Summer Repeats

Last Summer, or maybe the summer before, I wrote a post about the first day of summer vacation with Q home from school (and how bad it sucked).  I get all excited about summer vaction and have all these hopes and dreams.  Oh, its so  funny.  (and just read my two posts back on summer vacation).  This year, as April approached, I started to get nervous.  Cause I vaguely remember the last two summers and how I had such high hopes and how they came crashing to rather large explosion of crushed expectations.  The first few days of summer vacation always tank.  Like, hard core.  This year did not disappoint.  Monday was awful. The fighting! The messes!  The whining! I have to say, I didn't help things and was a whiny hiney myself.  Tuesday was probably just as bad, but I took some initiative to get out of the house and made plans NOT to make dinner.  Which helped tremendously.   I like not having to make and clean up dinner.  We went to Chick-fil-a and it was actually relaxing, and I fed everyone for $20.39.  And they all ate it, HAPPILY.  There's something to be said for that.

In order to not let this summer go down like last summer, I'm trying to have a plan.  Last summer we literally did nothing but move, unpack, introduce a new baby to the family and swim lessons. (that sounds like a lot).   Seriously, I don't think we left the house much at all.  And we certainly didn't go on vacation.  My grandiose summer plans include check lists, and earning tickets and some school refresher courses (cause B still cannot write his whole name and Q needs to read more). Actually leaving the house.  And challenges.  Lots of them.  There are "mini challenges" every week day, if they chose to complete them are worth tickets.  Today's challenge is building a lego house.  I've designed the challenges to inspire them to do more than the challenge, to get the imagination ball rolling.   I have to say,  I have enjoyed making the plan and the charts and stuff.  The implementing, is not going as well.  The boys have grown accustomed to watching t.v. a lot on Saturdays and not having to do anything that requires, uh, being responsible or anything resembling work. Which isn't good.  I know.  I often would rather do stuff myself than listen to the arguing and whining that goes on when I insist on someone helping.  (So rest assured, I have a system for that).  Ha ha!  Oh the whining. My mother must be delighting in herself.  I recall her once wishing that I would have children that would possess my stellar whining skills.

As these things go, it will probably work for about a week, and then the novelty will wear off.  Probably.  But as for now, I have one kid dusting my baseboards and the other is brushing his teeth and not complaining about it.  So I'll take it.
And hopefully will have more moments like this:

All of us together, having a good time.

It is starting to get harder.  Little boys are rough and tumble.  And I like that.  I like that they skin a knee, seek comfort for about 2 minutes and then are on to the next thing.  For the past 7 years, this has been my norm.  Their little egos seem to only be bruised for a short time as well.  Until now.  This year has been a difficult one for my sweet oldest boy.  I carry such momma's guilt for him right now.  We moved one year ago, and he was a little bit sad about saying good bye to his friends at his old school.  We only moved about 2 minutes from our old place, but it was far enough for him to be sent to a new school.  This new school, it gets the job done.  But I miss the old, small school, which seemed cozy and more nurturing.  In this past year, Q has endured the following:

• Within the first month of school, someone stole his new Angry Birds Lunch Box. 
• Within the first two months of school, someone stole his very best Bey Blade. 
• At Christmastime, someone stole ALL of his secret shop gifts which he purchased for us, and was soooo excited to tell me about the day he bought them.  When he discovered they weren't in his bag, he was crushed.  But was sure they'd be in his class the next day.  They weren't.  Another girl in his class took them, then gave them all away on her school bus that day.  Her mother sent in money so he could reshop for his items.  By the time he got to re-shop, the original gifts he had bought were no longer available.  Talk about a crappy thing to do.  I couldn't explain it to him, but we talked about forgiveness, which he seemed to readily give.
• Then his 'friends' formed a club and wouldn't let him in it.  It was a club for kids who played certain on-line games and video games.  Something we do not allow him to play.  But the kids wouldn't play with him anymore, and declared him not their friends.  This incident had us both in tears.  
• Our school district decided to re-district and his very best friend in 2nd grade will not be returning.  My boy went to bed weeping. And my heart aches for him.  I know he'll get over it, eventually.  But he was so mopey today, and if he had a second to stop and think, he'd cry.  I've never seen him carry a sadness like this for so long.  His two minutes of sad has stretched in to a whole day.  Its hard for me to watch.  And for the first time, I can't fix it.  I can't make it better.  When I asked him what I could do to make it better, he simply said, "nothing."  

