Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah

For the third year in a row, my husband and I dropped off our children (collectively known as "the Dufflets") at Camp Chatuga, located in Mountain Rest, South Carolina.  The place looks like a movie set of a summer camp, complete with private lake (which campers only rarely come out of wearing a set of leaches), rustic (read: unairconditioned) cabins, a climbing tree, a pet llama named Oliver, and a few random camp dogs that walk around and get petted all the time.  The Dufflets speak of the place the rest of the year as if they have been ousted from Eden by horrible, uncaring parents instead of an apple bearing snake.  Blah blah.  You're lucky you got to go at all, kids.

Speaking of snakes, this year, while we were dropping them off, there was a huge commotion, and we saw a bunch of counselors doing something underneath one of the cabins.  The news quickly spread that there was a copperhead underneath the cabin.  My husband, naturally, went to the scene of the action to see if he could 'help'.  His help was not needed.  Using a hoe and a machete, one boy and one girl counselor managed to get the snake out from under the cabin and behead it and put it in a bucket, leading me to believe that my children were being taken care of by tough, protector-like counselors, and not squeaky weenie counselors who would just freak and cause an all out panic.  This also caused Mike to start yelling, “Everyone who is walking around barefoot, look in this bucket!  This is why you should wear shoes!”

This year, both Dufflets are going for two weeks.  Last year, they were both supposed to go for two weeks, but in typical Duff-luck fashion, the girl child ended up with a staph infection and had to come home after the first week.  (In retrospect, perhaps those were not odd looking mosquito bites she was complaining about before she left, but, well, hindsight is 20/20.)  It is a testament to how much she loves camp that she managed to hide the problem until nearly three quarters of her back was raw because she knew if she told anyone she'd have to get home.  That is one tough little girl.  I had trouble even looking at her poor back, and no doubt I'd have been begging for morphine in someone's ER, much less continuing to go hiking through the woods and play sports without so much as access to a Tylenol.  So, in conclusion, sorry, parents of the other campers in her cabin if she shared any of the joy with your daughters.

I'm glad they like camp.  I'm glad they like it because it teaches them independence and self-reliance, it exposes them to new people and ideas and activities, and gives them a real place they can wish they were at when they are having a lousy day at school.

I'm also glad they like camp because it means my husband and I can go back to being grownups for just a couple of weeks.  Yes.  I said it.  I enjoy the break from my kids.  Don't get me wrong -- I love them, I miss them when they're gone, and I would do anything for them, up to and including exchanging my life for theirs.  But MAN is it nice to come home to a quiet house without little socks and video game controllers all over the place.

As we were driving away from the camp, which is a very pretty drive down a mountain with lots of switchbacks, creepy looking old gas stations, and ancient looking trees, my husband said to me, "Do you feel guilty dropping them off?"

"Why would I feel guilty?"  I asked.  "We're dropping them off at a place they were begging to go."  I thought about it for a moment, and then said, "I do feel a little bit guilty because of how happy I am about dropping them off."

So that got me thinking.  Why should I feel guilty about this?  For two weeks, no one will be watching Shake It Up, Jessie, the Regular Show, or SpongeBob on the tv.  For two weeks, no one will beg to eat Kraft Macaroni and Cheese for every meal, or make eewie noises if  something green touches the Mac and Cheese on the plate.  For two weeks, if I want to get together with my girlfriends, I don't have to worry about making arrangements for my children.  For two weeks, if I have a headache, I can lie down until the Excedrin kicks in without hearing, "Stop it!" "You stop it!"  "Buttface!"  "Turdbrain!" in the background.  For two weeks, if I want to I can sit down and read a chapter in a book without someone interrupting me to ask if we have any milk.  (Well, gosh, I don't know.  Let's open the fridge TOGETHER and see if we can spy with our little eyes that giant gallon of milk.)  Or worse yet, asking me if we have a hammer, leading to an FBI-style investigation to try to figure out what the hammer is needed to pound on and why.

Us mamas, we're too hard on ourselves.  Parenthood is a 24/7 job, and even when your children are perfect angels (as mine are -- HA) they are exhausing.  If it were any other job, the feds woud be all over us for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act.  Even illegal sweat shop workers have quitting time and meal breaks.  Turning that adorable blank slate of a baby who can't even find its own feet into a functional adult that can balance a checkbook and will give more to the world than he or she takes is tough work.  Especially when you have the other kind of work, the kind you actually get paid for, on top of it.  What's wrong with wanting a vacation from a tough job? 

Nothing.  Nothing, I tell you.  Even God rested on the seventh day.  Me?  I'm getting my two weeks, and I'm going to enjoy them.  Guilt free.  At least that's what I'm telling myself.