Summer Parenting

I was outside admiring the new porch on the front of our house, when my neighbor drove by and beeped the horn. We laughed about all the driving that happens in the summer time. She has five kids, so she joked that she should wear a chauffeur cap to make a point.

The kids have been safely ensconced in camp for the past few weeks. Ian has discovered a new love of dodge ball. Jonah is growing tan and strong from swimming and basketball. His hair is bleaching out in the sun and a spread of freckles covers his nose. Without that horror of homework hanging over our heads, the boys have plenty of time for drawing and reading. It's really perfect.

Every morning before the camp bus arrives, I make them take off their shirts, and I shoot their backs with a cold blast of sun screen. They leave with a brown bag lunch and a brief wave.

I've been on the computer most of the morning researching some last minute activities to keep them busy when camp gets out in a couple of weeks. I found a robotics class at the community college, cartooning classes at a local art school, a week long soccer program, but we might not do any of those things. Maybe we'll just read in the morning and laze around at the swim club in the afternoon.

It would be great if the whole year was like this.

Comments

[bj]

"It would be great if the whole year was like this. "

Sounds like you're enjoying the homeschooling fantasy in reality and not just in theory. It's probably harder when it's nasty outside, though, instead of summer.

My kids are home, and enrolled in a bunch of camps. I do not have any idyllic fantasy (or reality) that it's better than school. My kids really like school, though. They like the structure; they like their teachers; they even like homework. So we don't engage in the summer fantasy even in theory around here. Usually they're wondering why they can't have year around school with two week breaks, like in other countries.

[Mazie]

We are also enjoying the unstructured time. Last year (the first year I had to work a set schedule for the summer) I had them in a bunch of camps and my son was pretty miserable. So this year I decided on no camps. I work 25 hours a week and am trying to cobble together two and a half days of care with grandmothers and a babysitter. That part is fairly stressful. But on days when I am off, like today, it's lovely. We went to swim team, the grocery store, then made zucchini bread with a monster zucchini we let get huge as an experiment. We have been trying to go to the library for the last hour. They are starting to squabble with each other and I am hoping that they'll be ready for school in four weeks.