The Aerie
I'm off, five days away. Still haven't decided if I'm going to take
the laptop or go cold turkey. If I take the laptop I could get a
little recreational writing done. If I leave the laptop home I could
get more rest. Hard to say which I need more, although everyone says I
need the rest more.
It used to be that getting away was a break from the hectic life of
raising three kids. But that benefit has been diminishing as the kids
get older. They're less work and more fun everyday. Of course, all
Minnesota kids are above average, but my kids are REALLY above
average.
My eldest son is a sensitive, thoughtful, and brilliant boy. He's fun
to talk to, and breathtakingly beautiful with his mothers face and
eyes. He's got an amazing ability to construct things from written
instructions, totally mindboggling to me. I simply don't learn from
written instructions at all. And he's also an interesting thinker: all
his life he's titled his statements. He'll say "Dad, here's something
I don't like..." or "Dad, you know what's interesting about trees?" I
don't think he's aware of just how smart he is.
[tree.jpg] My eleven year old daughter is lovely and sweet, and
terribly smart. She also has immense creative talent. She's been
drawing all her life and is quite good. Her tree, intended for a
website she was thinking of building, drawn about eight months ago. I
like the spare manner in which she treated the leaves, tree and
grounds. Rather than filling in all the colors, she just left the
outline. The tree is the elm in our back yard, accurately rendered
down to the missing limb at the primary crotch of the tree. And lately
she's taken up giving her poor, tired parents backrubs, and frankly
she's better at it than a lot of adults.
My youngest is simply brilliant, a vibrating tuning-fork of energy,
sensitive, intelligent, observant, and determined. The world had
better watch out for him when he grows up, there won't be anything
that he can't do. He's very insightful and comes up with very
interesting comments... and to add insult to injury, tomorrow is his
birthday! We gave him his presents tonight and had his family party
Sunday, so tomorrow he will have his party at school.
With kids like this at home, there isn't a lot of benefit from
"getting away" anymore. About the only thing left to get away from is
the work.
Which kind of makes it reasonable to leave the laptop home, I guess.
Why bring the work and leave the kids when I'd rather bring the kids
and leave the work?
But we'll see. I would like to do some writing-for-fun.
Either way it will be time to head off in a few hours, so I'd better
get going. But I'm missing my family already...
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Posted by Albatross at November 20, 2002 12:00 AM