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Health & Fitness

What are the kids doing for the summer?

It's almost the end of school—a few fast weeks are left. Then what? What are we going to do with those long summer days?

Its May. For those of us with kids in school, we're down to the countdown to that gloriously long stretch of "what are we going to do today, I'm bored" known as summer. Any mother worth her fresh-baked cookies has got her kids' hours, days and weeks planned out already. Me? I don't even know when's the last day of school. My kids have told/warned me its in 27 school days. (What day is that on the real life calendar?)

A friend asked me the other day what my kids are doing for the summer. She talked about her kids going to day-care and camp. Her reason for already being prepared—she works and they get out of school at the end of May. I guess that's a good excuse. Then another friend ran down week-by-week where her three sons will be all summer. Camp, visiting family, sports tournaments, vacation Bible school. And she's not even working and her kids get out the same day as mine (need to find out when that is)! She's so organized. 

So what am I going to do with my kids? If I don't get myself together, they'll be home for days and weeks. That's a lot of hours to fill.

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J's on the swim team, so that takes care of about 2 hours each morning, and a couple hours a week for swim meets. I think I'm going to put the little one on the swim team, too since we've got to go to the pool anyway. (There's one family with three kids on the swim team—I'm sure the baby is joining this summer; that mom knows what she's doing.) Elle's on a basketball team, she'll be busy a couple hours a few days a week. Maybe I need to put Breeze on the team, too. 

They might sleep for about, what 10 hours a night, if I'm lucky. Then I'll feed them something, maybe three times a day, plus they'll be soooo hungry, they'll need a snack. There's about two hours. What're we up to now? Wow, still eight more hours to fill up. Then, another hour or two for the Singapore and Japanese math workbooks, some reading and a weekly library trip (this is my plea to the Montgomery County Council not to shorten summer library hours).

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The rest of the hours, quite truthfully, I wouldn't mind not planning and just waiting to see what happens. I go through this every summer, trying to balance between summer camp and activities, and not doing anything, just relaxing after a school year full of scheduled activities. Without camp, we could go on a spontaneous day trip or spend the day making ice cream. We could ride our bikes or sit by the pool. They could go play with their friends, if they find some who also have mothers who never got around to signing them up for camp. We could sleep in without having to eat a hurried breakfast, pack lunch, and rush out the door. I think I'm talking myself into a lazy summer.

I guess I've got 27, or is it 26 now, days to figure it out.

 

Take a picture a day for the month of May—join my 31-Day Photo Challenge at Just Piddlin' with Frances on Facebook.

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