No more pencils, no more books…

Posted by Shelah | June 5, 2008 | 14 Comments

Shelah is a SAHM to four kids (ages 8 to 1) who loves reading, running and chronicling her life in the blogosphere (she also writes here and here). She joined the church as a teenager in Connecticut, and attended BYU from 1993-1997, when she graduated with a degree in English Teaching. She completed a MA in American Culture Studies from Washington University in St. Louis, turning in her final seminar paper on the way to the hospital to have her first child. Shelah taught middle school English and French and college-level English. Since she and her husband Ed were married, he’s spent more than a decade dragging her around the country (Missouri, Minnesota and now Texas) while he does endless amounts of medical training.Next year he promises that he’ll get a real job, stay put for more than three years at once, and all live happily ever after. Right?

In four more hours, I become a mother of four again.

Over the last ten months, I’ve had it easy. From 8 to 3 each weekday, I had only two kids hanging off the cart in the grocery store, two kids to schlep in and out of the gym child care, two kids to ferry back and forth from my son’s physical therapy. And one of those kids naps for two hours each afternoon. While she’s asleep, there’s no one for my three-year-old to fight with. It’s bliss.

But at one o’clock this afternoon, school gets out for the summer, and my life is going to change.

The end of the school year snuck up on me. The kids have been giving me daily updates about how many days of school they have left, but it didn’t hit me until Tuesday, when I stood in my son’s second-grade classroom for the final class party and noticed that all of the bulletin boards had been pulled down, exposing corkboards scarred from years of displaying spelling tests and art projects. I’d been in denial; soon I’d have eight hands hanging off the shopping cart, four drinks to weigh my purse down on a trip to the children’s museum, and no quiet hour in the afternoons.

I know a lot of moms who hate the beginning of the school year. Last spring my visiting teaching companion admitted that she was crying herself to sleep every night over the thought of her second daughter starting kindergarten several months down the road. I am not that kind of mom. When my oldest started kindergarten, I rejoiced, practically pushing him into the classroom and slamming the door behind him. I love my kids, but I’m a better mom to them when we get breaks from each other.

Summers where I live are equivalent everyone else’s winters—so intemperate that no one spends any time outside (and yeah, we get payback in the winter, but the kids are in school then). Since we can’t stand the heat, we’re going to spend a lot of time outside of the proverbial kitchen, escaping to locations north and west for about half of our eleven-week break. But we can’t rely on the kindness of our less climactically-challenged relatives all summer, and besides, I’d miss my husband too much. Pretty soon, we’ll come back home, and I’ll be doing the four-on-one zone defense.

I’m sure I’m not the only Segullah reader who has a hard time loving the summer break (right? C’mon, assuage my maternal guilt a little bit here), so I’d like to hear from my sisters in the summer struggle. And if you love summer break—tell me all about the (easy) stuff you do to make it fun. After all, I have no choice but to spend every waking minute with all of my kids for the next eleven weeks, we might as well have a good time.

Category: Slice of Life

Comments

14 Responses to “No more pencils, no more books…”

D.
June 5th, 2008 @ 12:57 pm

You’re not the only one! And I have never cried about watching another child go to school full time. But, I do love my children dearly. When we moved from a school district that had year-round school, I was hoping to move into a district that also had year-round school. I don’t think I could handle a “traditional” summer break! I can do 3-6 weeks but more than that would probably kill me and my kids. I try to fill long breaks with at least a week of visiting some relative somewhere, or having one here and then doing some big fun thing once a week. I’m trying to think of goals/projects for us to work on together for the upcoming break. I also want the kids to have some time to roam and be free with their friends. When the kids are out of school I try to do my shopping after daddy comes home so I don’t have to have my little friends with me asking for things. I have just moved to the phase where I feel comfortable leaving them home alone for an hour or so if I am not too far away. That helps!
Jennie
June 5th, 2008 @ 1:15 pm

Today is the last day for us too. I’m making my kids clean the house from top to bottom, so we at least get off to a clean start. That should last all of three hours. I’m still in denial, thinking that when we wake up tomorrow they’ll actually have someplace to go all day.
I’m torn between having structure over the summer or just hanging out doing a lot of nothing (that is more my temperament but sounds boring to the kids.) I think my strategy might be doing chores in the a.m. then swimming at the neighborhood pool til naptime. Then babies nap and big kids veg in from of the TV. Sounds like an edifying summer. We’ve got the Texas heat to deal with too, so we’re having to be strategic about what activities will work and what is too hot to do.
I am sort of sad when they go back to school in the fall–for about five minutes. Then I remember what peace and quiet feels like.
miggy
June 5th, 2008 @ 5:06 pm

I’m not there yet–not by a long shot, BUT I do remember summa’ time as a kid. One thing I remember my step mom doing was taking us to the library a lot. I remember being involved in a summer reading program at the library–so not only did we go to the library, but then we also had to read so many books to earn points for this reading program. Maybe it only kept us busy 1-2 days, but it’s something right?
shelah
June 5th, 2008 @ 5:59 pm

My 6 yo spent the afternoon alternately hysterically crying about not getting to see her kindergarten teacher all summer and lying on the floor complaining that she had nothing fun to do. Then we took ten minutes and made lemonade, and when her dad came home, she told him all about what a great afternoon we had. Um, ok.

Yep, Miggy, I’m definitely counting on the folks at the public library to keep us both cool and occupied this summer.

