Parenting right before summer vacation begins

Planning activities shouldn’t be this stressful, should it?

My children are about to end their school year and enjoy a relaxing couple of months of break. But for me, this interim period has been pretty stressful. Like many other parents I know, there is relief / joy of being freed-up from the grueling, military-like precision of getting up early, eating breakfast, and arriving at the bus stop on time, followed by a similar pace after school of pickup, homework, dinner, bath (maybe), and then straight to bed. Oh, how lovely it’ll be to sleep in, lounge around in your jammies, then meander over to the pool, or playground without a care in the world.

Here’s the reality: about 1.5 hours into their summer vacation, my children will start to whine: “I’m bored. What can I do?”. Adult translation: “I’m going to ask to watch TV or play iPad games unless you provide me with a suitable alternate activity”. For you non-breeders out there, this is why parents like myself scramble to sign up for summer camps and other enrichment activities. It’s a de-facto way of keeping your kids at-bay so you can actually get things done like housework, shopping, and such. Yes, there are a few of us that have the magical ability to replicate a Craft Network oh let’s make a grand piano out of duct tape, picture hanger wire, and a cardboard box at the drop of a hat. Now imagine about 1000 more of those projects over the course of a summer. I once led a project with about a dozen kids making a DIY movie with my iPad and it about killed me.

Now, unless you have a small fortune to enroll your kids in full-time all-day private camp, you’ll probably be forced to do a hodge-podge of smaller scale activities: visits to the library, zoo, parks, etc. This summer I’m going to try a “homeschool” day in which we go to the library and the kids can research any topic of interest. Combine this with some shorter day trips to a petting farm, water park, or a nature center, and we’ll have cobbled something together. There’s also a layer of playdates to navigate. My kids have made lots of friends through school, so naturally they want to hang out and see them over the break. This involves e-mailing and coordinating schedules with other parents. This involves some pseudo-reciprocality… I drop off my kids at your place for a few hours this week; you drop off yours at my place next week. Mix in the random doctor/dentist appointment, birthday party invites, and other chores, and you have a frothy mix that you pray doesn’t overlap. Because God help you if your kid realizes that the expensive camp that you enrolled him in conflicts with the birthday party his best friend invited him to attend.

I do know a few parent friends who are able to get by with no more than a sprinkler in their backyard and kids who seem to be able to entertain themselves for hours with a piece of string they found in the alley. They’re my heroes.