Max gathers tomatoesOur first full week of summer has been disconcerting. It always a takes us a while to settle into our summer routine but add a 38 hour power outage, a harrowing trip to the allergist, Max's best friend's move to Austin and the week was a hard one all the way around.
There is no easy way to say this: the power outage caused me to completely unravel. You know how you imagine yourself in a power outage, calmly lighting candles, finding flashlights, playing board games and fanning yourself with a paperback copy of Howl. I did none of these things. I panicked. I was a mess. I fell apart and am still forgiving myself for it. I am practicing for the next power outage. I have a list.
The trip to the allergist was something Max and I had both been dreading since I made the appointment. (Max inherited a lovely cocktail of allergies from both me and Frank.) This was a reevaluation appointment which meant a skin test. Max had his first skin test when he was six and we had been putting this off for the last three years. He has very reactive skin making what is just mildly unpleasant for most kids absolutely excruciating. Imagine fifteen minutes of your child being in excruciating itchy pain and there's not one thing you can do except watch the clock and count down the minutes until it is over. Bad news, Max's allergies have almost all gone into the high or severe range. Good news, he is healthy as a horse and his dust allergy has completely disappeared. The allergist says that almost never happens.
Max's best friend moved to Austin at the end of the week (taking my friend, his mom, with him). We will see them soon – and often, I hope. Austin is just up the road but it sort of marked the end of an era or whatever the equivalent of an era would be in measuring the friendship between two nine year old boys.
We struggled this week because of all these things, but mainly because we have been looking for something, feeling around for last summer's rhythm to no avail. This summer is already different. This summer will have to sing its own song.
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don't be so hard on yourself, find yer copy of howl and we'll do better next time...
ReplyDeletelove
lefty
oh, you guys. i hate the allergies, too! four out of four of us have them. i do like my allegra, it seems to work. sometimes makes me too shaky, though.
ReplyDeletesorry you had to say goodbye to your friends, but i bet you'll stay in touch? postcards, e-mail and facebook are all pretty fun.
Sometimes we get hit with too much at once--no one's to blame--not even you!! And I'm so sorry about the moving away of your friends--even when they don't move far, it still leaves a big gaping hole. Yay--on the dust allergies, boo on all the rest! (We're thankfully free of allergies in our family--but we know plenty with 'em, and it seems pretty sucky!!)
ReplyDeleteToday was Nathan's last day of school, and so we're just now beginning to get a feel of what summer will be like for us. You're right--it's different every year. I'm finding that planning and/or scheduling is pretty useless. Best to just sink into it and go with the flow...