why am I feeling the need to make these last weeks of summer "count"?
I know where you are coming from. STBXW was always frustrated with me when it came to summer. She always said I did "too much" with the girls. She'd rather just go to the campground, sit on the porch with her mom and turn them loose. That's what her mom and dad did. They just sat there, while STBXW was off doing whatever.
It's how we were raised. I grew up doing stuff. Games. Swimming parties. Amusement parks.
So that's a major difference and I just have more energy.
Here's the other thing -- I think you see this too -- you only get to see them grow up once.
D11 and D7 will never be D11 and D7 again. I really feel it with D11. I have a picture of the three of us at Great America last summer. It's one of my profile pics on FB. D11 was 10 and still looked like a kid. She's not a kid anymore. She wears a bra and started having her period and the teen issues are popping up.
Her childhood is over and pretty soon hanging out with dad won't be cool.
So I'm like you. I want to make summer "count." Of course, the resources are a problem now. I have them next week. It's the last of my three weeks off with them. THE big thing is Great America. The other six days will be swimming, or kicking the soccer ball around, or a movie if it rains, or picking up their friends for a sleepover.
Thanks everybody! Bridge those were some great ideas...
We hit Barnes and Noble tonight, spent 90 minutes in there! Kids browsed a ton of books, I checked out the Nook (on my birthday wish list), then we bought 3 books:
An Usborne book about Gymnastics for Sydney
An Avatar: The Last Airbender book for Nathan
A Mo Willems book for both of them to share (I LOVE Mo Willems!)...called "I am Invited to a Party!" It is an 'Elephant and Piggie' book. My kids love those characters even more than Pigeon (Don't Let Pigeon Drive the Bus, etc).
We had a fabulous afternoon/evening. Haircuts, dinner at Panera--Hooray for healthy food!--and Barnes and Noble. Now it's time to read some books before bed.
You will make these weeks of summer 'count' by just being there with your kids. Even if all you are doing is turning on a sprinkler and letting them run aroud in it while you watch and snap pics, that is all the fun that is required. Being together.
T19 M15 S19 XH47 M43 bomb12/4/07 PA5/07 S12/26/07 D final 11/17/08 Back together with no defined R 05/2010 confused....to say the least!!!
We did a little more than that today...I am wiped out! Home again to recharge batteries before heading out once more...
Picked up Nathan's buddy Jimmy at ten, then went to a nature center near here. http://www.fontenelleforest.org/ We walked a mile of 'all access'/plankboard trails, then went off the beaten path and took a side trail down to the river. It was lots of fun. There is an installation right now on the trail, a dozen or so giant sculptures of bugs. Plus costumes indoors where you can dress up as bugs of all types--butterflies, bumblebees, etc.
We went out for lunch after and just got home. Jimmy and Nathan get to play another hour before we have to take him home. Then Sydney wants to go watch the County Fair Queen get crowned--a girl from our church is in the running. It's summer time in small-town Iowa.
Fair Queens rock. I was never in 4H and never ran for that honor myself, but it looks fun! Both my SIL's were Pork Queens...similar but sponsored by Pork Producers. And no neither was 'porky'...both are cute gals.
We didn't go, Sydney changed her mind. It was a long morning/afternoon out in the forest and they are beat. 105 heat indexes again today and tomorrow so we are hibernating.
She is fascinating to me, a big runner, and I love that on her book jacket it says "Kristin lives with her family in Austin, TX: Son x, son y, and daughter z." Sometimes it seems weird to others to say 'family' when there aren't two parents but we ARE a family!
Plus I read that she said she calls Lance Armstrong (her ex) her 'wasband' because she hates the negative sound of 'ex'. She said her kids used to giggle whenever she said it. I like it. Wasband.
Getting excited for new adventures and good things in my life. I already have a lot going for me. It can only get better.
Kids browsed a ton of books, I checked out the Nook (on my birthday wish list), then we bought 3 books: 