This is a quick, fluffy blog. Mostly because I, like my kids, am totally suffering from spring fever. I too am ready to be done with daily grind of the school year. I am wearing out on packing lunches, finding library books buried under toys, asking for the 10th time if everyone's homework is really done.
I want to play. I am ready to get outside and garden. I am ready for hiking and kayaking and biking. We are only a few weeks away from trips to the zoo and the museum or afternoon movies at the discount theater, but I want it now. Are we there yet?
It is during summer when I really truly appreciate working from home and being a mostly-at-home mom. I get to party with my kids for 12 weeks and now that they are older, I love every minute of it. I am counting down 8 more days of school!
It was much harder when the kids were small. When the daily grind of baby care and caring for school aged children made our days confined and monotonous. Back then I had bored kids or a cranky baby. We couldn't go to the zoo or the museum, or if we did, we couldn't stay long because the baby needed to nap. Art projects were hard because we had to pick toddler-friendly supplies.
Back then, summer was a 12-week long wasteland that seemingly stretched on for what felt like forever. But, that was a different season. We are exiting the baby season of our lives and I am looking forward to summer because....*fingers crossed* this is the summer we finally potty train Connor (3 1/2) and say goodbye to the last vestiges of babyhood. This is my summer of transition.
This summer I officially move into the role of "mother of older children." This past weekend my 9 year old asked me if we could watch "Jurassic Park". The weekend before we took our girls to see "Age of Ultron." For those of you still attending movies like "Home" or "Minions," have no worries, the time is coming when you will get to mix it up and go see something that is actually on your radar. You can go see something you would have gone to see
without your kids.
Older kids are fun! And I am going to get to hang with them this summer and enjoy their company while they still think I am cool. This is the proverbial "honeymoon period," or "second trimester," of child raising. We are post- high-need, cry-happy, tantrum-thowing baby and toddler-hood. We are pre- puberty, pre- eye-rolling, "mom, could you just walk five steps behind me so people don't know we are together" teenage-hood (something I
actually said to my own mom).
