“My son is away on a school trip, he left early Monday morning, he won't be home till late Thursday night. I won't see or talk to him till them. He is way up in Canada somewhere, 5 hours by bus. It's a school tradition to have the seventh grade class do this team building trip. They are actually camping, in this cold weather. The kids are busy learning each other's strengths and weaknesses, I'm busy worrying that he is eating well enough and wondering whether his feet are warm. Some of the parents who have gone through this before say it is really a positive experience for the kids. Some of the kids have never been camping before and they are expecting a resort at the end of their bus trip. What they find instead is a dock, in the middle of nowhere, with three boats. One boat takes all their luggage and their teachers over to the island. The other two boats, which are canoes, take the kids, 15 to a canoe, to the island. The island is a 20 minute canoe ride away, some kid powered canoes take 2 1/2 hours to make it there. That is their first lesson in teamwork. They are then broken into 3 groups and will spend the rest of their time on the island together with their group. Two days are spent on different team building activities, one day is spent back at camp doing the cooking and cleaning for the other two groups of kids. So he is gone, busy with his classmates. There is a big void around the house. No homework getting worked on, no cartoons blaring from the TV, no child like laughter and exuberance . It is just my husband and I. We quickly fell back into old habits abandoned when we became parents. Tonight we sat down on the couch and watched the Yankees. Without parental duties to perform we just relaxed and watched the ball game. The three of us have watched games together, but much of the conversation is directed at our son, teaching him the intricacies of baseball. We explain why the outfield is brought in for certain batters, when it's a good idea to bunt, what the infield fly rule is or whatever. We'll also teach him about Yankee history, about the players we watched growing up, some of the great games we went to. Tonight was different, we just watched and talked without having to answer questions about the rules. I recalled my husband and I planning to follow the Yankees around the country when we retire, getting to every major league ballpark at least once. I haven't thought about that in a very long time. So our son is getting to the age where we are thinking about the family vacations we should take before he leaves for parts unknown, for longer than four days. My husband nor I have ever been to a World Series game. The Yankees will likely make the play offs this season, and if they make the Series we are going to try to get tickets to at least one of the games at Yankee Stadium. That would be awesome for the three of us to experience our first World Series game together. We need to capitalize on an opportunity to do this as a family, because we won't always be all together. ”