This is the last full week of summer. The kids go back to school next Wednesday. The hint of change is in the air. We have to buy school supplies tomorrow. Jonah needs to finish his summer book report. The kids forgot all their math facts in two months, so I've started quizzing them while we're driving to the swim club. What's five times nine, Jonah? Ian, what is six minus two?
Jonah's soccer training has begun. Dinner prep 4:00. Jonah eats at 5:00 and then gets on gear. 5:45, we drive to practice. 6:30 – everybody else eats. 8:00, pickup. 8:15-9:00 – shower, books, bed. Sigh, we're back on a schedule again.
I'm trying to block out these background pressures. I want to cling to summer laziness for just a bit longer. I'm going to hang out with my kids for the next four days, play Trouble at the swim club, and pretty much ignore everyone. I'm making a big taco dinner for the kids and their cousins tonight.
My Almost Homemade trick for Mexican rice: Saute a couple of scoops of Trader Joe's salsa in olive oil for a minute. Add a cup of basmati rice and cook in the oil/salsa for 30 seconds. Add two cups of chicken broth. Cook. When it's done, add a handful of chopped cilantro.
Blogging will be slow this week; it also might happen in manic bursts.
Apt. 11d 
“Jonah’s soccer training has begun. Dinner prep 4:00. Jonah eats at 5:00 and then gets on gear. 5:45, we drive to practice. 6:30 – everybody else eats. 8:00, pickup. 8:15-9:00 – shower, books, bed. Sigh, we’re back on a schedule again.”
Is that every day of the week? When does homework happen?
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This is already the second week of school, and we’re working out the kinks in the schedule. Today we’re testing the following scenario: husband picks C up at school at 3:30, takes her to Starbucks for-after school snack and homework, takes her to physical therapy at 4:30, c finishes at 5, then they both come home.
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Heh. I’m trying to figure out how to get to work starting Sep 8. 🙂 I’m teaching a 7 am class! My chair figures we can find people to drive me home, but getting someone to drive me to work at 7 am could be tough. I have a few ideas, plus I guess I can advertise on the Brown student job board.
But my gd, what I can’t deal with is my 7 year old! He’s been home from camp (at the last minute, I got them into a VBS that my daughter’s friend goes to; the religious indoctrination is mild and well worth the 3 hours of quiet I get) an hour, and he’s already tried to push me around on the PMWC (poor man’s wheelchair–an office chair that I use to get the house), picked up the dog and truied to drop her in my lap, hit my cast to see “if it hurts,” brought my crutches all over the house, dumped his Scattergories game right in the path between here and the kitchen, and begged to 1. watch tv, 2. go on the computer, 3. have a popsicle 4. have a Clif Bar 5. go to Friendly’s for dinner.
*sigh* Four hours till my husband gets home….
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Great Laura that you’ve had a relaxing summer, what summer is *supposed* to be. I’ve realized this summer that I am not good at relaxing. I’m trying to prevent that character flaw from skewing my kid’s summer, and have had only partial success.
My daughter is signed up for piano, drama, and soccer, and girl scouts for the fall (though, fortunately, her soccer is soccer-lite). Son is signed up for two different soccer teams (school/neighborhood) & piano.
We’re in intervention to avoid signing up for aikido, swimming, climbing.
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bj,
Not to make you envious or anything like that, but we’ve got the college gym across the street with an enormous 3 story high climbing rock. They have it staffed in the afternoons and early evenings and the staff manage the harnesses, the ropes, belaying, etc. You just wait your turn and climb. During family hours, it’s simply crawling with little kids. Whenever I’m there, there’s always one little pixy of a 7-year-old girl going to the top (admittedly, the climbing staff do provide a bit of help with the rope).
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Ooh, we are jealous. My son would be the 5 year old pixie at the top of the structure. This summer, he climbed the 65 foot REI pinnacle, in 4 minutes (while I nervously clutched my camera and bit my lips).
And, our university climbing gym is not open to children or families.
His climbing gym, which is fabulous, is a 45 minute drive away (hence, no climbing this fall).
That’s what makes this scheduling stuff so tough; each of the individual choices is almost irresistible. But, in sum, they create disaster.
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“…while I nervously clutched my camera and bit my lips…”
Yeah, that’s why I have the staffers put the climbing harnesses on the kids.
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My children are all adults with only one of them still at university. Now summer to me is marked by an absence of my own school. I look forward to Fall because it means I go back to some university or local college to take a course in something of interest to me. I remember the other summers, kids, outings and juggling that with work. I have to say I like this new way better.
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Ugh, I totally hear what Laura/AmyP/bj are saying … and I am so jealous of Mary. My husband’s been back in grad school for exactly two days and our house is already falling apart. The kids start back on Monday; that’s the point where I get to begin enduring the glares of childless co-workers as I roll in at 9:00 two days a week.
FWIW, I can’t remember a year when so many of my parent colleagues needed to adjust their work schedules (in many cases to accommodate spouses who have taken on more hours, out of economic fears) and when my office was more hostile to it. You really do feel you’ll end up on The List for asking to leave at 4 on Thursdays.
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Revised version (since there doesn’t seem to be a Starbucks in easy range): snack on muffin from home, do homework in waiting room. It remains to be seen if this version of the schedule will survive beta testing. C objects to doing something she dislikes (homework) while waiting to do something else she dislikes (physical therapy).
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“…while I nervously clutched my camera and bit my lips…”
“Yeah, that’s why I have the staffers put the climbing harnesses on the kids.”
But, does that really make a difference? I thought about this, and realized I have absolutely no trust in my ability to tie the harness. My son, though, has a reasonable amount of confidence. Why, though, do I trust the 20 something at the climbing gym or the REI store? I do trust my husband, though — he’s going to take the belaying class soon. These were all the thoughts going through my head as the little guy was looking down at me from 65 feet up. (And, yes, I do have a problem with heights myself).
I think this issue — of trusting others with your children plays out in a lot of other venues, some of which are not quite so physically dangerous.
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It’s an easy choice for me:
1. I’ve seen many kids go to the top successfully.
2. I am strap-challenged. Things like bicycle helmets and car seats confuse me.
3. Problems would likely manifest themselves earlier in the climb (say at 20 feet rather than 65).
4. My kids have yet to go higher than about six or seven feet.
Of course, I did get nervous when it turned out that a friend’s kids were totally fearless.
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