August 11, 2023: The Return of the Kid

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13 days after my son was born, I left him… to go to work. I stood home 2 weeks then returned to my job, leaving my son at home with my wife; I hated doing it, but… we have to do what we have to do right? Then there was the first trip for work; can’t recall the date on that. I don’t travel much, but when I did have to go away for work for the first time since my son was born, that was the first day I wasn’t with him; we still talked though. In fact, there hasn’t been a day that’s gone by in 11+ years that I have not talked to my son; that all changed this week. My son went to sleep away camp for the first time.

What the hell is “sleep away” camp? Well, it’s just as it sounds; my son would be at camp, sleeping away from home. It wasn’t just that though. Yes, my son would be gone from Sunday afternoon to Friday morning; I know he was going to have a ball, especially since he would be staying in a cabin with a bunch of kids from his class. The only issue I had with it was that we couldn’t talk to him. Yeah, our only communication for the week would be via email or physical mail; crazy right? It felt weird to say the least. That first night/morning without him… I felt lost. When you center your life so much around your kid, and then he’s not there… what the hell do we do now?

Thankfully, his absence would only be temporary; I couldn’t bear to think about the alternative. Because of that, I suggested a Vegas trip for my wife and I; she declined. She wanted to go away… up to Wisconsin to stay near where my son was… haha. We didn’t do either. In fact, we pretty much did nothing… and it was everything I thought it could be; I hope you’ve seen Office Space… Still, without my son around, I didn’t really know what to do. I missed him big time.

We picked him up on Friday morning; he saw us walking up; he smiled… he was getting that last game of basketball in. After wrapping that up, he came up to us; he hugged my wife for a full minute. Then he came to me and gave me a hug. I was so happy to see him; I think we were all happy. The big 3 were reunited.

He DID have a good time; other than the strict rules about when to go to sleep and when to get up, I think he had a blast. I will tell you this: I don’t think I’ve ever seen him more exhausted. There would be a couple meltdowns on this day, but I didn’t care; it was the return of the kid, and all was well in the world…

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