Last summer, you may remember that I whined and whined about how we were having the longest, most boring summer ever. The state legislature had decided to change the school calendar, pushing back the start date of school by half a month, which meant that instead of a typical 12 week summer, the summer of 2007 was almost 15 weeks. Our presence was also requested at two big family events just before school got out (my sister's wedding) and just after it started again (my grandparents' 60th anniversary), so we didn't have a lot of leftover money to go gallivanting around the country. Furthermore, my parents were moving and Eddie's parents were remodeling their house, so we couldn't go hang out at their houses to escape the Texas heat.
So we hung around in the house a lot. Watched too much tv. Meandered over to the splash park from time to time. Had our Friday Fun Days. Spent mornings taking swimming lessons at the YMCA. Sometimes the days seemed very, very long and I was thrilled to pack the kids back off to school in the fall.
This summer, I didn't want to be bored. School got out the first week in June. The next week, the older kids went to camp, Isaac had swimming lessons, and our house filled up for Bryce's baptism. The next weekend I ran the Wasatch Back. I was home for just long enough to wash some clothes and repack the suitcase and we left for our big trip up north. My mom (my co-conspirator on the journey) flew home this morning. We've either had guests or been guests every day since June 11th. It's July 15th. We leave for Utah a week from tomorrow. When the pendulum swings, she really swings.
I've been trying (in vain, I feel) to catch up on everything I missed in cyberspace over the last month. One of the things I came across was Brooke's beautiful post about the dog days of summer at Segullah. It made me feel like, in my attempt to stave off boredom, I'm missing out on one of the essential parts of summer. So, in typical Shelah fashion, I'm going to try to cram in a few weeks of dog days into the otherwise hectic pace of our summer.
We were supposed to meet some friends at their beach house this morning. It would have been really fun, but Maren has a cold, and I'm secretly relieved. After spending weeks in the car, I wasn't really looking forward to three more hours today, followed by hypervigilant sunblocking and eagle-eyed policing of four kids in a large body of water. In fact, I'm not going to do anything today. I'm ignoring the fungus that seems to have erupted in my toilet while I was gone, the baskets of folded laundry waiting to be put away (thanks, Mom!), the piano which needs to be practiced, and the typing and French cd-roms which I stupidly thought the kids would be eager to tackle this summer. Today, I'm going to take a cool shower, not dry my hair, and read all of the magazines that came while I was out of town. I might make slurpees. The kids can watch as much tv as they want. Tomorrow, we might come back to reality, but if not, that's ok.
4 comments:
AMEN to that!! That is what we did yesterday- a lazy, nonproductive summer day!! As long as the house is in shape by Friday evening for our dinner guests I don't care about the in the meantime!! Have a great day
Yeah, my kids drove me crazy last summer. I had big plans to spend July in Utah this summer, yeah, that changed quickly. They are starting to drive me really crazy right now, of course part of that is that I don't feel that great, but I'm still planning that big trip, it will just be next year instead of this year. I'll probably be hating life for a while and wishing I had just stayed home, but right now I wish I could go somewhere.
I *think* I have come a little closer that some balance this year. We are taking some really fun trips, including weekend or day trips (I love these because you can get away for a few days, break up the monotony, but not get sic of traveling or being in the car), plus taking advantage of all the fun things to do in our town and area. It's been really great thus far, and I hope it continues!
Balance can be a tricky thing, but I also think that different summers require their own balance. You appreciated traveling this year, because you were home last year. Sometimes you're just ready for something different, even if you wouldn't choose it again the next year. Wow--that was long. :)
Hi! I just clicked over from fMh since I don't know if you check your email there. Just wanted to say thanks for your kind offer. Our little guy has a single ventricle condition (HLHS, known colloquially as half a heart). We live near Philadelphia which has one of the top pediatric cardiology centers in the world, which we didn't know when we moved here several years before the baby came along. He's had two open heart surgeries and one cath so far and scads of echos and x-rays (he's not glowing in the dark yet, but one of these days...). We're hoping that he can get by with only one more cath before his next surgery (and we're hoping he doesn't get too blue and have to have that early). We're also hoping that he will do well thereafter, but we can only take things one step at a time.
I belong to a large, (usually) wonderful online support group (wonderful except when a parent cracks due to the stress or a child dies), so all of my questions get multiple inputs. We've also managed to network with multiple heart families within the church. Between the support group and the drs at CHOP, information and expertise is something we have plenty of. The thing we don't have is support from our small, overstressed ward. In desperation, I turned to blogging :-)
I clicked through a few pages of your blog but couldn't tell if you are a heart patient or one of your children is? Or involved in cardiology professionally?
Thanks again for the offer!
Amy ("Researcher")
whoneedsdonuts1atverizondotnet
PS Our summer is 11 weeks long and that's plenty for me! (Five weeks down, six to go!)
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