Favorite Part of Summer

It's been a hazy summer for me, what with finishing chemo and just wanting to sleep all the time.  I've tried to participate in activities as much as I am able, I just don't seem to have the get up and go running just yet. I've missed the summer, including my 50th birthday.

I've slept, and if I'm honest, I've also whined a bit, because I really hate being sickly and unable to do all the things I'm used to doing.  I've felt guilty about not being always available to my son, guilty that I'm unable to keep up with the housekeeping, guilty that I'm not the one doing the shopping, or keeping the family appointments.  That's what Daddy is for, to pick up the slack when I can't.  Larry's done the shopping and the cleaning and the child rearing when he isn't busy chauffeuring me to doctor's appointments and hospital visits.  I don't have any idea what I would do without him.

And Larry and Zane have bonded over Nerf.

They didn't have Nerf when I was a kid.  We just used balls, rocks, sticks, and other projectiles.  I remember seeing Nerf footballs being thrown about at some point in my teens, but that was it. Now Nerf has extended their empire. These days, Nerf has these soft darts that shoot out of cross bows, guns, blasters, and whatever.  Nerf even makes these items in purple and pink for the girls who are into The Hunger Games and such.

Larry and Zane have spent hours watching YouTube videos devoted to "unboxing" new Nerf guns and showing them off.  Apparently Australia has a huge Nerf following, because those guys post tons of videos.  The men in the house have driven all over San Antonio searching every Target and Walmart for new Nerf items and exclusives.  The two of them will sit on the living room floor almost every night and look at their different Nerf weapons, discussing tactics and replacing batteries.

The one rule?  Safety glasses are required.  

They've played a version of Capture the Flag in the house.  Larry even spent a couple of days fixing up the back yard with tarps and other items to create an area where Zane and his friend Austin teamed up against him in an all out Nerf war.  This involved about two hours of loading up all the Nerf Guns and the Nerf clips and setting up the Nerf Rhino Blaster(the Nerf equivalent of a mounted machine gun) on a table in the middle of the yard so whoever could get to it would be able to use it. 

Of course, the Nerf fights end when all the bullets, darts, etc., have been fired.  Which is about five minutes after the battle begins.  Then there's the "Who is going to pick up all 30,000 of these darts?" argument between the boy and his father, which can last another thirty minutes.

The boy loves it.  The daddy loves it.

I'm okay with it.  I wish that I could participate a bit more, but my knowledge in this area is so limited that the one time I did pick up a Nerf gun, I accidentally shot Zane in the butt with a dart.  Hopefully he won't need therapy for that some day.

I miss the days when Zane would climb up in my lap and watch a movie with me, or when he wanted me to read to him.  I'm a little(okay, a lot) angry that cancer has robbed me of almost a year of my son's growing years.  I begrudge the loss of that year, but the upside is that I'll be around to see him grow up into the man he will become.

That makes me smile, even as I give in to my fatigue and nod off again. 


 
3. Ask your child what their favorite part of Summer has been and then write about it.  

I'm trying to get back into the swing of blogging, and what better place to start than here?

Favorite part of summer

Mamakat's Totally Awesome World Famous Prompt:  Ask your child what their favorite part of Summer has been and then blog about it.

 
I asked my son to tell me about his favorite part of summer. Easy blog post, I figured! We are traveling about and having 'adventures', after all.  How many kids get to put their hand into a dinosaur's footprint? He got to dig for fossils, and climb big rocks, and clamber over rocks in a river, and climb steep hills.  Surely that will be my child's favorite part of summer. 

I've scheduled play dates for my son this summer. Never mind that my parents never scheduled play dates for me.  Never mind that I spent years ridiculing parents who "scheduled" time to play for their children instead of just letting them be free range children as God intended. Never mind that most of the people that I know have children about to graduate from high school. Never mind that the last time I went on a "play date" with my son, he ended up taking off his shoes, socks and pants in the middle of the tunnel in the play area.   I scheduled THREE play dates for my boy, just so he could have fun playing with someone else. 

Surely that will be my child's favorite part of the summer.

I've sat on the floor for over an hour, playing "The Skylanders Invade The Batcave and Give the Joker Such a Smack While the Hulk Eats Chicken".  (And yes, that game completely made me think of Leeroy Jenkins of WoW legend.)  My knees screamed as though they were facing a chainsaw, and I lost circulation in my ankles, but Superman defeated WamShell so that all would be well with the world.  It took me about twenty minutes to get back up from the floor, but that wasn't the point.

Surely that will be my child's favorite part of the summer.

I bribed my mother to use her id card so we could get on the base and Zane could see the Taj Mahal and look at all the jets that regularly fly over our house. 

Source: en.wikipedia.org via Tina on Pinterest

 
Surely that will be my child's favorite part of summer.  

We went to a Scorpions game, where Zane saw fireworks on the Fourth of July.  One of the Scorpions players gave Zane a new soccer ball.  He got to dance with the drum corps that performed at half time.  He got to attend two soccer clinics and practice soccer with two of his friends. (Does that count as a play date?  I think that I totally should get to count that!) 

Surely that will be my child's favorite part of the summer.

We took Zane to a British Soccer camp, where a real live British person coached him and didn't yell at him a single time.  He got personalized attention, which is the very bestest kind, I am told.  He learned to kick the ball using the correct part of the foot.  He got to keep 'alligators' from eating the soccer ball. He got to run around the soccer fields to his hearts content. 

Surely that will be my child's favorite part of the summer.


We are going to the Lego Discovery Center.  We are going to take in a Major league soccer game.  We are going to a birthday party on the Comal River. We will probably hit Sea World.  Surely one of these will be my child's favorite part of summer. 

"Son, what is your favorite part of summer?"

No answer...because my child was playing Where's My Water? on my phone. I had to say his name three times before he looked up. 

"What is your favorite part of summer?"

I'll give him credit, the boy actually appeared to be thinking about it.  The wheels did appear to be turning and there were no visible signs of stress. 

"Turtleman."   Zane had finally spoken.

"Turtleman?"  I was speechless.

"Yes. Turtleman."  

"We took you to see an entire park full of dinosaurs and a river bed full of dinosaur tracks...and Call of the Wildman is your favorite thing about summer?"

"Yes."

I think that I should have face palmed at that point, but Larry says that would only have encouraged him