Every year, in the late August doldrums between camps drying up (why?) and school starting here on the east coast, a time I refer to as The Fucked Time, we have the great privilege to deliver one or several of our children, whoever is out of diapers, to my parents in southwest Ohio. They stay for a week there, enjoying the suburban comforts of my parents’ hot tub, a finished basement full of toys from the ‘80s and ‘90s, and very large television sets with subscriptions to streaming services I have quite literally never heard of.
They also get to spend time with my sister and her partner, fabulously child-free bohemian types who have interesting animals, plants, and a house full of curiosities located right off of a nature preserve. They compete to impress her. It’s very cute.
I think it’s wholesome for kids to spend time with their grandparents, on their turf, without the intermediary forces of mom and dad. Do they sometimes read illustrated children’s bibles there? Probably, but that’s called learning about world religions, folks. All part of the curriculum. They also get to help with baking projects, something that never happens at home. They get to browse museum gift shops like young royalty. Good for the constitution, like salt air.
This is not something I ever experienced myself. My mom’s mom used a wheelchair and could not care for young kids without help, which my grandfather, a decent man but extremely of his generation, was not going to provide. My dad’s parents always lived so far away that it was an odyssey to reach them, which we did as a family unit of five, and they rarely came to us.
When I was around 9 years old, my mom’s dad got married for the second time back in Ohio. We were living in Texas at that point, and my dad’s parents were “nearby” in Arkansas (11 hours driving.) The wedding was kind of controversial and not something my parents were interested in making a whole family affair with flights and little church outfits and the whole thing. So my dad’s dad drove over from Arkansas to provide childcare for the long weekend that they were to be away. Now why didn’t my grandmother, my dad’s mom, accompany him? Who knows. All lost to time, it was a different century.
Now my grandfather George, our babysitter-apparent, was a teddy bear. An affable, devastatingly handsome man who worked in sales his whole life and thus chatted up every grocery store clerk, waitress, and meter reader he ever encountered. He loved dogs, sweets, and blasting air so cold in his truck that his glasses fogged up when he got out of it.
I loved this man. But we did not…kick it solo with him? I had piles of cousins and my parents were always around correcting my behavior. I did not have curiosity about old people as a kid, and I never had the confidence to just strike up conversations with them. It wasn’t done. I don’t know how else to describe it. And the whole weekend that George was there, while thrilling, I just kept thinking, “this is so unusual.”
I hope in some way, these weeks away are a gift to the kids! They are, obviously, a gift to me. While the schools don’t open until after Labor Day in Maryland, my college professor husband’s semester starts in late August. So even if we had the funds and nerve to plan a family vacation to blot out the Fucked Time, Nick isn’t available! And it feels like punishment to use my precious vacation time from work to watch the kids ransack the house for a week straight, as it is always so hot and miserable that even 30 seconds outside microwaves your brain into radioactive goo.
However, my parents live 10 hours away so there is a logistics challenge to all of this, and the week seems to be slightly cursed. In 2020, I drove Desi to meet my parents in Cumberland in far west Maryland bathed in a holy glow of anticipation. I had booked a glamping yurt situation nearby, as a sort of writer’s retreat for myself. After I packed him off with my folks, I would have wifi, a bath and shower, and a basket of homemade breakfast delivered to my door (flap?). I had one single edible in a baggie in my camping backpack to be enjoyed before going to bed, I’m assuming, no later than 9 p.m. I had more than earned this, I was absent this like a blood transfusion I’d die without.
I didn’t die, though I did have to go without it. In the hotel parking lot where I’d strapped Desi’s carseat into my folks’ Buick not five minutes earlier, I started to get a hinky feeling. Why hadn’t I remembered receiving automated marketing emails from the yurt people reminding me of my upcoming stay. And why wasn’t my payment confirmation surfacing in my Gmail searches. And why….
I called them, and a very compassionate person informed me that no, there wasn’t a booking for me, and that they were fully booked that night. Nick, by phone, encouraged me to stay at the hotel where I was parked instead. But money was tight, and I did not want to spend $150 on an experience that wasn’t what I really wanted. I drove four hours straight home. And then a week later, I had to repeat the drive to get my kid back.
The “drop,” as I’ve been calling it in my head the last few years, became linked to Nick’s dad’s long illness and how Nick could try to combine a drive west with the kids to a visit to his dad. Last year, Jane’s first time joining Desi for the week, she had an asthma attack that landed her in the hospital in Dayton for most of the trip.
This year it was my turn to do the drop and I had to temper my excitement for my “vacation” (still responsible for my toddler, and still working my regular job, but not dealing with the nonstop feedback of my older kids who are like a slightly malignant gas that expands to take up every square inch of the house) because I was afraid something bad would happen.
The week is nearly over, though, and nothing bad has happened. But I also didn’t do anything?
Ok now I’m going to see whether that’s actually true.
You know what, I actually did watch a lot of TV. Summer bedtimes with my older kids are a war of attrition. I don’t care how effective the blackout shades are in the bedroom, they can see the aggressive daylight from the bathroom window while they brush their teeth.
The toddler, Polly, still collapses in her crib at 7 pm though, leaving Nick and I with an infinity pool of free time in the evenings. I just thought I’d be doing house projects with it. I guess when you’re burned out and you finally get a taste of peace, you do not…..aspire to do work.
Yesterday, I looked at the list I’d made for myself for the week, an untouched list, and some toxic achiever part of me sent up a road flare. I looked at “mulch the front beds” and Polly and I hit up the garden center after I picked her up. When I came to, I’d spent $100 on plants and a ponytailed man was loading mulch into my minivan. I got some of the plants in yesterday, but the rest are still on my driveway in their plastic cups. Nick hoisted the mulch bags to the beds where they are to be raked. I imagine they will stay there, bagged in plastic, for two more weeks.
I guess there’s still time to get rid of 30% of the kids toys like I’d hoped. But today I’m getting my hair colored. After sitting in a chair for four hairs, I might have to take it easy by sitting down some more. My Showtime subscription runs out September 10 and there’s this movie I had never heard of but I have to see immediately?? It’s from 1997 and it’s called Clockwatchers. Lisa Kudrow, Toni Collette, and Parker Posey are all office temps. Did this movie hurt? When it fell from heaven???????
Next year I’m considering putting Desi and Jane on a plane, unaccompanied, to Dayton. Let the FAA handle the drop, you know? My mom thinks this is shocking! But it’s a one-hour flight, and the older one does not hesitate to let adults know if he needs something.
yr mate,
Evie
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Clockwatchers is so good! If you ever run into the movie Splendor starring Claire from the original 90210, do not pass it up. I watched both of these movies within a week of each other in 2009 and they are so delightfully 90's. Enjoy!
Also, yes to letting the kids fly to Dayton unattended. You put them on the plane and your mom will take them off, practically. It sounds like it would be great for everyone. Unless you finally get to stay at that yurt near Cumberland.
That movie is such a classic 90's "poster looks like a zany romp but NOPE".