I'm staring down the barrel of summer break. What's three months, anyway? Surely I can manage to occupy and mentally stimulate a feisty 2-year-old and a 7-going-on-16-year-old 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from now through mid-August, while keeping up a stream of work steady enough for us not to starve or be forced to farm out child labor. Right? That's what I'm telling myself.
Alex is frequenting every vacation bible school known to man. He's also going to at least one week of camp, thanks to his doting grandparents, a family trip to the beach, and two church day camps. In his spare time there will be reading (he's determined to read 300 pages in the library summer reading program for the sole purpose of earning a ticket to the park formerly known as Alabama Adventure), workbook doing, sprinkler playing, and various and sundry other things that will keep him entertained without forcing me out into the unbearable summer heat. When the temperature gets above 85, I spontaneously combust.
But what of Katherine? She's been in Mother's Day Out two days a week since September, and I've kind of gotten spoiled by the arrangement. If there's something I can't squeeze in on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, either because I'm juggling fifteen fruits or because she decides not to let go of my right elbow, I stick it in the Tuesday or Thursday to-do pile. This summer there will be none of that. I'll have to suck it up, detach her little hands from my elbow, let the fruits fall as they may, and muddle through.
By the time 2nd grade kicks off, about seventy-two years from now, I'm betting I'll be ready for a fresh start. Maybe a job outside the home, with structure and steady pay. Maybe a new haircut. Maybe I'll take up dancing, or get a bird. (I won't get a bird; I hate birds.) Maybe if I survive the summer, I'll be ready to take on the world. After all, no matter how long and hot and boring and challenging it gets, it's the stuff of their childhood. And I wouldn't dare forget that it's supposed to be fun.
