Ok, it's not going so well, for me that is. My daughter is off to camp for the first time. The morning of was hard and scary for her, truthfully I just wanted to start crying and say ok, just stay home. Instead we talked it through, came up with a plan I hope she uses if she's not enjoying herself (no cell coverage or wifi, and she's four hours away for 3 nights). Truth is I miss her, I worry that others may not see what a generous, kind loving girl she is. However this is a leadership camp, it's supposed to be positive, fun and team building. It's different than when she goes to her Dads. She'll text and call, she reassures me from there she's having fun and doing well, and when she's not we work through it knowing she will be home shortly. Ugh, that's all I got until she gets home and hopefully tells me she DIDN'T miss me as much as I missed her.
Then this happened (not the half dead yard, clearly I ignore that, but the skate ramp removal).
Off it went
This was bittersweet. The mini ramp had become an eye sore, as well as a constant reminder of a broken promise to my son.
The summer of 2010 I went away to Chelan for the weekend and came home to this in my driveway.
Three pieces of a skate ramp. My emergency cash on hand raided, and now a ramp was going into my backyard. I was a little mad that this wasn't discussed but that quickly went away seeing how incredibly excited my son was. He was a good skater, did it for hours and we conveniently live between both the indoor and outdoor skate park.
Fast forward three months later and my husband leaves us. Now I was put in the position of being the sole caregiver, provider for my children and home, scary and at first overwhelming. I had enough on my plate trying to coordinate getting my children to school while working (remember my sister came to the rescue and would pick Lo up from the hospital and drop her off). I had to quickly prioritized, kids care first, groceries, meals and laundry next, house cleaning, the yard was at the last of my list, and the two things I had to accept I couldn't handle or take care of at the time were the hot tub, and a skate ramp. The ramp meant so much to my son, so I asked his Dad if he would at least help cover (or winterize) it for us and in the spring give it the needed maintenance, he promised our son he would do so. We waited, and eventually did a haphazard job trying to cover it ourselves, needless to say the winter wasn't kind, I asked again for help, again was told yes for our son, a summer went by and no skating because the simple repairs weren't made, another winter goes by without getting covered, the next summer rolls around the ramp is rotting before us, this summer I explained to my son I have asked and gotten nowhere, it's up to him, if he wants it fixed he will need to ask, another year rolls around and still nothing, now my dad steps up (because he's good like that) and offers to repair it with my son, the only catch is he will need to call and set it up and be willng to help and learn, this time my son never followed through, he was over it.
We were both a little sad watching it go. As a parent you feel for your kids when they get disappointed in life. To see my son so excited that he and his Dad had gone and gotten a ramp (I think he was in disbelief they did it), but then to get let down so shortly there after when he realized this was never going to get fixed, he would never be inviting his friends over to skate, or practicing new tricks he learned on you tube, he would likely never get to use this ramp again. When it left this week I asked him if he was sad. He said "a little, but he was relieved it was finally gone". He knew it had to go, and dreaded the work to take to get it out....good bye ramp, and may this always be a lesson for my son, when you give someone your word you need stand behind it.
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment