the cabin, and I've been known to chase my son around with a bottle of SPF 45, but unless they get sick, hurt or need money to buy milkshakes and candy at the camp store, you see them in passing. And for city kids such as my two, heaven again.

This year my son, Matt, got invited to stay for a second week with his best friend from middle school and his family who happened to be coming up to the mountains on the day we checked out. He did this last year, and we figured it would be especially nice this time, as he and Connor will go off to different, rival high schools in August. And I relished having a week at home with just my daughter, Annie. We did "girl" things like shop, get pedicures, and watch "So You Think You Can Dance" with bated breath. I made her favorite dishes, and she roughhoused with her dad at night, something I don't think will happen much longer now that she's 13. I missed Matt but he called once to let us know he was having a great time, so the week went by.

Then, last Saturday, he called to say that Connor's family had managed to get a cabin for a second week and could he stay? He was signed up for more sports camp and Spanish tutoring, but it's the summer between 8th grade and high school, and you're only 15 once, so of course we said yes. And Annie and I continued our little routines, this time focusing on getting her ready to depart for two weeks of her own overnight camp in the mountains.

Matt got home an hour ago, taller I swear, with feet so dirty it will take a week of showers just to de-grime them and a duffle full of filthy laundry. He is reunited with his laptop, sprawled across his bed as his sister packs her own duffle in the next room for the bus that leaves at 9:00 tomorrow morning. We will have the first family dinner we've had in three weeks tonight (pizza so I won't piss anyone off--the pasta queen or the carnivore), and then she'll leave, and I'll be back to one child for two more weeks. The day Annie's bus arrives back, Matt and my husband leave for a weeklong backpacking trip, so it'll be girl time again. The four of us won't have another family dinner for another three weeks.

I'm not complaining. I actually think all this one-on-one with the kids is good for my relationship with them, and it obviously cuts down on the remote-control wars (and the shower wars and the "I don't want to watch that!" wars). But it's weird in the mornings to set out one juice glass, one cereal bowl, one vitamin. My housekeeper will clean the missing child's room, and then it will stay oddly pristine. Matt's own personal funky smell of unwashed socks and less-than-clean hair stayed for about a week, and then the room was kind of like a hotel room, tidy but impersonal. The scent of Annie's fruity conditioner will linger only so long in her room, and then it will feel the same way when I walk in: like a ghost town.

I guess this is getting me ready for when Matt goes off to college in four years, and we're down to just Annie until she too flees the nest. It doesn't feel bad. Just very, very different.