Wednesday, 9th of June 2010 at 03:54:24 PM *tap, tap, tap*
Is this thing on?
Sheesh, y’all. It’s all quiet and dark in here. There are cobwebs and sheets draped over all the furniture…wait a second. I’m getting lost in my own metaphor.
Anyhow, I thought I’d stop by and visit for a while. Do you mind? Well, you might when you hear what I have to say.
I’m here to complain. To whine and bitch and rest my head on your kitchen table in a very unappealing and pitiful manner.
It’s NOT FAIR!
Summer is here, and my local best friend is in England with another friend of ours for THREE WEEKS. Get this – they went WITHOUT CHILDREN. The thought gives me shivers, made of equal parts “how do you go without the BABIES?” and absolute bald, slavering envy. Three weeks in England! Without children!
Mir is on a cruise ship with her family, having a wonderful time, by the sounds of it. Joss is on a book tour for her latest novel, being wonderful, having parties thrown for her spontaneously and committing acts of shopping.
I want to GO SOMEWHERE! I want to HAVE FUN!
Oh, but wait! My son is going to summer camp next month, so I get to drive him there. And go visit him once during the two weeks (I JUST HAVE TO, OKAY?), and then go back to get him. So. That’s three weekends in a row that I’ll get to be in the car for 16 hours or so. *blink. blink blink* Yeah. That’s practically the same thing as a freaking CRUISE.
Oh, but I shouldn’t complain. After all, my life has its own charms, right? Like…all the neighborhood kids are out in force, so I never know who I might find on my front lawn, breaking up a sheet of Styrofoam into teeny, tiny bits. Like snow, but malevolent. And the baby is teething, so I’m intimately acquainted with hours of the night that generally go neglected. I get to shout after children to “CLOSE THE DOOR” a trillion times a day. My middle son is officially moving into adolescence, and has entered that lovely phase where he is so obdurate that I like to walk into the room and say “hey, Max? Up,” just to hear him reply with deep, dripping scorn, “DOWN, Mom. Duh. Everyone knows THAT.”
So what I’m trying to do is focus instead on the joys of summer. I’m thinking of the small things that make this my favorite time of the year, and keeping those in my mind. Here’s what I have so far:
Iced coffee.
Of course, to make myself some iced coffee, I’d have to remember to cold-brew some coffee the night before, and that seems to be…shall we say…beyond my limited mental capacities. So.
I need your help, people. I need ideas, events, and treats to put the magic back in my summer. What makes you smile when people you love have abandoned you are off enjoying themselves? Please give me your best suggestions. Or, barring that, you could chip in and send me on a cruise. KIDDING.
Mostly.
popsicles, library reading contests, strawberry picking, catching fireflies, saying yes when your kids ask if their friends are out of school yet…
I make iced coffee in the afternoon using whatever drips and drabs are left in the coffee pot from the morning. No extra mental energy required.
I am predisposed to love summer, but I particularly love the following:
- anything that involves being near water, like going to the pool, the beach, or the kiddie-splash fountain
- fruity frozen drinks (yum, rum!)
- fresh tomatoes
- also watermelons
- trashy paperback novels (because it’s too hot to read serious literature)
- hammocks (add trashy novel and rum drink for maximum enjoyment)
- fireworks
- picnics
- flip flops
Here, Kira, I am handing you a large box of virtual chocolate. It’s your favorite kind. Would you also like some virtual rum to make some virtual mojitos? (Yum, I love mojitos.)
Ok Kira, I am about to cometely bore you with a practical suggestion that is NO FUN AT ALL, but has saved quite a bit of yelling about the door in my FOUR BOY household: self-closing hinges on all doors (inside or out) that ought to remain closed. We have extra strong ones on our front, back, and garage doors, and weaker ones on the pantry and laundry room. Let me tell you it has kept the youngest out of places he ought not to be for a few years now, and now that he is 4 and can go anywhere, it keeps the dogs and cat more or less where they belong.
I’ll try to think of some fun stuff when I have time, as I am currently in your shoes, PLUS my house is on the market so we can’t even make messes with toys or complex kitchen projects.
I could make you feel smug and superior by confessing that, other than visits to relatives (bleh) I have only ever been on a trip “just for fun” ONCE in my entire pathetic life. Just with friends, not even romantic. And then we ended up in the Loma Prieta 1989 earthquake. Fun, wow. Fun.
http://chickpastor.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-i-did-on-my-summer-vacation.html
From my dear departed (yet not closed down yet) blog about my terrible, horrible, no-good summer of 2008, and how I became a better person for it. Sort of. Except I’m still bitter. Fair warning: there is both a bad word and theological reflection in the blog.
Summer to me is:
* popsicles
* flip-flops & painted toe nails
* swimming pools — including waterlogged daughters in colorful swimsuits
* impromptu baseball games with neighbor kids and paper plate or rock bases
Okay, first? Thank you for using the word “obdurate” because I love that word and I don’t think it gets enough play.
