well, i can breathe again...

the duke of fun has returned from his 8 days at camp...

i didn't realize i was holding my breath...

i knew he was having fun and was safe and cared for but that doesn't matter one whit when you're the mother...or, i'm your mother...

anyhow he's here and i am SO GLAD!...i missed him terribly and it was a hard adjustment not having him here...okay, so that's a gross understatement of my emotional state while he was gone...but i don't need to bore you with all the neurotic details...this time...

ah, my boy forging a path independent of his family unit...embarking on new adventures, making new friends, learning to trust strangers...getting the award for *the* stinkiest feet out of his group of cabins...

apparently, and i have a certificate of award to prove it, he has earned the nickname "dr. sweet feet"...

"yeah, the girls said they could smell my feet all the way from their cabins!"

as you can imagine, this is an incredible source of pride for a 9 year old boy...

myself?...i can think of other things i'd like my son to be known for...but at least he's making a name for himself...no one forgets a smell like that and the person responsible (i blame the sandals...but then again, i would)

there's no such thing as *bad* publicity, right?

and i had the pleasure of smelling those feet...i'd have to say, the award was more than well earned and well deserved...

oh, but not to be outdone by the feet...we had the following exchange in the car on the way from the bus

"oh, mama?"

"yeah, buddy"

"um, this pair of underwear i'm wearing are my only pair i had"

"well good thing you didn't run out, huh?...we'll wash the other pairs with all your things when we get home"

"no, i mean this is the only pair i had all week at camp...you didn't pack any other pairs"

"what?...i packed 9 pairs of underwear and showed you where they were in the bag!"

"well, they weren't there"

if i *had* asthma, now is the point at which i would have been sucking on my inhaler like a crackhead in an abandoned building...

"so what you're saying is you've been wearing the same pair of underwear the whole time you've been gone?"

"yep"

oh. good. god.

so of course at home i showed him the whole pile of clean underwear in the pocket he missed...obviously they were clean, but i tossed them in the wash with all his other camp laundry anyway...it made me feel better somehow...to physically act out denial is a terribly soothing balm...

it is at this point in the telling that as a matter of redemption (his not mine...i've accepted there's no hope for me...but let's try and save the children...oh, and dear duke, if you ever read this, *again*, i am so sorry i must use you as fodder at my whim...but, that's the way it goes...love, your mother)

but, i digress...

wait, where was i?...now i'm getting tripped up by my own literary license...good lord it does sneak up on you...ANY. HOW. i must bring up the fact that he was voted by all of his group of cabins as "most honest"...now THIS is more like it!...

seriously, he was very proud of the award...the lord of the ring and i are very very very proud of this...see, at camp they have core values that they try and get the kids to understand and possess and project...there are six, and at the end of the week all the campers in your group of cabins vote on the camper who most represented each one...

most honest...whatta kid...

when you send your kids out into the world it's a crapshoot...what you send out and what you get back has absolutely nothing to do with you...of course in the grand scheme it does in the form of your influence and parenting blah blah blah....but that's the grand scheme...

at the actual moment, though, when it really comes down to it, it is only about your child...who your child is when he or she isn't with you...and what he or she chooses to do with the information or situation at hand...

you give them the tools and just have to hope it all balances out in the end...the hurts the triumphs the sacrifices the happiness...

you hope they accept good natured ribbing with aplomb (those sandals are history!)

you hope they win awards for the possession of admirable character traits...

you hope that despite it all they have learned a lesson, made a friend, and shared a laugh...

but mostly you hope they are wearing clean underwear...

indeed.

x.