Monday Morning Journal

I have 15 minutes before I have to pick up Ian from his summer school program. Not a lot of time for witty post, but enough time for an update.

My children are scattered here and there this month. Ian has summer school in the morning for the rest of the month, two afternoons of daycare, and speech therapy. Jonah is in full time fancy camp until the rest of the week. Then I’ll have to watch them while working on my research project. I’m not sure how that’s going to work out.

The district provides a few hours of summer school for the special needs kids. It’s not enough, but it’s something. I wish that Ian could attend a regular camp with free time and games, but he still needs more speech therapy. He also can’t handle group instruction, so that means no CCD or soccer for him this fall. He’s going to have such a different childhood from his older brother. It’s not fair that he’s getting robbed of fun and independence, because he needs speech therapy. On the other hand, he might think he lucked out by not having to go to CCD.

I’m plugging away at my research project. All Sunday, I sent out surveys with a break mid-afternoon for the pool. Last night, I dreamt about e-mail addresses. I was alphabetizing them in my sleep.

Saturday, we had a splendid time in NYC. It was a perfect city day, warm with no humidity. It was so nice, that everybody else in the city left for the shore and the country. We even found a parking spot on the street. We roamed around Chelsea and the upper West Side. I picked up some vintage dessert plates at Fish’s Eddy. We visited the Museum of Natural History and ate ice-cream in Central Park. Hot pastrami sandwiches for dinner. And then crepes at street fair.

The kids were tired at the end of the trip. Suburban boys aren’t used to that much walking.

In the museum, I told Jonah that when he was little, I would come with him to the museum on wintery days, just to get out of our apartment. We would find a room with no crowds, like "The People of the Steppes." He would run around the room with his little buddy, Julia, and Julia’s mom and I would talk about life. I’m a little sad that he doesn’t remember it and that he’s losing his identity as a "city kid." He’s stopped telling people that he’s from New York City.

OK, off to pick up Ian. Some links and pictures when I return.

Oh, one more thing. Thanks for the comments on Online Guilty Pleasures. I picked up some new tricks from you. Of course, I have to mock you all for not listing blogs as a guilty pleasure. This stuff should not be taken too seriously either.