The melancholy side of August

I love summer but the last few weeks of August have this melancholy feeling. It’s still hot and sunny but I’m always aware that school is just around the corner and that our somewhat leisurely lifestyle is about to make a 180 degree turn.

In just a few weeks, we will be tied to the calendar again. We’ll be driving our kids to piano lessons and dance lessons and whatever other activity my kids have. I’ll have PTO meetings and my own classes to teach and I’ll probably be substitute teaching. (This may account for my melancholy).

Sure, it’s a beautiful day today and our big plan is to walk over to pick up William from camp and go get some ice cream. But the end of the summer is looming over us like some dark cloud on the horizon.

I’m starting teaching in just three weeks and my kids are starting about five days later. Yesterday, my soon to be fifth grader got a letter from school with a list of supplies and two projects. (He has to read a book and construct a device that will allow him to drop a raw egg from a crane without the egg breaking).

That’s all fine but it’s another reminder that the end is near. On the other hand, Mom’s Diner will get to close its 24-hour service when the kids are back in school and there’ll be less time for sibling squabbling. So I’m pretty sure I’ll be ready for them to go back. In fact, once September comes along I’m going to be counting down the days.

Still, I can’t help but see each day now as one step closer on the road back to reality. It makes me appreciate summer but it also makes the dog days of summer bittersweet.

My son William’s camp had their talent show today and the 5th and 6th grade boys lined up with their cool shades on to dance and show off. There was my son Will looking cocky.

Then the counselor shouted out to the crowd, “And here is Raymond DeVoe doing the worm.” Out Will came without so much as a correction and did a fabulous worm to much applause.

Still, I felt a little sad for Will. Many people in the crowd were no doubt thinking that Raymond was the terrific dancer. It's too bad that despite his hugely outgoing personality and confidence (not to mention dancing skills) Will is still mixed up with our quiet oldest child. Sigh.

I know it would be bad form to shout out, "That's Will, stupid." I just hope this is one of those times where I'm annoyed while my kid just shrugs the whole thing off. It might be that my youngest son has so much confidence that he just doesn't care. And if that's the case, "Whopee!"

Dangers to Kids From Chlorinated Swimming Pools

You worry about your kids getting ticks outside. You're anxious about whether they'll get sunburned. You wring your hands about their diet and you fret over whether you should get them off that darn computer. And now here’s one more thing to worry about: the pool.

That’s right, the pool. The swimming pool that we’ve all been turning to in this hot weather. The place where you and your kids are happily splashing and your kids are practicing their best cannonballs. That pool.

It turns out that breathing the air around chlorinated pools may be leading to asthma and other respiratory ailments in kids. This makes sense because chlorine is a pretty heavy duty chemical but it’s sure to be a source of frustration to parents like me who for years made their kids take swimming lessons, who dip in the pool every day and who can’t help wondering: Is there any activity or place under the sun that is safe anymore?

One recent study of 121 6 to 12-year-old boys by doctors at the University College Cork in Ireland found that the more years boys had swum in an indoor pool, the more likely they were to have asthma.

The researchers said that the chlorine Products used in swimming pools, including chlorine gas, could interact with organic products (pee, sweat, hair) to produce nitrogen trichloride, “a known respiratory irritant,” according to the Irish Times.

Several other studies have had similar findings. One 2006 study of youth athletes in Quebec, for example, found that young “high-level swimmers,” coughed and wheezed more than indoor soccer players. About 30 percent of “elite” swimmers have asthma, according to some estimates, according to the New York Times Well blog.

Some research also shows that babies and toddlers shouldn’t be exposed to indoor pools at all with toddlers showing the same effects from indoor pools, as you would find in smokers, according to the Times. (Again this makes sense but only makes all of us wince when we think of all those Mommy and Me classes).

Experts say that casual swimmers probably aren’t at much risk and most seem to suggest that indoor pools are more dangerous than outdoor ones. However, one study of 847 European school children found an increased risk of asthma and respiratory ailments among children who use outdoor pools the most.

Since we happen to have an outdoor pool that we use every day in the summer, I don’t know what I should do with this information. The experts say that parents should keep a look out for respiratory ailments among swimmers and have them see a doctor but this seems obvious or as any kid might tell you, “Duh.”

The authors of the Irish study admitted the study was small and recommended better ventilation and more attention to hygiene at pools. One doctor told the Times that he advises swimmers to avoid choosing colleges where they can smell the chemicals in the pools before they get to the pool.

All this is well and good but still frustrating. As the mother of two boys with asthma who for years took swimming lessons at indoor pools, what the heck l am I supposed to do with this information? Should I bring a fan into the building next time my kids take swimming lessons? Should I run around dispensing swim diapers to make sure no pee gets into the pool? Gimme a break.

If your kid is a swimmer who spends much of his time either practicing or attending swim meets, this is a study guaranteed to make you want to bang your head against the diving board in frustration.

Sometimes I think it’s better to be blissfully uninformed. Unless you make your kid wear a gas mask while he splashes in the pool, it just might be better not to know about this one.

Camping: Rain, Bears, Outhouses, Oh My

It was a camping trip that affirms all your worst fears about camping, while at the same time demonstrating once again why you keep coming back.

Best time: singing songs around the campfire and making s’mores with seven boys who thought they’d died and gone to heaven. Worst times: an outhouse so malodorous and disgusting that we dubbed it “hell.”

We had one beautiful night sitting by the campfire under the stars and one night of rain that left us rushing to erect a tarp so we could stay dry by the campfire. We had one night of blissful rest in our cozy tent and one night of tossing and turning while the rain dripped over our sleeping bags from our not-so-waterproof tent roof.


One reason to love camping? Camping is one of the few places, maybe the only place, where there are no computer games or laptops and no phone calls. Just the quiets sound of seven boys from ages 2 to 12 playing with each other. OK, so maybe it wasn’t so quiet, but all that noise doesn’t seem so bad when you’re outside.

The main thing camping did for us was to bring us together. My three brothers and I never get to spend so much time together by ourselves and it’s rare that we have all of the next generation: the seven cousins together. Our own parents weren’t around and now we were the people in charge. It was a strange feeling but we all made it work.

It was worth everything to see the kids playing together. There was 2-year-old Cole and 4-year-Robbie play inside a box like they had landed inside a magic spaceship. There were the “big” kids putting an arm around the younger ones to herd them back to campsite or away from the fire.

Sure, we had to worry about black bears getting into our food. We had to keep constant watch over the younger kids around the fire and the road. We had to put up with walking to “hell” when nature called. Naturally, we found out that we had left behind the syrup and the salt and an entire bag of bread. But our kids were so hungry, nobody noticed.

Yes, we did come home with quite a bit of laundry, including three bags of wet clothes and dozens of items smelling like wood smoke. But it’s a small price to play to be able to sit around the campfire and sing.

It was all worth it when my 12-year-old nephew who’s never shown much interest in family activities, talked about how much fun he was having and asked if we could go next year.

I figure that if you include the preparation and the laundry and the clean up, our two-night camping trip takes about a week of work for preparation and clean-up. But that’s not so much when you consider that it’s the one weekend the kids will be talking about it all year round.