Favorite part of summer

Mamakat's Totally Awesome World Famous Prompt:  Ask your child what their favorite part of Summer has been and then blog about it.

 
I asked my son to tell me about his favorite part of summer. Easy blog post, I figured! We are traveling about and having 'adventures', after all.  How many kids get to put their hand into a dinosaur's footprint? He got to dig for fossils, and climb big rocks, and clamber over rocks in a river, and climb steep hills.  Surely that will be my child's favorite part of summer. 

I've scheduled play dates for my son this summer. Never mind that my parents never scheduled play dates for me.  Never mind that I spent years ridiculing parents who "scheduled" time to play for their children instead of just letting them be free range children as God intended. Never mind that most of the people that I know have children about to graduate from high school. Never mind that the last time I went on a "play date" with my son, he ended up taking off his shoes, socks and pants in the middle of the tunnel in the play area.   I scheduled THREE play dates for my boy, just so he could have fun playing with someone else. 

Surely that will be my child's favorite part of the summer.

I've sat on the floor for over an hour, playing "The Skylanders Invade The Batcave and Give the Joker Such a Smack While the Hulk Eats Chicken".  (And yes, that game completely made me think of Leeroy Jenkins of WoW legend.)  My knees screamed as though they were facing a chainsaw, and I lost circulation in my ankles, but Superman defeated WamShell so that all would be well with the world.  It took me about twenty minutes to get back up from the floor, but that wasn't the point.

Surely that will be my child's favorite part of the summer.

I bribed my mother to use her id card so we could get on the base and Zane could see the Taj Mahal and look at all the jets that regularly fly over our house. 

Source: en.wikipedia.org via Tina on Pinterest

 
Surely that will be my child's favorite part of summer.  

We went to a Scorpions game, where Zane saw fireworks on the Fourth of July.  One of the Scorpions players gave Zane a new soccer ball.  He got to dance with the drum corps that performed at half time.  He got to attend two soccer clinics and practice soccer with two of his friends. (Does that count as a play date?  I think that I totally should get to count that!) 

Surely that will be my child's favorite part of the summer.

We took Zane to a British Soccer camp, where a real live British person coached him and didn't yell at him a single time.  He got personalized attention, which is the very bestest kind, I am told.  He learned to kick the ball using the correct part of the foot.  He got to keep 'alligators' from eating the soccer ball. He got to run around the soccer fields to his hearts content. 

Surely that will be my child's favorite part of the summer.


We are going to the Lego Discovery Center.  We are going to take in a Major league soccer game.  We are going to a birthday party on the Comal River. We will probably hit Sea World.  Surely one of these will be my child's favorite part of summer. 

"Son, what is your favorite part of summer?"

No answer...because my child was playing Where's My Water? on my phone. I had to say his name three times before he looked up. 

"What is your favorite part of summer?"

I'll give him credit, the boy actually appeared to be thinking about it.  The wheels did appear to be turning and there were no visible signs of stress. 

"Turtleman."   Zane had finally spoken.

"Turtleman?"  I was speechless.

"Yes. Turtleman."  

"We took you to see an entire park full of dinosaurs and a river bed full of dinosaur tracks...and Call of the Wildman is your favorite thing about summer?"

"Yes."

I think that I should have face palmed at that point, but Larry says that would only have encouraged him