Thirteen Year Old Boy Survives Three Weeks Unplugged!
My thirteen your old Boychild returned home last evening after 22 days away from home visiting with my family on the east coast of Canada.
Other than the occasional sleepover at a friend’s he’s never really been away from home and he’d never traveled outside of Ontario so this was all big happenings. Armed with a suitcase of clothing and a digital camera and some spending money he boarded a plane by himself to fly to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
During his holiday he’s gone to a car rally in Quebec - a 7 hr drive each way with one of his uncles,
attended the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo which was his first experience seeing an event in box seats with food being delivered. He really likes the food being delivered part. He’s gone over one of the world’s longest bridges to visit Prince Edward Island.
He’s eaten a LOT of seafood, gone out on the ocean in a friend’s yacht, and found his grandfather Blacha’s signature from when he arrived in Halifax when he immigrated to Canada from Poland after the second World War. He’s spent an afternoon at Peggy’s Cove which is thought to be the most photographed fishing village in the world.
I think he’s probably good and ready to come back to “civilization” though. First thing he did when he got off the plane last night was ask for pizza from his favourite little family owned pizza place near our house. The second thing he did was cuddle his cat.
And then he talked. For hours. My boy who can often go an entire day and say no more than 3 words (he’s the strong silent type) and who’s usually got an xbox 360 controller or a computer mouse in his hand sat and talked. And talked. Told us all the stories of things he’d seen, places he’d gone, people he’d met, food he’d eaten (food is always a popular subject when you’re a teenage boy), and how different everything was. How he loved the rolling hills of Prince Edward Island and how after living in Ontario all his life he’d never seen so many houses painted in all sorts of cheery (and often garish) colours as he’d seen in Nova Scotia.
He’s already planning his next trip.
And he didn’t plug back into the internet or the xbox 360 until he’d been home for hours. A successful trip indeed!
I’m glad that he survived
Nova Scotia is one of my favourite places in the world- if it wasn’t for the lack of autism support, we’d move out there in a minute!
A good friend of the family plays bagpipes in the Tattoo- I’ll have to tell him that someone saw him (although I’ll probably tell him that your son loved the music rather than the delivered food.)
I’m glad that he’s home safe and sound! I can’t wait to take our girls out there.
I’m so glad that Boychild made it home safely and had such an awesome time.
I can’t believe he talked…and talked…and talked!
Now, if we can get him to delete just one picture and not all the pictures from the digital camera it would be a good thing!
M,
What a wonderful experience, not just for your man-child but for you as well. Must feel so good to see your baby boy (let’s face it, they will ALWAYS be babies in our eyes!) have such a real world time of his life. I’m struggling with similar dilemma with my man-child who’s nine and a big strong silent type who plays way too much on his computer or gamecube. I have to drag him kicking and screaming outside to play in the backyard with his little brother and sister or to even go swimming in our pool or any function outside of the house. Whenever he does, he just loves it and has a similar experience that your son had and talks up a storm.
Great post and lesson for all of us parents who need to provide more real, natural experiences for our beloved little ones and not so little ones.
Pai
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That is really great. Our son spent the better part of the summer out of state with grandparents and cousins. We had a similar result, expect we drove to pick them up so for 4 hours straight we heard about how he saw Hulk Hogan and Dennis Rodman at a taping of Celebrity Wrestling or some such show. Quite entertaining.