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My Summer

 I hadn't known this one year ago, but a kind of "conquer-your-fear" therapy exists for four-year-olds.


My son spent the summer in an informal "social anxiety camp," conducted within our home. The playdates were like medicine. I could rarely predict how Josh would behave. One day, an entire party seemed to be occurring in our living room, and my son wanted to sit in a quiet corner and eat macaroni and cheese. Another time, he seemed to infer that the presence of guests required a kind of "social labor," but he spent all of the hour socializing with his little sister, and only his little sister. Did this count as progress?

I myself like to be entombed in a silent, empty house, for hours and hours, so the summer required work from me, as well. There were rewards. I became enthralled by the saga of "the surly au pair" -- a young person just down the road, who seemed to be contending with a possible "failure to thrive." Also, my spouse found a (potential) spy in the "frenemy drama." Marc won't accept that my frenemy has dumped my family -- and my family, specifically. Marc observes that the frenemy has severed contact with *everyone* on the back road, not just with yours truly. So he found a chatty neighbor who seems to know everything, and who has an especially fizzy connection with various local gay dads. 

Marc is ready to begin training his mole. He wants her to knock on my frenemy's door -- and just ask a few light, casual questions about recent changes in my frenemy's social behavior.

And now it's fall. I feel slightly more connected to the people who live around me, and I'm curious to see where my son and I will be headed next. All will be revealed.
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