My friends have challenged me to create a list of what real moms are really doing during summer vacation.
1. Alternating between feeling guilty for how much time the kids are spending on their devices and appreciating the peace it brings.
2. Waking up early to make coffee and WISHING that everyone else stays asleep so you can enjoy the first few sips alone.
3. Thinking about adopting the enormous spider outside the kitchen window as a pet. He's been there for weeks and has been a part of all family meals. It's easier than going outside to kill him and clean up his massive web.
4. Spending large chunks of time telling the children you will not help them find their goggles one more time, because you have already done your job in purchasing them, and it is not your responsibility to manage their whereabouts. Helping anyway.
5. Offering to take your kids to parks, zoos and beaches, only to have them whine that it's too hot, too cold, or the best yet, "We go to too many parks."
6. Explaining ticks to your six-year-old and answering his numerous questions about the blood-sucking arachnids.
7. Tiptoeing around the topic of school (teachers, supplies, friends) for fear of causing undue stress or anxiety, or subconsciously making summer disappear.
8. Feeling proud for remembering to take the giant umbrella to the beach, but then realizing you forgot its pole in the garage. Bye-bye beach shade.
9. Taking up to a month in advance to plan a gathering with a friend, because nobody's life is simple.
10. Breaking up sibling squabbles. Repeating. Repeating. Repeating.
11. Wondering, How can it be August, but we haven't grilled out once? Smelling a neighbor's sizzling steaks and begrudging your husband for not helping make dinner.
12. Finding a shriveled, shrunken blueberry on the family room floor, which is many rooms away from the kitchen, and where no one is allowed to eat.
13. Nagging your children to go outside to play by saying, "This awesome weather will not last forever. Soon enough, everything will be covered in snow, and you'll be wishing you could run around in the sprinklers. Now get out!"
14. Basking in success when they venture out the door.
15. Sulking in defeat when they return six minutes later.
16. Avoiding the kids' toy room, because it would mean facing the mess they have made when they should have been playing outside.
17. Worrying about sunburns, drowning, kidnappings, bike accidents and allergic reactions, while encouraging your children to be more independent, but to stop growing up...all at the same time.
18. Having plans to attend the free concert in the park for date night, but then realizing time spent on the couch, with a bowl of Cheetos between you, can be even better.
19. Hearing and trying to ignore the snack discussion: "Can I have a snack? When can I have a snack? What can I have for a snack? That's not a real snack. I don't want fruit for a snack. Why? Why? Why?"
20. Driving. Enough said.
I love summer! I wanted it to come. I don't want it to end. It doesn't mean I don't go a little nutso in the thick of it. What I've learned through my almost fourteen years as a mom is that The Summer Bucket List, which we used to create when the kids were younger, became a tool of doom. Now, we wing it, and it works for us.
How does your family handle summer? Structure? Fly by the seat of your pants? Let's share and add some more ways your family really spends your summer!
On top of a sand dune for our anniversary. I needed Dramamine to ride in the giant, old dune buggy. The sand was blazing hot and burning my pale feet. Yet, I'm smiling for the photo. You know the drill. It's a split second in time. Nobody's life is always this beautiful.