Jennie- I knew you’d feel my pain (literally).

D- Year-round school seems like a brilliant idea.
Angela
June 5th, 2008 @ 6:05 pm

I don’t cry over Kindergarten, either, which has made me feel guilty. Oh, my stone heart! Actually, I take that back. I have gotten a little misty, but in a good way, like “See how cute they look piling onto the bus with their backpacks!” It’s such a milestone. But I don’t cry because I’ll miss them, because I agree with you: I’m a better mom when we have some breaks from each other.

That’s why I love year round school. I actually look forward to the shorter, three week breaks (no more homework, no more dragging them–and myself–out of bed) and I can come up with three weeks’ worth of some creative Mom ideas. It’s the loooooong summer that we had when I lived in MN that killed me. Once summer I got jury duty and rejoiced! (In MN they even pay for your childcare, so I rounded up a bunch of teenagers in the neighborhood for babysitting duty and went on my merry way to downtown St. Paul for three weeks and interacted with grown-ups, guilt free! Loved it.)

This coming year, though, I’ll have one Jr. High student on a traditional schedule and two in elementary school year round and one toddler. Should be interesting . . .
bek
June 5th, 2008 @ 9:00 pm

MY friend Lisa just blogged about this… how the summer strikes fear in the hearts of many months. I agree. My solution is to sign my kids up for as many summer activities as we can manage/afford. Our community center does awesome week long day camps for very little money–so they take turns going there. The key for me is to send them one at a time, to minimize the people left at home to argue with (we are still working on the “playing together” thing). I also have found great happiness in having some of the young neighborhood girls be mothers helpers–or in other words, come over and play with my kids.

A girl in our old neighborhood did something called Hannah Camp. She had “camp” for about 8 kids each morning of the week, the played, did a craft, etc. It was a great way for her to earn money and the kids to get out of the house… maybe you can talk a neighbor girl into do that one?

Our school ends next week. I am quaking in my boots even now… the library is one option we haven’t done much but I am going to start…
Dalene
June 5th, 2008 @ 10:13 pm

I have to admit that now my kids are older it’s much easier, but I am just as happy to see school end and summer begin as I am to see summer end and school begin again. Maybe it’s just nice to change it up again or something.
Les
June 5th, 2008 @ 10:33 pm

I still think I should start my sibling peace boot camp- Vacation to my parents is my answer oh and lots of library books, legos, ice cream, and just chilling! I bask in the unstructuredness of it all- I try to do dumb little stuff but my kids think its cool like sleeping in their sleepbags one night, making a blanket fort another and of course a plethora of art projects. After listening to a bunch of lectures on play for my child life recert. I have been working on playing better with them.
TJ Hirst
June 6th, 2008 @ 8:57 am

Funny you should ask. We are on day five right now. The first two days we busied ourselves with too many “to dos” and tired ourselves out, the third day we ignored any responsibility and enjoyed the moments togther, the fourth day I played referee and couldn’t mentally concentrate on anything because of the noise, the fifth day we are considering an impromptu trip to visit my parent’s farm. This about sums up the rhythm of our summer, and I will be happy to have it for a time and ready for school before the summer actually ends.
David Santos
June 6th, 2008 @ 4:18 pm

I loved this post and this blog.
Happy weekend
Heathermommy
June 6th, 2008 @ 5:51 pm

You know I am coming at this from a different perspective since we homeschool. My kids are always around! We really can. I agree it is necessary to have breaks some time and I definately schedule those in.

Anyhow we also deal with way to hot summers so we have to do a lot of indoor stuff. I let my kids play outside in the early morning or we go to the pool. We read a ton of books and a lot of times act out what we have read. I let my kids build forts inside the house all summer long. A life saver last summer was a big box from a newly purchased tv. The kids played in that thing all summer.

Another thought, don’t get too stressed out when your kids start to say they are bored. Let them be bored for a while and don’t supply them with something to do. Eventually they will get creative and think of their own things. It’s good for them.
Tiffany
June 7th, 2008 @ 12:43 pm

heathermommmy, I loved your comment.

I don’t find the summer intimidating, but we only have 8 weeks. Also, I have planned lots of interesting activities. My fail-proof summer activity? Going to the beach. We have a lake by our house with four lifeguards manning the tiny beach. Piece of cake! Tired kids at night! No mess in the house! Everyone wins!

I can stay up as late as I want reading books and then we can be lazy during the day if we need.
Emily M.
June 7th, 2008 @ 11:35 pm

We’ve been out of town the first week of our break, so I have not had a chance to get a schedule planned or anything. I’m all about playgrounds and playing outside when possible, though. No mess and tired kids. If heat and humidity make that impossible… I don’t know. I think if I had the discipline to establish a good summer routine, it would help me and my kids. That’s a pretty big if, though.
Sage
June 8th, 2008 @ 2:20 am

Every once in a while when I’m purging papers (it does happen occasionally) I find one of my idealistic “Summer Schedules” that I make each year. They are filled with me teaching my kids yoga, Spanish, sewing, painting, dance, piano lessons, etc. Then I read my journal entries for August 29th or so and hear the “we watched too much tv again this summer” complaint that I seem to also make every year. We do try the library (my four kids are 14, 11, 7, almost 2), go to the lake, try to do chores and practice music. But I’ve yet to feel like we have the idyllic summers I plan in my mind. Maybe this year will be different!