website logo

Not Quite There Yet

There is a point in every child\’s life when they are teetering  on the brink of being a teenager and being a child, thus the expression “the tween years”.  Those years are the most unsettling for a child as well as a parent. Somehow I think it’s particularly hard for male children.  It seems that males have that “extra ego thing” going on where they think they should control everything and surely they know everything.  They don’t want to be \”treated like a baby\”. It’s funny because as a parent you can see them going back and forth between being a child and being a pseudo independent teenager. I think it\’s much harder having an older sister and being a male child during this period in life.  For that reason it was much easier for Yamil, him being the oldest and a male child. That really made him think that he had arrived, that he was truly “in charge”.  

I always hated when June came and school was out for the summer. That meant I had to find something to do with the children and of course with limited funds, summers were always quite challenging. Summer overnight camps can be nice and a great experience for children but I never could afford to send them so basically it was up to me to find ways to entertain them during the summer months. One of the nice things about living in Maryland is that they have community centers that have all kinds of programs for children. A lot of them are modestly priced but when you add multiple children to the mix, they too can become pricey. They do have some programs that are free offered in some of the neighborhood schools. The children were welcomed to come to the school in the mornings from about 9:00 until around 2:00 in the afternoon. They would have supervised games and crafts. I was so glad to have that option for the children when they were young. I think they were allowed to come up until the age of 13.  One year when Yamil was 12 (that makes Maya 10 and Nayda 7) I decided that they should go to camp for that part of the day and then they would be at home until I got off from work at 4:30pm.  They could walk to the school by themselves (which was just around the corner and down just a bit).  Every morning I would wake them up to get ready to go to camp. Well one night  while preparing the lunch for the next day, Yamil decided that he didn’t want to go to the camp the next day.  He felt that there were only babies there and he was old enough to stay by himself at home. I considered Yamil a pretty responsible child so I agreed to let him stay home while his sisters went to camp by themselves. The next day, Maya and Nayda got up, got ready, said goodbye to their brother and headed out for camp. I would guess that Yamil was really feeling good about himself at that point. He would have the whole house to himself for a good portion of the day. I wasn\’t too worried since I worked about a mile from the house and I knew I could be home in no time if something happened. The day went on as planned, or so it seemed.  Around 2:30 while receiving patients at work, I looked up to see Maya and Nayda coming through the door. Immediately I asked what happened and how they had gotten there. Apparently Yamil was locked in the bathroom and had been in there all day. He could hear them ringing the bell and knocking but of course he couldn’t let them in. (He yelled for them to go to the neighbor’s house and call me. They proceeded to go to the neighbor’s house and asked if they could use the phone to call. Maya sent Nayda to call while she waited outside. Nayda, being only 7 and not really understanding the plan, called the HOUSE phone number instead of my WORK phone number and when she got no answer, came back out and said nobody answered. I’ll never understand why, first of all, Nayda was sent to make the call, and second, why didn\’t they make sure she knew what number to call. After all, she was the baby. The neighbor offered to take them to my job to get the key. I quickly gave them the key and off they went to rescue Yamil. Once inside Yamil started yelling at Maya to get the tools so she could take the door knob off. Unable to complete the assignment, Yamil told her to call me at work. While waiting for me to come, she decided to try to feed him. She quickly perused the kitchen trying to find something suitable that would fit under the door. She managed to find some cheese and a pop tart and slipped them to him. She tried a piece of bread but it was too fat.  I arrived home to find Maya and Nayda standing outside of the bathroom door talking to Yamil. I got the door knob off in a couple of minutes. Once inside I saw that he had made a palette in the bathtub so he could take a nap while he waited. He had plenty of sheets to cover with. He was pretty disgusted – not to mention hungry!!!!  He told me that he got up in the morning and went to the bathroom and when he tried to open the door, the knob would turn all the way to allow the door to open. Of course, he didn’t have any tools in the bathroom so after exhausting all possibilities, he resigned himself to the fact that he would have to spend the entire day in the bathroom – no food, no TV, no phone, no video games – NOTHING! So much for being \”in charge\”. One thing for sure, life has its way of humbling you. Needless to say, the next morning when it came time for camp, Yamil was fully dressed, waiting at the front door for his sisters and off they went!!!  

 

3 Responses

  1. I truly agree with you regarding the challenges of “school out for the summer”. You and the kids got through it! Especially Yamil. I will share this story with a mom who is experiencing the same challenge this summer with her son.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *