56 more days and counting...

Remember when I was all like, “Yay! It’s summer! No more childcare! Too hot to play outside! Woohoo!” Yeah, that’s because it didn’t happen. In fact, I marked off the last school days of May with frowny faces that eventually had x’s for eyes.

Suttie and Molly hitting this air vent for fun

Truth: I have never been nor will I ever be one of those moms who gets excited about summer, but I envy the moms who are. My summer days consist of one thing: surviving ‘til naptime. The good lord did me a solid in giving me children who sleep well during the day; they will literally take a 3-4 hour afternoon nap on the daily. I think it’s his way of making up for giving me way too much crass and far too little patience.

And when naptime finally arrives and the kids are tucked haphazardly into their beds, it’s like Miami the day after Game 7 around here. I come down the stairs from their bedrooms and the toys are all cheering and waving superhero capes like they’re flags and tossing construction paper scraps like confetti…..which I’ll have to clean up later, but I don’t care…..and I’m pointing back at them, saying “No, you, Weeble village, you made it happen today. Way to go, Angry Birds, we couldn’t have gotten here without you.” Then I spray us all down with Dr. Pepper because we don’t keep fancy champagne in the house. It’s magical.

But getting to that sweet naptime hour is the real challenge. Because, apparently, kids like to do stuff.  Now, if it was me, we’d sit quietly for five hours, eat lunch, stare out a window for another hour and then off to bed. But nooooooo…they insist on being entertained and engaged and kept alive. So instead, I have to put on my cruise director hat that I stole from that cruise director that one time and plan out our days.

Each and every morning, without fail, Suttie wakes me up by asking, “Where are we going today?” And on the mornings when he’s up before six, I have to clasp my hands over my mouth to keep from responding, “The Harris Home for Children, but only one of us is coming back.”

My great plan before the summer actually started was to sign him up for two rounds of swim lessons (that’s 4 weeks total) to get us out of the house on the regular. But it came with a serious cost……..and that cost is having to put sunscreen on both children…every. single. morning. You moms know what I’m talking about – it’s awful. You have to get goopy white sunscreen all over your hands, and they’re crying because they say you got it in their eyes, and they’re probably right, but you can’t worry about it cause the little one is trying to drink SPF100. Then you forget to put any on yourself, so you get burned except for that one handprint that you made on your leg when you were trying to get in the car. That spot got covered and now waves at everyone as you walk.

In fact, the whole sunscreen ordeal has started to make me a bit delusional. The other day, we were watching Sid the Science Kid, and ole’ Sid was contemplating the invention of a machine that would apply sunscreen over one’s entire body in an instant. You step in, you get blasted, you step out and you’re UV impervious…genius, Sid! I’ve since sent letters to all of the major tech companies asking what the hell they’ve done for me lately.

Then we go to the pool, and I have to entertain (aka, feed) Molly for a straight 40 minutes or until she absolutely can’t take being in the stroller anymore, after which we play the “who can get to the edge of the pool faster: Mommy or Molly” game, sometimes followed by “Does it float: Molly edition.” The answer is no.

Last week, Suttie's preschool’s summer daycare program showed up at the pool for swim time immediately after his lesson, and I seriously thought about slipping him in with the group and leaving, just to see how long it would take the teachers to realize that it’s summer and he wasn’t supposed to be there.

I also had big summer plans to work on his sight words. We’ve gotten as far as teaching him how to spell “Power Rangers” so that he can look up videos by himself on YouTube. Now I’m looking toward the end of swim lessons, when we still have a month of summer left, but unfortunately, most of the kids’ camps and activities are already full. So I’m having to explore other avenues for keeping him occupied, including krav maga classes, a resume writing workshop, and speed dating.

So when you selfless, rock star moms are posting statuses in August that read, “So sad that school starts tomorrow [teared-up frowny face],” please don’t call me out for hopping on the comment list with “Awww, me too!” Just let me ride those good mom coattails for one brief, shining moment, and I’ll continue to write the stuff about our kids that most moms would rather not say out loud.