The final piece of summer fun Tetris

I cannot think of what to title this post. I guess I’ll see what I end up writing.

It’s Thursday. We got home from Hawaii late Monday night (really it was very early Tuesday morning). And by 1:30 Tuesday afternoon I was driving my son and his friend up to the Petaluma KOA.

It’s been a summer. I’ve taken advantage of our time off, that is for sure. This trip to the KOA with friends is the final piece of summer fun Tetris – I swear each trip, and each week of camp, fit together with almost no margins.

My daughter and her friends met us at the KOA. One of the moms brought them up, unpacked them and some food, and headed home. Just me five kids up here for three nights.

The first night was rough. I reserved the wrong kind of cabin, with no bunk bed room, just a pull out sofa bed for the boys. My son was so disappointed. It was the only cabin available so at least I didn’t have to be mad at myself for picking the wrong one. I just wish I had known so I could manage the boys’ expectations.

Since the boys were in the main room, we all woke up when they did, at 6am. I had barely fallen asleep at 2am when my son came in asking for something and I cried at the prospect of falling back asleep again. It took a while. So a 6am wake up was not welcome. Yesterday I was kind of a mess.

And then my husband called freaking out that the cat was shitting all over the house again. He had to catch him and bathe him and clean it all up. He almost cried. And I knew that feeling. It’s not good.

I was pretty upset. I hate being away for that kind of stuff – I’d much rather just deal with it myself. But he managed and he even called the vet late and they were open and suggested the cat might have a chicken allergy. They had already told us to only give him salmon wet food but hadn’t mentioned why, or asked about his dry food, which is also chicken based. He eats a ton of dry food.

So now my husband is keeping the dry food away from him (not easy when it’s all the other cat wants to eat and she likes to nibble at it all day) and we’re both feeling really hopeful that maybe a solution exists for this problem that has hijacked our whole summer. If it’s a food allergy it will also mean it’s not about us leaving. That would be amazing.

So cross your fingers that my cat is allergic to chicken. I sure am.

Yesterday the boys stayed at the pool for several hours. The girls just hang out mostly. They require no energy or supervision. It’s the boys I need to manage, and the interactions between the two groups. Keeping the boys at the pool for as long as possible helps with that.

The boys met another kid they have been biking around with and that also helps.

Last night we were all asleep by 11:30pm and no one woke up before 8:30am. It was divine and just what I needed. Then I took a little run around the KOA grounds and now I feel almost human. I even found chicken-free dry food to pick up on the way home.

Tomorrow we have to check out by 11am but I’m hoping we can stay at the pool for a bit (not technically allowed, but there is never anyone in here to monitor bracelets). Hopefully we’ll be home before the traffic gets bad. And then I have nothing planned for the whole weekend.

I’m so excited to do nothing.

I decided to keep the kids in camp. I just don’t want to deal with the bitching and moaning about screen time and being bored. They are getting their chill time right now, and with their friends in a fun place.

And then it’s a long weekend until their school starts. We’re officially at the end of our summer.

It was a really fun summer, but I can’t say it was restful or relaxing. Between the cat and my daughter’s ongoing health issues (which have been mostly more annoying than concerning and have require multiple phone calls with doctors and even picking up a new Rx at Maui’s Kaiser), it’s been hard to fully enjoy the amazing places we’ve visited. I’m just not good enough at compartmentalizing. And I’ve been the one managing all the people who were managing our cats. It’s just been a lot and I don’t feel ready to jump into a new school year. But I guess that doesn’t matter, because it will start regardless.