Ready... Set...

It’s the end of the school year and I am about to lose my mind. Every day there is another Important Event that threatens to be forgotten but cannot be missed: baseball games, graduation ceremonies, potlucks, birthday parties (why are there so many kids born in June?). There are final reports, final conferences, final performances. We race from one Important Event to the next while trying, and not quite managing, to keep up with the daily routine of making lunches, arriving on time to school, checking homework, eating dinner, bathing, sleeping.

I cannot wait for summer. And yet I haven’t had time to think about summer for ten seconds.

This summer we will be in Mexico.

In eight days we leave for Mexico.

 I should probably start packing.

How does one prepare to spend seven weeks in Mexico with an eight year old and a five year old? I am pretty sure my husband has already purchased our tickets and that the information is in our google calendar. I think I know where our passports are. I have money in the bank account. I can throw some clothes together in a jiffy (bathing suit, sundress, t-shirt, shorts, underwear, flip-flops). I’ll swing by Barnes and Noble and pick up two journals for the kids and some chapter books. They’ll probably sell sunscreen there. How hard can it be?

But how does one prepare MENTALLY to spend seven weeks in Mexico with an eight year old and a five year old? That is a task that requires more attention.

My husband is a Forest Carbon Analyst with the Nature Conservancy. This summer he will be working with the government of Mexico to develop their REDD (Reduced Emissions Deforestation and Degradation) programs, with a focus on measuring and monitoring carbon emissions within these projects. I think. I actually understand very little about what my husband does.

We will be joining him this summer, as faithful sidekicks and certain distractions, with the purpose of learning more about what he does. Also on our agenda are: see ruins, learn Spanish, eat beans and tortillas, drink licuados, visit the rain forest, and study iguanas. I am most looking forward is to exploring a new culture with my kids, more as visitors than as tourists, and to learning that there is far more to this world than meets the eye in Mt. Rainier, Maryland. But my primary objective is to get close to their father’s work. I want them to come away knowing what carbon is and why papa is working so hard to conserve it. I want them to understand that people are responsible for the environment all over the world, at many different levels, and to know how they might play a part in protecting their planet.

First, however, I need to find the roller-bags, do another load of laundry, and frost the cupcakes for the Final Baseball Game of the Year. Wish me luck.