So my 10 year old son went on a school trip today to Tampa. He will be visiting the Kennedy Space Center, watching a movie in 3D, eating at a nice buffet restarurant and then going to Busch Gardens, all on a 3 day trip. The original trip was for Washington, but this was cancelled due to there not being enough kids and they did not raise enough money for the trip (the economy had a lot to do with this). So, the school decided to take the kids to a local trip instead. After all, theyw roked really hard to collect what they had already collected and they did not want the money to go to waste.
Now here I am at work, nervous, scared and mssing my boy. With so many stories on the news, I can't help but feeling this way. Not to mention my son has never been away from us besides staying at his counsins house. But they are family and I trust them and they lived close by. This time he is far, with his friends and a few teachers. I can only hope I have done a good job at making sure he can handle himself on his own for a few days. This is a good experience for him, he will learn a lot and have tons of fun, but as a father I worry because it's what I'm suppose to do. It's things like this that make me wonder how any parent (mother or father) can have so little care for their kids. How, for example, my sister-in-laws ex-husband has barely ever seen his son and made very few attempts at having a relationship with him. My brother, who is separated for his kids mom does what he can to see them, and he does a great job at hiding his emotions but I don't know how he deals with it considering they live in defferent Sates. I suffer just thinking about the idea of me not being in the same house as my kids, let alone the same State.
I love my kids and some day they will have to leave the nest. I can only hope I am good enough of a father that will make them want to come see me as often as possible. I don't have that kind of relationship with my father, and I can't figure out (regardless if he is crazy or not) why he aloud our relationship to crumble in this manner.
May God watch over my son and his friends. May they enjoy their parent-free time. I can't wait till Friday night when he comes back. I look forward to holding him in my arms and hugging him. And I am sure his little brother will be missing him too. He, too, will eventually leave when he's old enough. Oh Lord, to think I will have to go thru this again.