Second, well, I’ll do some seconding myself, of what Summer said. Get thee hence and buy or borrow a whole stack of paperbacks. I don’t know what your preference is, but I tend to go for mysteries and you can’t really go wrong (again, depending on preference) with Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels, JD Robb, or Lee Child. Although I guess Lee Child’s stuff is less mystery than action, but they are SO good.
Popsicles are good, too.
Sitting outside with a new National Geographic or a stack of catalogs I’ll never order from and a tumbler of red wine (because that is totally more summer-y and cosmopolitan than a wine glass, right?), in that hour or so before the sun goes down when the light is all glowy and buttery, until the birds have tweeted themselves to sleep and the lightning bugs are out and I can barely see the words on the page, and I have to go in and turn on some lights and make dinner.
And sangria with nectarines.
And badminton.
I saw an ad in the newspaper for Joshilyn’s book this week. It was a very weird “Hey, I KNOW her! Oh wait… no, not really… but I read her friend’s BLOG, dude!” moment.
Is there someplace that you can stop and have a bit of fun on the way to or from driving your son to camp, even if it’s a little out of the way? My DH has been trying to make trips to see family more fun than drive 10-12 hours, visit, then home again. So we stopped at Hoover Dam a few years ago, we’ll stop at a park and let the kids play…. something!
I think this summer we will plan a trip on the bus to the mall or something (DD#5 thinks she is deprived because she cannot take the bus to school), maybe hop on the Sprinter to go to the beach. The theater offers free movies one morning a week…
But if it were entirely up to me I would sleep in every morning, read and sew and dinner would be served at 8:00pm every evening!!
If I win the lottery I will send your whole family to England. But don’t count on it because I don’t buy tickets.
Watermelon. Fruit Slush. Summer food (nachos and open face sandwiches and build your own salad). Guess I’m kind of food oriented.
My summer fun activity is hot vinyasa…though it involves sweating heavily next to people you don’t know so I’m guessing that one is out for you.
Here’s another suggestion; visit your cousin after dropping your son off at summer camp next month…just an idea
my summers non-vacational…although as a work away from home Mom I have the added worry of wondering just exactly what my kids are doing right now….how about now…..?
I absolutely love sneaking outside late at night or early, early in the morning and sitting on the back step. I love the way summer wraps itself around me. Sometimes it’s just a few minutes, but even a few minutes helps me regroup.
For some reason I’m thinking you ought to renew interest in the futon.
1)Take all available kids to any swimming pool to which you have access (even if it’s just an inflatable one in your back yard, but “real” pools are best cuz they have the advantage of containing other children for extra added distraction); 2) put floaties on any that can’t swim; and 3) sit next to the pool drinking beer from a plastic cup (or, you know, something a little classier if that floats your boat) while they (hopefully) ignore your existence. I’m doing that as many days as possible this summer and so far it’s going GREAT!
“A Simple Abundance” by Sarah Ban Breathnach
Invest in a snowcone machine from WalMart or Target AND some snowcone syrup. . .you will be THE mom-diggity.
Hubs and I are both teachers, so our summer “vacation” budget consists of going to visit my mom in another state. SHE has CABLE T.V.!!!!! But last summer, I decided to have my eldest (nearly 11 at the time) make a chart entitled “Summer ‘O Fun.” Everytime we did a “fun” activity we added it to the chart,then each additional time, we put a tally mark. We had things like:
make snowcones
watching movies at home (we have a subscription to Netflix–but no cable)
play board games
play computer games
play in sprinklers
go swimming
ride bikes
build with Legos (this is a non-stop activity for my son)
Coloring
popping popcorn
sleep overs with friends
Church camp
Camping in the house
going out to eat
going to see a movie at the theater
go to the library
Sleepovers at grandparents’ house
Sleepovers at Aunt and Uncle’s house
Birthday parties (we ALL have summer birthdays)
None of them were out of the ordinary, but I was determined that when summer came to an end, we would not look back and think there was no FUN or that we hadn’t done anything. We have LOADS of fun every single, stinkin’ day.
you poor thing.
How about finding another frazzled mother, taking all her kids for a few days, then her taking all yours? You get even more mayhem, but then it’s followed by child-free peace.
[...] 6. Kira @ Five Full Plates [...]
I don’t have any ideas…but I just wanted to say that I am there, too. I just started a new job, so I don’t have any vacation time accrued.
Oh, maybe I do have an idea– I am taking a new different exercise class every week, with the exception of the weeks when I have been distracted by may FIL’s brain tumor. hula-hooping and body-rolling. The rebounder is next– wish me luck!
And last summer, if there was gazpacho at any restaurant or event I attended, I ate it. It’s fun to focus narrowly on one specific food. This summer, I was thinking old vine red zinfandel, but my husband is with his father, and I don’t want to drink alone.
Four words: Cherry Creek Arts Festival!!
Pretty please, can we go? I will bring you an iced coffee and buy you a decent color of toenail polish…something with a fun name like “Yucatan if you want to.” (My current color.)
Hmmm…nail polish names as lifestyle suggestions. Who knew?
P.S. You must explain to me about this cold-brewed coffee idea…I am fairly certain that is frowned on by some unmamed members of my household. I just use leftover coffee.