Summer is Looming

Heaven help us - the summer camps catalogs have already arrived. Truth be told, I don't much look forward to summer. As a whole it's a lovely time to be outdoors, get sandy and sticky, and indulge in fleeting warm weather fun. But the daily details are overwhelming. Why? Well, it's clearly because I have too many kids and I'm not naturally a drill sergeant. How easy do you think it is to schedule team sport practices, games, camps, daily meals and 101 lessons for 4 boys? It's not easy. I need spreadsheets and mileage/driving time conversion charts. Most days it feels like a total mess. Before you say, "she made her bed!" (which is entirely accurate) let me back up a bit with a short barrage of historical of excuses.

Let's flip the couches over and
turn the whole living room into a fort!

I admit I do tend to have amnesia. As recently as Monday I was thinking "Eh, we don't need so many camps this summer. We'll go to the lake and we'll fish and just hang out with friends." Then came Tuesday - first SNOW DAY in history Tuesday. Tuesday will forever be known as the day that shocked all parents into desperate gratitude for the normally dependable operation of the public schools. What do you do with a snow day? Start by forgetting about everything you were looking forward to getting done that day. Go ahead and try to force your kids outside to enjoy the last big snow, but they'll just keep coming back in like squeaky little boomerangs.

First I'll cover the kitchen with coloring papers.

My expectations for parenthood were a little off as well. Before I had kids, I thought summers for my kids would be similar to my summers when I was a kid. I was home all day, bored out of my cut-offs and playing quietly outside in the dirt, exploring the town with whatever scrappy neighbors were around. If I was lucky I got to go to one camp during the summer. ONE CAMP. I actually held onto this fantasy of a lazy and bored summer for years, being intentionally oblivious to the ways of 21st century parents.

And then I'll cover the living room with towers.

In the 21st century, our kids must be stacked with activities. If they aren't? Well, they'll drive us crazy at home because in the 21st century it isn't safe for kids to spend the day outside exploring the town with their buddies. What if they do roam the neighborhood with their buddies? And what if they don't participate in all those camps? They are missing out. They'll get into trouble. They will fall behind their peers. Slacker parent apocalypse! Sigh.




So I'm caving in and carefully planning and coordinated schedules. But I do still hope to squeeze in a little time for making sand castles and listening to the waves at the lake. I'm sure there must be a camp called Mom Reads a Book on the Beach offered somewhere. It better not already be full when I find it.