Summer of Adventure

I told the kids we were going to have our Summer Of Adventure in 2011. It doesn't take much to create an adventure with two boys. Here's what we've done so far:

1. We went to a Giants game with fireworks (and box seats!)
2. We went swimming in the suburbs of Terra Linda (with a bouncy house on top of the pool)
3. Rode a ferry to Sausalito
4. Got stalked by evil seagulls at Baker Beach
5. Swam in the city of San Francisco at my friend's swanky condo, under the glare of tenants who apparently prefer silence at their pool  
6. Walked barefoot to get ice cream sundaes on a hot summer night (ok, not cold - it's San Francisco after all)

And here are the things the kids did on these adventures that they'd never done before:

1. Let a cockatoo sit on each of their bony little boy right shoulders
2. Jump off a diving board
3. Actually SEE fireworks (we're always too lazy to fight the city crowds at the Embarcadero in San Francisco so they'd never seen fireworks from a vantage point where they could actually ... well, see them)
4. Eat fried clams
5. Attempt to outrun birds
6. Take pictures of Alcatraz while being sprayed with mist off the Bay

There's more I'm certain, but that's a pretty good start just a few weeks into summer.

Next up we've got Lake Tahoe and Atlantic City.  The Jersey Shore will prove to be the culmination of summer fun replete with fishing, water skiing, salt water taffy and surf lessons with the cousins, uncles and aunties not to mention grandparents. The best part of all the shenanigans besides all the fun is that the fun, for me, is guilt free.

For years I let the fact that my soon to be ex-husband didn't like a lot of activity constrain our adventurousness. His desire to stay close to home and keep the hustle and bustle to a minimum, set the tone for the family. He was passive aggressively controlling in his need to keep things low key. And while I believe it to have been driven (primarily) by a simple lack of motivation, and general low energy level, as well as a straightforward preference for being at home, it came out as the morally superior mode of behavior (that's the passive aggressive part).  In short, it came out as judgment. Doing stuff was spoiling the kids, wasting money, wasting gas, killing the environment. I was bad. He was good. Period.

I bought it. I stayed home. I invented things to do in the house and in the neighborhood.  We baked cookies, we played catch, we saw movies. All fun things, for sure. On occasion we strayed further from home, dragging dad along, but he became sullen in the process.

I wanted to explore, to go, to keep going, to be in the world doing stuff. However small. I'm a go-go kind of girl.  I am aware that my go-go may be restlessness masquerading as energy and enterprise, but it is who I am and my go-go went idle for far too long.

A ferry ride is an adventure! Fried clams are a Howard Johnson's sentimental blast from the past.  We bused, we boated, we ate, we conquered.  And at the end of the day, we had sun on our faces, candy stuck in our teeth and pictures of cockatoos resting on shoulders with curly haired, wild-eyed boys beaming with giddy delight.

I am learning to revel in the freedom from judgment. I am liberated from the whispered digs and disapproving glances.  From the scrutiny that inevitably positioned me as morally, ethically and emotionally inferior because I prefer action over languor. I am enjoying my kids. After an outing, I am not anxious and awaiting the assessment that I was bad. That I had fun with my kids just to make him look boring and lazy. Nor am I hoping for the bestowal of goodness. For the grant that I am nice and worthy and a good mom. I waited for that for a very long time. I didn't get it, no matter how I tried. And now I just have to believe it for myself.

Atlantic City...here we come.