summertime
Posted on May 25, 2007
Filed Under kids, parenting, suburban joys, education |
Perhaps a blessing or maybe a curse…My whole damn family is up so early these days - now that the crows jeer and screech at 5 a.m. and all manner of avian exuberance has broken out by 5:30 - that we are dressed, fed and playing outdoors by 7:15. Seriously, my children were out on the swing this morning, having finished practicing the piano and brushing their teeth, and I was vacuuming the mudroom after making two beds, folding a load of laundry and unloading the dishwasher while the clock read only 7:13. I groaned, acutely aware that this is going to be a very LONGGGG summer.
For a few weeks more I can slog through the earliest hours knowing that by 8 a.m. they will be clambering on to the bus, three hours into their day and school just starting. But once summer officially begins on June 19, we will have fifteen hour days of unmitigated togetherness. I anticipate being out of ideas and patience by noon.
You would think that after sending them away every day for nine months that I might be anxious to keep them close for a little while and you’d be wrong. I am the very worst mother, the kind that breaks out in hives just thinking about lazy stretches of unstructured time when little people look to me for entertainment. I am only capable of being a supportive, upbeat and interesting person for minutes at a time. Months that require selflessness and resourcefulness wear me down to an irritated, crone-like nub of a person. I’ll be at my wit’s end by the Fourth of July.
So I’ve decided the one downside of being a SAHM is summer (okay, cleaning toilets and being broke kind of suck too). It’s a Catch-22, a double-edged sword, it’s all manner of mixed metaphors, this summer thing. Without my working outside the home, there’s really no need for the kids to attend camps, at least not the way they used to. (We would bounce them from camp to camp until we’d filled the summer quite completely. We accomplished two things with all these camp programs. We accommodated my work schedule and purchased a little slice of Mommy Sanity.) Now, while saving money on camp tuition, we are facing a new problems - juvenile boredom and Mommy’s potential nervous breakdown.
Wish me luck friends and cut me some slack. The blogging is sure to get spotty and sub-par. Perhaps O and G will be ready to contribute some words of wisdom once they realize there’s nothing else to do around here. Now that would be interesting.
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7 Responses to “summertime”
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I stay at home and still my kids do three or four half-day camps during the course of the summer.
So sue me.
summer camp is a rite of passage, the fodder for memories and friendships and painful lessons in life. you are bad parents for depriving your children of it. bad.
Oh, believe me, By Jane and Slouching Mom…I’d really, really like/LOVE to send them to camp but with $350 to $400 price tags for a week of half days - That’s equal to about $800 for 15 hours of memory making. Can’t justify that without there being a REAL need - my sanity not being considered something worth saving (too far gone at this point).
Maybe what would work is if you created the CCE Day Camp this summer. Make a schedule of activities, some led by you, some definitely without you. And rest time. Every camp makes you rest after lunch. They don’t care what you do as long as you lie down and are quiet. If you set it out in advance, your kids will know what to expect–as will you. Kids love form; it’s the freedom that drives them (and us) nuts.
I never got to go to camp. What do kids do at camp anyway?
[…] By Jane has made a great suggestion…one I hadn’t thought of and am delighted to entertain. She has suggested that instead of bellyaching about just how terrible the summer will be, I should actually plan each day as if O and G were attending day camp. Excellent idea, By Jane. I’m excited about this. MadMarriage Day Camp is gonna be the bomb. So far, the Madmarriage daycamp itinerary will be as follows: […]
Oh all the things I have yet to think/learn about. I never went to camp when I was kid. I’m pretty sure my mom kicked me an my brother outside every morning and told us not to come back until lunch.