Eek! How is summer almost over again?

This is the time of summer that I look at the calendar and panic that summer is almost over and we haven’t done anything “summery”.

I pretty much do this every year, despite the fact that 1) we have done “summery” things and 2) I know that I do this every year.

But for real, we haven’t gotten snowballs or hung out at the pool for hours or lazed away an afternoon in the hammock.  I have this vision in my head of what summer should look like and our reality is nowhere close, so every year I panic.  What if we don’t have the perfect summer?

Funny thing is that I don’t ever think to myself, what if we don’t have the perfect fall?  Or wintertime? Although this feeling does rear its ugly head again around the holiday season, but that’s a whole different topic.

But what is it about summer?

I think it has to do with the kids being off school, so in theory there is all this free time.  WRONG.  I still have to work almost every day which means that my kids were in camp when they were younger and now are working themselves as they are older.  This doesn’t leave much time for spontaneous snowball runs or jumping through the sprinklers.

When the kids were younger we would sit down at the beginning of summer and make lists of the things we wanted to do over the summer.  Things like the pool, visit grandma and papa, visit the zoo, go hiking, Hershey Park, etc., etc.   We’d then post the list on the fridge and cross things off (yes, I am type A and yes, I like lists).  This way I thought we wouldn’t miss any of the things we all wanted to do.  Time still got away from me and I still panicked in early August which meant lots of crammed in zoo and pool visits before school started.

We put so much pressure on ourselves to make everything perfect.  I grew up in the 80’s in northern New Jersey and remember spending most of my summer days in our pool or playing with neighborhood kids for hours every day.  We didn’t do many structured activities, but still had plenty to do.  Unfortunately, because of where we live, this type of summer has never been an option for my kids or really anyone else I know.  My kids have grown up in a suburb of Baltimore where summer camp is an expectation.  I didn’t go to summer camp, in fact I didn’t know many people who did.  But where we live, everyone goes.  And many even go to sleep-away camp.  I never even suggested that and my kids never asked – I didn’t want to give up any more of the precious summer time with sleep-away camp.

But my kids did go to day camp for at least part of the summer every year.  They went to karate camp, tennis camp, every day basic camp, all sports camp and outdoor adventure camp.  I was frequently jealous of their camp experiences.  Spending the day outside in the woods learning to build shelters and playing in the stream sounds pretty nice to me in contrast to sitting in an office working all day.  I think they call adult camps all-inclusive resorts and my husband and I are becoming more and more interested in giving that a try sometime soon.

Outside of day camp, the rest of the weeks were pieced together with staying with grandparents (Grandma camp was always a huge hit) and family vacations.  When they were younger, I was lucky enough to not work on Fridays which made planning activities much easier.  We did spend time at the pool and got ice cream before dinner.  But it still never felt like enough.

Now that my boys are older, it’s even harder to compete with work and friends.  Those spontaneous ice cream outings now have to be planned a week in advance to fit them in.  Summer with teenagers/college students are not the same, but I’m not ready to let them be different yet.  So here I sit stressing about what we haven’t done in the second week of August, just like every other year.  Maybe that’s just part of the summer routine?

I see some kids are already back in school and try to be thankful we still have several weeks left to cram things in.

This summer is especially bittersweet as my oldest goes back to college soon as a sophomore and I know the number of summers he will be home is dwindling fast.  This makes me so sad I try not to think about it too much.  I’m just happy he’s still willing to sign up for the rock-climbing class we’ve been talking about.  I’ll happily take any time he will share.

The only wisdom I can impart is likely something you’ve already read before, but I do think it bears repeating as I look back on all the happy summer time spent doing “summery” things with my children.

      * Take that walk together - even it its hot and you need to make dinner.  It will all still be there when you get back.

* Get the ice cream or snowball – even if you haven’t had dinner yet.  Who said dinner has to come first?  Especially in the summertime!

* Don’t pass up the trip to the pool to watch your kids splash around and swim.  Make sure to get in the water with them and enjoy the time together.

* Make the list of summer activities and enjoy crossing off the things you’ve done together.

Before you know it, it will be back to school or you will be moving your child into their dorm room/apartment/house and the years of summer opportunities will be past.  The hope is that you will have many happy memories and lots of smiling pictures to look back on.

But for now, embrace the time and enjoy that custard cone with rainbow sprinkles!