This is what people mean when they say I'm in the easiest stage of life right now with my little ones.  They're easy to comfort, nothing a little kiss and a snuggle won't fix.  They're easy to please with some home made cookies and backyard games.  Popsicles and lollipops.  A T.V. show and a special snack.  Now, the problems start to get a little more complicated.  Their little hurts last longer, and are more difficult to help, or not help.  My own behavior toward my oldest also seems to effect him more and for a longer period of time.  I had to discipline him last week, and did so by taking away computer privileges, and he was MAD at me.  Like didn't talk to me for two days.  Was sullen and withdrawn from me, and I hated it!.  What's that about?  Today, I had it out with B, in a huge battle of the wills which lasted a long time, and resulted in him calling me 'bad' and 'mean'.  But when I tucked B in bed tonight, the best part of his day was "You mom."  Really kid?  You don't remember that hour of time out and screaming?  But I'll take it.   And yes, I'd like time to stand still a little bit longer for my Q.  Watching him realize that people suck, well, its sucks.  

I can feel this getting more difficult.  I'm feeling a tiny bit unprepared, and unqualified.  And I feel the need to pray more and more for my kids, and wisdom for Scott and I.  

Summer Vacation

Do you remember summer vacation?  I think I do.  And by that I mean, I tend to always look back on things with rose colored glasses.  Like pregnancy.  I miss it, and seem to think its lovely.  If only I hadn't written posts about the exhaustion and vericose veins and sleepless nights that comes with it.  But just last week, I saw a pregnant woman in line ahead of me and longed to rub my belly full of life  in it (not just the jiggled that life left behind ;) Is summer vacation like that?  Do I only remember the fun things I did as a kid when there was no structure or media telling us it wasn't safe to let your kids play outside all day without sunscreen or parental guidance? Was I bored and did I get into trouble? I don't remember being bored or getting into trouble. 
But the things I remember of summer vacation:
waking up when I wanted to. 
-my mom's feeble attempt at structure and responsibility at the beginning via chore charts.  They lasted about a week, but I thought it was fun at first.
-being barefoot all day long (and it not hurting my back nor my feet).
- riding my bike with my friends/
-making chalk towns in the street with friends
-dips in our pool, having the whole neighborhood at our pool.  Poor Oma, and all that water dripped through the house when someone needed to use the loo.  (only now can I relate).
-Endless playing outside, or down the street with the neighbors, coming home only for meals or when it finally got dark.
-Catching lightening bugs. 
-Helping baby birds and other stray animals, and giving them home in our garage.
-Rollerskating
-Backyard circus performances.
-watching disney movies on rainy days.
-One summer my mom sent me to day camp.  Which I HATED!!!!!!! Awful.  Terrible.  And she must have been in cahoots with my neighbors mom, cause they went to.  And they hated it too.
-Sleep over camp at Camp Swatara.  One week of pure bliss in the woods.  I loved this.  But even now, I don't think I'll ever send my kids.  And I'm not sure why.  I don't think Q could handle it for one. 
-Not having A/C and not caring.  I can recall like 3 times it being hot enough for my parents to put on the room a/c in the living room and us all camping out in there for a night.  Its either 100 degrees hotter now in my old age, or I'm a spoiled brat (probably the later), cause we just spent too much money putting in central air for our upstairs.

But what has happened now?  I find my self asking all the neighborhood mom's what their kids do all summer.  Cause last summer, there were NO kids.  ANd then suddenly the first day of school there are 12 kids at the bus stop.  Twelve.  Do they just disappear.  Go to their shore houses?  Camp?  What?  I over heard some conversations that some moms have about which camps and other activities they are doing, and I had a couple reactions to this.  What the heck am I going to do with 4 boys home for 8 weeks.?! Save me now! THey need structure!  They need camps and VBS and a pool membership and yadda yadda.  But then I realized they are perfectly happy without those things.  Its my need for structure and schedule that they be involved in such things.  Plus, I feel like if I let my kids roam the neighborhood like I did as a kid, they'd be stolen or CPS would be called on me. Or at the very least, the neighborhood would get together and declare me unfit in their own minds.
I feel like I want to take back summer vacation for my kids.  To trash the cable and netflix subscriptions so they can only watch one of two shows that come on (like Tom and Jerry or Jem and the holigrams used to, not these channels of 24 hours of kids shows that I use to my benefit today).  To provide them with carboard boxes and masking tape and poster paint to create a lemonade stand.  To let them ride their bikes to the corner and back without me hovering.  To let them stay up late to catch lightening bugs.  To let them be barefoot and eat watermellon, and hangout out back with just shorts on (or even worse, just a diaper! how trashy would that be?).   To dig in the dirt and build forts or play in the kiddie pool, which will kill the grass (and Scott's pride).  To read endless books.  To take a vacation from technology, and possibly let them drive me crazy with the "Mom, I'm bored" declarations on a rainy day. 
 I have a couple more weeks till summer vacation starts.  And I want to change my heart to provide them with a fun summer, that is free and unstructured, but balanced. Instead of wanting everyone not to bother me, or make messes.   To not waste these years. Cause soon, they'll be sleeping till 1pm and I'll be annoyed at that, right?