Okay, I’ll admit that I miss my guys. They’ve been at Boy Scout camp since Sunday. My husband is the Scoutmaster, so my entire house is quiet. Well, I still have the cat meowing at me at 11:30 at night and the dog sighing this afternoon because I haven’t taken him for his promised walk yet.
I had asked my husband about the night when family usually visits. It’s Friday, today, but earlier, Mike had said that it might be a bit far for me to travel. The camp is near Mt. Rainier. How far could it be? That mountain hangs over the water whenever I cross one of the floating bridges on a sunny day. I started thinking that maybe I shouldn’t go because it would might give my boy a reason to miss his bed and come home early. I looked on the sheet for parents and on the website. I didn’t see anything about visiting in either place.
I looked up the trip on my iPhone map. It’s a three hour drive to get there!
It’s a bit much to think of driving six hours to eat dinner with my son and turn around to go home, don’t you think? I had thought it was an hour and a half away, two hours at most.
All week, I’ve been checking my text messages, which are sporadic because of poor coverage and email, which is a tiny bit better, but still unsatisfying. Yesterday, I was called in from my hike with a friend because I had to run home and look up a phone number for a sick boy’s mom. I get that. He’d been pretty sick for two days. His mom drove down to get him last night.
Today, I got an email from Mike that I’m to come pick up Nick because he’s sick but that he wants to wait until after the campfire because he’s planned a skit with his friends.
So, …
I’m supposed to drive three hours to a remote camp, eat dinner, hang out, go to a campfire that would likely end at 10:30pm, and only then drive three hours home with my sick kid? Right.
I’m supposed to sit in a moving car the same amount of time it would take me to get to the Western border of Montana? Absolutely.
I’m supposed to get this sick kid home at 1:30 in the morning when he would have been leaving camp the next morning anyway? Totally.
Oh man.
The hardest part is that my son must have been informed at some point that this scenario was a possibility. And who was it that informed him of this?
It was my generous, patient, kind, and ever enduring husband.
I sent both a text and an email that I will come pick up my sick boy to bring him home. I will.
But if I come, we’re leaving camp at 7:30 pm. He’ll miss the campfire, his skit, and possibly snacks that come afterward. And I’ll be back to being the mean mom, the villain, the one who doesn’t care.
It sucks being the mean one. It does.
Thank you for listening, jules
wavesoverthebow 