Top Ten Lists…

Top ten things I love about summer:

1. Spending hours at the local swimming pool!! There’s nothing better than a long day in the water playing with my kids and the countless other children that beg for attention.
2. Having that “sunglow” from spending hours at the pool! I don’t care how you trace the cancer risk…the glow is a symbol of life to me.
3. Having little structure to the day without hurrying, stress or time restraints.
4. Going on road trips to see beloved family we only see once in a while.
5. Late night fireworks and cookouts that go against all rules of child rearing.
6. Long rainy days that are spent organizing closets and sorting through clothes.
7. Impulsivity. The ability to have an idea and just go for it because…it’s summer!
8. Finding out half way through the summer that there is a cheap morning camp that runs 4 days a week! (Just when the mornings were starting to get agonizing…)
9. Summer is always a perfect time to catch up on reading all the books in my “must read pile”.
10. Meeting new people that you normally wouldn’t spend time with through the new activities and summer trips.

Ten things I do NOT love about summer:

1. Dreams unfulfilled of lying in the sun relaxing while my children go and swim independent of my attention.
2. Layering sun block on my moaning squirming children all day every day, over and over again.
3. NOT having structure to keep the madness of both my children in check. Visualize the bumper car rides. Yes. Exactly like that.
4. Spending over 50 hours stuck in a car with my children. Need I say more?
5. Too much junk. Up to late. Over tired and over wired children. Defeats the fun.
6. Long rainy days that include restless wired and tired children whining and groaning with boredom. The relentless lectures about all they possess to make boredom go away. The inability to get summer projects successfully completed. Visual: Hamster wheel.
7. Impulsivity leads to wishful thinking and endless asking. “Can we do this? Go there? Stay here? PALEEEEEZE!!!!!!”
8. Getting kids off to camp by 9:00am, dressed, sun blocked, fed, snacks packed and gear packed is a bit like school days.
9. Seeing that pile of “must read” books and desperately wanting the quiet time to read them… Visual: Mouse in cheese trap.
10. Missing all the close friends you usually see all the time, but because of all the trips and summer activities had by all…you just simply can’t spend the much-needed time with them.

There it is. What’s on your list???