How I Survived My Summer Vacation.....

You might notice I added a ticker on the side of my blog. It's a temporary one. I only need it until August 9th. But I DO need it because we're only a week into the summer vacation ( which I use the term "vacation" loosely ) and I'm already going nuts. I had plenty of things going on last week to keep me and the kids busy. This week? Not so much.

When I was young, summer vacation seemed to last forever. Days were filled with fun, games, swimming and picnicing. Climbing trees, watermelon spitting contests, playing tag, catching fireflys, birthdays and staying out until the "streetlight" came on to let us know it was time to come in for dinner. The options were never-ending.

I suspect if I had to write an English 101 "What I Did Over My Summer Vacation" paper now as a 35 year old mother of three, it would probably go a little something like this:

How I Survived the Second Week of Summer Vacation
by The Mom

My alarm clock baby would usually wake me up around 5am. After his feeding, I generally could sneek in another hour or two to "sleep in". If you call 8:00am "sleeping in". (Funny, when you're a kid, "sleeping in" meant waking no earlier than 11am.) That is until the older two children woke up and were overheard arguing over the color of the plastic bowl for their cereal. One bowl is a dark green. The other is a light green. For some reason, the light green bowls were the only clear option if one were to eat Fruit Loops. One day, the dark green bowls ended up in the garbage. As did the plastic light green cups and plastic orange plates. I know. Completely illogical.

Once breakfast was over, and the baby was scrubbed down, hosed off, all nice and clean, we would have "quiet time" which meant the TV is turned off and we find something non roughhousing, fun to do. One day we played "Can you find?" where the kids had a pad of paper and a pencil and had to find objects around the house. For example: "Can you find three things that are blue?" They then would draw a picture of things that were blue. This game lasted about 30 minutes. And now, it's only 9:00am.

But it's still quiet time. Atleast there's no sound from the TV. But echoing through the house one can hear, "OUCH! Stop it! I'm telling Mom." Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. "MOMmmmmm!?! ( insert child's name ) is bothering me!"

Mondays and Wednesdays we have swimming lessons. That eats up a whopping thirty minutes on those days. And not a day has gone by where one or the other of my children has asked me while looking at the Coppertone Waterbabies Sunscreen bottle, "Why is that little dog pulling the girl's swimming suit off?" I don't know. I JUST don't know.

But so far, we have had some little accomplishments.

Lauren has learned a couple of new songs on the piano. She is also doing really well with her swimming lessons.

Erik is walking almost all of the time now and finally drinking from a cup/bottle. He'll give you "high 5's" and "wave" proving that he can be taught.

Jack has been my work out buddy when I do my Tae Bo video. (Which I will probably regret later on....) He likes to have me feel how "sweaty" he gets and feel his muscles. Must be a guy thing. Lauren worked out with me once when I did my pilates video and was sure to remind me that I could just "follow the one girl in the back if it was too hard for me." Thanks.

At the end of the day, well, it's the end of the day. And tomorrow is another one. And another. And another.......

I think even as an adult, summer vacation seems to last forever.