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Sunday, May 31, 2015

Winding down

There is hope I may, one day, even like snow days.  That is what has happened with summer.

I'm sure I could dig back through some of these blog posts and find many complaints about summer.  The lack of structure and routine for the kids, too many video games and too much tv watching.

The past two years have changed my view.  I think it is my part-time teaching coupled with the kids' increased school-related activities that have made me increasingly ok with the prospect of not having much to do and no schedule by which to do it.

Last week was our final piano lessons and Girl Scout meetings until September (me and N), and our last music academy classes (me and M) until mid-August.  Friday was my last class at the cottage school until September.

M graduated from preschool in mid-May, and N's graduation from 5th grade is this coming Thursday.
I have no grand plans for the summer, other than to take the graduate class at my alma mater to renew my teaching certificate, and this is really less "grand plan" and more "I have to."  There are 4 books I need to reread in order to plan next year's cottage school lessons (Beowulf, Hamlet, Little Women, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which I'm working on now).

Our city is doing cultural passes again this year, so we'll be hitting up some of the places we didn't visit last summer.  I'd like to take the kids to visit a historic fort about an hour away from us, and they'll be doing every summer reading program they can squeeze in.  I'm going to have all the kids work on piano this summer and will be starting to teach G cursive after we return from our vacation.

This is the first summer that I'm really feeling grateful to be a stay-at-home mom so that my kids can luxuriate in idleness, in staying in their pajamas until they change into their swimsuits.  It reminds me of my summers as a kid.  I was always glad to head back to school after 10+ weeks of break, but it was also so great to not have to get up or go anywhere on a regular basis.  Camps and YMCA and all that stuff provides kids lots of fun, but there is something wonderful about just lazing around your house all summer.  It is a hallmark of childhood, or at least childhood of the 1950s-1980s variety.

The worst part will be running the dishwasher 11,000 times a week from all the snack bowls. 

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