Around our Summer in 80 Days

Eighty days. That is how long our summer break lasts. Our first grade son finished school today and returns to school in 81 days. Our daughter will start kindergarten at the same time. So, we have 80 days of summer fun ahead of us.

            In some ways, I am really looking forward to the summer break. During the school year, we are very active with sports activities, Cub Scouts, dance, church, PTO, and school work. It is great to have some time to decompress with down time. In other ways, however, I am very worried about our summer. This year, I will be home with the kids for the majority of the time. I have a flexible work schedule, and I can work early mornings and late nights to do what I need to do. My wife does not have that kind of flexibility with her work, so she cannot take care of the kids during the normal work week. And while I love my kids dearly, I do dread spending so many hours with them each day.

            Our kids, like all 4-year-old and 6-year-old kids, are very active. They wake up full of energy, and it is a chore to get them to bed at night. In between waking and sleeping, they are busy. And they have short attention spans for most activities. Which means that I have to fill a lot of hours with tons of activities. My kids also lack patience, and so do I. I can become easily frustrated with them when they ask for one thing after another. I can become frustrated when they lose interest in a project that I think should take more time. These are some of the reasons why I am dreading our 80 days of summer.

            We also have some things to work on over the summer. I have told the kids that we are working on three “character” traits over the summer. These are our “Three R’s of Summer.” They are respect, responsibility, and right words. We want our kids to be respectful of God, parents (and adults in general), people’s possessions, etc. We want our kids to be responsible for their actions, and learn age-appropriate responsibility for themselves. They need to work on cleaning up after themselves, preparing some simple meals for themselves, and taking responsibility for the good and bad things they do. Finally, we are working on using right words. We need to use right words when we address elders. Hopefully, we can refrain from using potty humor words (yeah, I know it’s not likely, but I can dream, right?)

            I really want this summer to be one that is memorable for the kids. We have lots of fun activities and vacations planned. I just pray that we can all keep it together, not strangle each other in the course of those 80 days. I’ll let you know how it is going in the coming weeks.

Lance