HDYDI: Love (don’t dread) this Summer with Your Kids
This week’s HDYDI is my post over at Austin Catholic New Media: enjoying (not just surviving) summer with your kids. Trust me, there are some days I’m all, “how many more days until school starts again??” The sibling *love* can often put me over the edge. But mostly, I want to love my kids. I want to spend time with them, do fun things, enjoy their company and relish in their budding personalities. I made these people, with the help of the man I love most and my Creator! After more than a decade of summers, I’ve grown as a wife and mom and hopefully my mistakes will be your precious moments.
Speaking of loving summer, you may notice me less in cyberspace over the next couple of months. I’ll still be here, just blogging less and playing Headbandz more. If you miss me too much, just click on over to the archives. Puh-lenty of Whitaker crazy to keep you occupied. Oh, did I mention we’ve already clocked our first ER visit of the summer? Yeah, I’ll give you that 411 on Friday.
And, if you haven’t already, there’s just a few hours left in that awesome saint giveaway. It ends at midnight tonight!
For more HDYDI posts, visit my How I Do It Page.
Now, without sounding all stalkerish… I was just thinking the other day that it would be great if you posted a HDYDI on a summer with kids! Thanks for the tips. I love your tip about adding in that tasty snack or dessert to the grocery list. It’s a nice way to make grocery shopping more pleasurable. I need to think that way with more things.
My husband and I were just talking about summer the other day. Some of my cousins do not work and we see them often this time of year for some confirmation/graduation/Mother’s Day/Father’s Day sort of event. And every year they complain to no end about kids being out of school for 2 months. Yet they also feel their call to full-time motherhood is a vocation and not only would their kids would be damaged if mom worked, they would be failing God’s plan. To then complain about the agony of their kids being out of school seems very martyr-ish to me, like they are sacrificing themselves to the cause.
I work part time, which has been working out very well for our family. My oldest is only 3.5 so we haven’t really plunged into *summer* yet, but I see on the horizon this becoming a major conflict – internal for me, and internal and external for the family. A flexible part time schedule is great pretty much all year except summer when, unless one is a teacher or can afford expensive programs, summer becomes a dreadful period of organizing childcare. Not to mention feeling like I’m failing to give my kids the lazy days at the ballpark or chasing the ice cream truck that summer offers for other kids.
I could get into an entire discussion on why our school calender is a total mismatch for the majority of (working) families in our country, but that is so Debbie Downer.
Great article on how to make summer a good time for all and I think I want to come to summer camp at your house!