Aaron's Summer

After the Year of the Lost Summer and over 200 days spent cooped-up at home in front of a computer there was no question in my mind that Aaron was ready to go to town and live la vida loca, 8-yr-old style, this summer. To me summer only means three things: vacation, vacation, vacation! Once the school year ended I started my bucket list of all Dad-and-Son summer things to do: baseball, swimming, ice cream (well, that one is mostly Dad, Aaron is not an ice cream eater) and FUN! Because, after all, in my book summer=fun.  

But Aaron looked at it differently.

He wanted to go back to school full time for the summer. Yup, you read that correctly.

“What did you say?,” I asked, dumbfounded.

“School, Dad. I want to go to school.”

“But summer school? You only go there if you have to.” I didn’t tell him I knew this first hand, I can think of several summers spent in a drab classroom with the rest of the class clowns and misfits.

Aaron fixed on me with his you’re-wasting-my-time look. 

”Well, you asked me what I wanted to do for summer, and I’m telling you, I want to go to summer school.”

I’ve never been one to take such a misguided understanding of summer lying down, so I immediately jumped in with an offer. Out of the blue I pulled a schedule that I felt would satisfy his need for drab classrooms and my need for him to have F.U.N. C’mon, you need to be able and go back in time and be able to say “Man, that was one crazy summer!”, right?

He heard me out and, kinda reluctantly, agreed. I’m sure he could see the benefits in this package. Some extra weekly Robux helped sweeten the deal.

We shook hands on it and the rest, as they say, is unfolding history.

Aaron’s summer looks like this:

• ½ day summer school, 5 days a week

• 2 days a week of tennis lessons

• 1 day a week of baseball instruction

• 2-3 days a week of swimming lessons

• 2 days a week of coding lessons- he wants to program his own games

• 1 day a week online Hungarian lessons with Hungarian teacher living in Hungary  (so Aaron and his mother, who is Hungarian, can talk behind my back. If they’re smiling and looking in my direction while speaking Hungarian, I prefer to think they are saying nice things about me).

Two weeks into his Summer of Study and Fun and I’m thinking I may have tried so hard to win this hand I did not fully consider the details...

Since this was my Grand Scheme my job is to drive Aaron and his friends to school, pick them up (I’m Carpool Dad) and take them to lunch 3-4 times a week. Then I spend the rest of each day driving him to all the other activities I so insisted he signed up for.

I am exhausted.  The Summer of Study and Fun and Heat Dome and Delta Variant (yes, let’s not forget all the other realities of living in 2021) has turned into a non-stop involuntary examination of the state of our freeways and the counting in seconds the actual time the traffic lights take to turn to green - we locals knowingly call them “Forever Lights”.

And yesterday Aaron casually told me want to start playing golf again. 

“What did you say?,” I asked, dumbfounded.

 “Golf, Dad. I want to go to play golf again.”

“But you said it’s a sport for old people!”  I sweated at the thought of playing golf in this heat and being his caddie because, bottom line is, I’m the one who ends up carrying all the gear.

Suddenly I started daydreaming of next summer and a sleepaway camp by a lake, where kids stayed at cabins and learned archery, fishing and tree climbing and held sing-alongs around a bonfire as they ate s’mores.

Just as sudden the reality of him sleeping in a cabin away from home brought me back to reality.

“Ok, golf it is. I’ll call them to set up a tee-time.”

I realized that, as exhausted as I was, some things were just not gonna happen under my watch. If he ever mentions going to a sleepaway camp I’ll encourage a backyard sleepaway. We’ll do s’mores on the BBQ.

Choosing a Sport

I think most fathers want to see their sons play a sport. When I was a kid, it was baseball. It’s a good thing I loved the game (I still do, I even collect cards!). Practicing baseball was never a chore.

I felt that Aaron would benefit from baseball too. But, unlike the days of my childhood when it was easy to find enough kids to play with at the ballpark on any given day, today it’s impossible to even find six! So I’ve settled on teaching him fundamentals, like catching and throwing.

And, as an added bonus,  it’s great exercise…for the parents, because you have to keep chasing the ball. Kids can’t throw straight.

It’s plain to see that soccer has replaced baseball as the neighborhood game. When I was a kid, we didn’t have soccer. Instead, growing up in the Midwest we played a lot of hockey too. That was the sport my dad wanted me to practice, which I did, and which I never liked.

Aaron playing soccer. He LOVES this sport.

Check out my podcast episode about choosing sports for kids:

Soccer is a sport kids are learning to play from 3 years of age, which is amazing. Aaron loves soccer and, like many kids his age, he’s been playing in a league for about 4 years.  I love the look on his face when he scores a goal, and when after he makes a great play and looks at me with a proud look on his face I just want to run on the field and give him a hug and kiss. (I don’t, of course, cool factor and all that)

In my search to help him find his niche sport we tried golf and he actually enjoys it. The problem is he thinks I’m his caddy and has me working for him. There’s a point in which my shoulder just wants to quit.

We also do tennis, which he likes too. He has been playing twice a week but in the summer, with the temperatures in the 100’s, it gets harder to play…Not for him but for me. After we play, I need a good nap.

When it comes to football he likes throwing the ball around - and that’s about it.

I’m sure I’ll continue to encourage him to do more sports (he just started swimming lessons) and we’ll keep discovering what works and what doesn’t. I’ve come to realize that ultimately it’s not the sport I’d like him to practice but the one(s) that he chooses to do. As gung-ho as I once was on him learning only baseball I see now that it’d be an error to impose on him such expectations. Good attitude towards the sports you practice leads to great sportsmanship and I think that beats stealing all bases. Well, almost.

So for now we’ll be concentrating on baseball, soccer and tennis. And Roblox as his indoor game - I hear it’s really good for thumb dexterity.