What I'm Doing For My Summer Vacation

Y'all. It is our very first real summer in the Kuda household. Miss E finished up her first year of preschool, and starting today, Summer vacay is on!

In that, I'm finding all of these summer bucket lists, and then reading how we're ruining our children by not letting them run free. These are all in the same newsfeed as an article telling me how I should micromanage every single moment of summer to make sure it's the BEST. SUMMER. EVER.

Oy vey.

Being the Type A person that I am, I had even gone as far as preparing activities to do with each of the kiddos, by theme, switching them up every other week. Further, I had scoped out every free program, library class, and play date to keep ourselves busy through the summer months.

And then I regained my sanity and decided how we're going to do summer this year. And that's how I came up with...

Throw away the schedule.

Not like when we have quiet time or Mr C's nap. Or heck, I'm not really going to change bedtime. But you know what? The library class can wait. Miss E wakes up every morning, asks what day it is, then asks me, "What do we do on ____?" And the answer, aside from vacation weeks, has been the same each and every week day since September. The only things we will stick to as far as the kiddos are concerned are the classes we have already paid for, which will only go through June, and the two week-long camps Miss E is signed up for (and let's be honest, who wouldn't want to go to a Princess Ballet Camp? That's what I thought.). Not only am I throwing the schedule away, I'm throwing the ball into their court. That being said...

Try to say "yes" more. Yes to "Mommy can we have dessert for snack?" And Yes to, "Mommy can we paint with chalk?" And Yes to, "Mommy can we go on a car adventure?" I got that one the other day. Yes, honey, we can.

"Mommy, can we go for a walk in our pjs?

Read more books.

This Spring I ended up reading more books than I have in the past year. They were really good (Highs included Something other than God, Surviving Motherhood, and I jumped on the The Fault In Our Stars bandwagon. Worth the hype.), and I just feel like I'm starting to get my cognitive groove back after having E and C. A couple I have my eyes on are Dinner: A Love Story and What Alice Forgot. There are others, but I'm not making any lofty goals this summer. And that brings me to...

Don't make any lofty goals.

I have started umpteen crafty crafts for the new house, and none of them are complete. It's driving me bonkers. And while I do think there's something to said for a little list to help a girl get going (you'll see more of that on an upcoming post), I'm not going to fret this summer about them. Projects will get done, pictures will get hung, walls will be painted. Eventually.

Go outside. A lot.

I'm finding the more time we spend outside, the more time I get to see the kiddos do things they wouldn't necessarily do by themselves. Mini hikes in the woods behind the house, scavenger hunt for critters, etc. They pushed rocks in our driveway with miniature rakes for forty-five minutes this afternoon. FORTY-FIVE MINUTES. And later? Miss E told me her favorite time of today was playing with rocks with Mr. C. Go figure.

And there you have it. Nothing epic. Nothing earth-shattering. We will relax this summer, and leave the rigorous schedule for later.

Until next time,

Mrs. Kuda