Speaking of babies...

Last night, D and I were talking about how hard it would be to go on vacation with a baby, slowing you down, fussing and just being bad travelers in general. He decided he doesn't want a baby for that reason. This led to a discussion about how hard babies are to take care of in any situation, and how one should really want a baby before they are born. I asked him if he knew how to NOT have a baby. He just seemed confused. Thus the need for a Lesson:
#1 - by not having sex. "oh, yeah."
#2 - using a condom if you do have sex. "what's a condom?"
WHAAAT?!?!? It honestly hadn't really occurred to me that he wouldn't know what a condom was. At 12, I probably didn't. However, that was before AIDS was on the mainstream radar. I also went to a parochial school and was not very, um, worldly. But a boy currently in public junior high who doesn't know what that is? Crazy. I think the lesson for me is that, of course, it is very important for me to keep the lines of communication open regarding sexual issues. Also, that despite lots of scary media coverage about kids and sex, things really aren't that different than it was when I was a kid. He's still quite innocent and thinks about girls, but doesn't have much opportunity to shed that innocence. Thankfully!

Our Trip West

Recently, I heard someone say that once you have kids, you don't go on vacation anymore. You take trips. More work and a lot less fun and/or relaxing. D is a surprisingly good travel companion as far as driving is concerned. Good thing, because for our trip last week, we drove to visit my sister who was staying in Oklahoma City, about a 16 hour drive.
We stopped in St. Louis the first night, and the plan was to explore the city the next day. We went to the very fun City Museum in the morning. After lunch, D refused to go to see the Arch. I think he was afraid that he would be forced to go to the top. I did want to do that, but I wouldn't have forced him. I don't know if I quite buy his "fear of heights". I don't really have any phobias, though, so I guess I'm not very sympathetic or good at understanding. So, we checked out the graffiti down the street and headed to our next hotel. He was a little obsessed with going swimming every day. Grandma let us use her atlas, so there was some map reading going on. He has very shaky understandings of geography and the differences between cities and states and how everything is organized. We had a pretty good time overall, and had a nice visit with the family. D LOVES being a big cousin. It makes him feel very important and he loves being adored by the baby. He played pretty much the whole time with his toddler cuz, and had a blast.
He has been taking a new medication, and it seems to be working great for the aggressive part of his ADHD. Don't really know about how it'll be with the concentrating and schoolwork stuff, though. Time will tell. But there were shockingly few tantrums or ODD behavior, even when he couldn't buy something he wanted (a big time trigger, usually).
Tomorrow, we go get his new schedule for school. I am nervous. He will be starting a new school this year. Our district combined two Jr. Highs, and his is the one that got closed. Now he will have to take a bus. I have hope that things will go well, but I won't be holding my breath. He is very unhappy about the change, and I'm hoping once things get going he will get over it. I wish we could have just a little bit more summer, but it will be good to have a schedule again. Neither of us is especially good with wide open days.