To the four people that read this blog, sorry it has been so long since I've written. It has been a very crazy, hectic week. My mother-in-law and parents came in for the weekend to celebrate Sarah's birthday, that's right people she is officially four, and I've been trying to organize Teacher Appreciation Week at Sarah's school. On top of that the kids actually want me to pay attention to them, crazy! Anyway, hopefully I can get back on track with my entries. Except of course, that it's almost summer, and then I'm never going to get time by myself to write.
Yesterday was Sarah's last day of Nature School. As I was strapping her into her car seat and saying "have a nice summer" to some of the other parents, it hit me. School is really almost over. Summer is minutes away. Most people would be happy about that. No more fighting with your kids about going to school, dragging them out of bed and forcing them to get dressed and eat breakfast before sending them out the door. I am not most people.
I love my kids more than anything, but we work better when we don't spend so much time together. The thought of spending all day every day with them in the summer scares me. My husband is gone from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. most days. That's a lot of time to spend with the kids without reinforcements. Don't get me wrong, I'm keeping them pretty busy this summer. They are signed up for lots of camps. There are few weeks where we have nothing to do. It will be okay. But I like the consistency of school. The schedule. Knowing that we aren't going to spend hour after hour in front of the tv either watching or playing Wii.
On school days Andy is so easy. He wakes up on his own, usually before we do, gets himself dressed, makes himself breakfast, and then watches tv until it's time to go to school. I don't even have to drive him, Charlie does it. His only flaw is that he doesn't pack his own lunch, but in a year or two I wouldn't be surprised if he starts doing that too.
Sarah is harder. She is not a morning person. Okay, she's not an afternoon or an evening person either, she's cranky most of the time. We don't have to wake her up, but she is not happy in the mornings. It is a daily struggle to get her dressed and she never knows what she wants for breakfast. Everyday she says "what are my choices?" and everyday I give her the same choices. She never wants to go to school and always says she wants to "be with you". Nice in concept, as I've written here before, but when she says it in a whiny, clingy way it just makes me want to kick her out the door faster. Not spend the day with her.
On the weekends or a day off it's totally different. The kids are still up early, but they don't do anything. It's impossible to get Andy out of his pajamas and all he wants to do is watch tv or play Wii or play on the computer. It's very easy to never leave the house, but that gets old and claustrophobic. Even worse in the summer, it's too hot to do anything. If you go to the park after 10 a.m. the equipment is too hot to play on and the kids don't feel like running around anyway. Even the pool gets too warm by the end of July. It starts to feel like warm bath water, which doesn't feel that good when it's 100+ degrees outside.
So everything is starting to wind down. Spanish class ended a couple of weeks ago, Nature School this week, next week is the last week of swimming. Slowly but surely, it's all coming to an end. While my friends are cheering the end of the school year and are excited about spending the summer with their kids, I'm quietly moping around wondering when I'll get a little time for myself and hoping we don't all kill each other. I'm also trying to get everything done before the kids are home all the time and I can get nothing done.
Just wait, though. About six weeks into summer, maybe sooner, my friends will start looking forward to fall and the start of school and wonder why they were so excited about summer. That's the time when I just smile and say to myself, "told you so".
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