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KATCHOOO!

Oh my dear Internets, how thankful you should be that germs are not spread via the information superhighway.

Uh, pardon me for a moment.  Don’t mind the honking that is about to ensue.

Okay, I’m back, although the mountain of tissues in my lap continues to grow at an alarming rate.

This time of year always does me in.  I’ve been so fortunate this winter with sickness, or lack thereof, but my luck has finally run out.  I can’t complain, truthfully.  But I’m sure I will.

And also?  The family bed thing?  I think it’s run its course.  Funny thing, we weren’t “family bed people.”  Our kids always slept in their cribs.  It wasn’t until they moved to regular twin-sized beds that they began to find their way into our room in the middle of the night.  At first it was sweet — cuddling with my preschooler in the night and waking up to that cherubic face on my pillow the next morning is sheer bliss.  Hold on…

KAHHH-TCHOOOOO!

Pardon me.  This is really antisocial.  I do apologize.

Any-WHO.  Hi June.  I know you love me.

So where was I?  Oh yes.  So the magic of the family bed has a way of wearing thin when suddenly there are 4 or 5 bodies attempting to fit onto a queen-sized mattress.  I’m just sayin’.

And speaking of nothing remotely to do with summer camps, I feel like such a slacker parent because I never plan out our summer schedule.  And while I love the lazy days of summer, and I generally prefer to keep things unstructured, as the kids get older, I feel like they would really benefit from at least one week of summer camp.

I’ve found a gymnastics camp for the girls that won’t break the bank.  Now I need to find something sports-related for my son.  And then the next task is to convince him that he wants to go.  Have I mentioned that my kids are homebodies?  Well they are.  Which is usually just fine with me.  But I’m thinking that I might have to nudge them out of the nest a bit to give myself some time to breathe, or you know, work this summer.

How do you handle the dog days of summer?  Do you schedule your kids or do you just fly by the seat of your pants?  Discuss.

Meanwhile, I’m going to see about purchasing a few shares of stock in Kleenex.  KATCHOO!

Join The Conversation

32 Responses

  1. Hope you are feeling better soon. And I’m with you on the family bed thing – stand your ground! I make mine sleep on the floor or go back to their bed. I’m selfish that way – I like my space.

    Camp – I signed A up for a week at Sakanac July 5-11. I didn’t think D would want to go, but thought I’d put it out there.

    Also, in the summer our church does a VBS that is usually sports related on Wed. nights – D is more than welcome to join us for that too.

  2. Feel better! We need a bigger bed too. Two adults, two boys and a dog! I wonder if a king size bed would be big enough.

  3. Sorry you have the crud, too. Must be that time of year for all of us.

    I tried not scheduling anything one summer and we all turned into sloths. Now I try to schedule one thing a month. May/June are swim team months this year. Then in July and August I’ve signed the Midge up for a tennis/golf class two mornings a week.

  4. Bless you! {with my mask and gloves on}

    We fly by the seat of our pants in the summer – although dh is looking into a summer basketball camp for #2 this year at one of the collages – they aren’t cheap – so we’ll see how that goes.

    Luckily St. Louis has LOTS of great touristy things to do – so we’ll hit a few things that we haven’t been to in a while, maybe the Arch this year….

    Feel better soon!
    ~TidyMom

  5. We are a schedule family. My personality requires it. Both kids go to at least 2 weeks of camp. More if I can afford it. I make sure they both have a week without the other so we can do some fun mom and me things and one week (or more) that they both go so I can have some sanity

  6. I NEVER plan the summer with the boys – I have a list of places that I might, maybe visit, but those don’t normally end up happening…I’m a homebody. I’m going to try to leave our property at least once a week this summer though LOL

  7. My life always worked better with a semi scheduled summer. The kids always went to a christian summer camp for one week. We had a scheduled vacation as a family and then swim team meets scheduled some of our other weeks. A summer with nothing scheduled might have been out of control for us. Must have worked…they grew up:(

  8. Summer? Is it time to start thinking about summer already? O Dear. I better get on that…

    Feel better soon!

  9. Feel Better!

    I found a great pottery camp for my daughter that I’m considering this summer. It should encourage the artist in her…and keep the paint away from my house!

  10. I’m so sorry you have a cold. That is rough!

    Summer-stuff.

    My kids haven’t ever gone away to a sleeping type camp because they are homebodies too. But with that said, they are usually on a swim team and with practices in the morning and afternoon, and swim meets on the weekends, that is full enough! And then we always go to AZ for three weeks so that fills the rest of summer up!

  11. God bless you! I’m just getting through a week of “pollen head” myself. I love the sleepy head on the pillow next to me as well, but just last weekend, as my son’s unkempt toenails dug into my rib cage for the four thousandth time, I decided that I could make the trek upstairs to see his sleepy head on his very own pillow. Now mind you, this hasn’t yet happened, but we’re working towards it. Treats and incentives are in the picture! Good luck!

  12. Sorry you are sick. I was going to call you to see if you wanted to meet me at the mall. Hope you feel better.

  13. Bless you!

    Summer? It’s going to stop snowing? Wait, I need a moment…….nope, can’t picture, I’ll be back…

  14. I was thinking of doing a summer camp this summer but then I found out it was going to be about $500 for two weeks. When you add a family membership to a pool for the other weeks it’s too much for us. I think I’ll stick to a week of VBS and a week of a sports clinic run by a church. It worked last year and I’m hoping for the best this summer too.

    Feel better soon!

  15. We try to keep our summer schedule loose and flexible. They’ll do swimming lessons and a few VBS’s (yes I’m one of those moms that takes her kids to multiple VBS’s, but my kids love to go) and other than that we’ll just chill. Meet friends at McDonalds, play outside in the mornings and honestly- give them a chance to get a little bit bored. It’s good for them to recharge their batteries.

    I hope that you feel better soon! I need to buy stock in Kleenex- I’ve gone through so many boxes lately.

  16. I need a schedule even for Summer. I’m kinda crazy like that. I also remember being “bored” a lot when I was a little girl (my siblings are A LOT older than me and you can only go over to your friend’s house around the block so much…) So, I try to avoid the boredom around here. The month of June is already scheduled with our vacation, VBS and swim lessons and my boys will go to a little pre-school in the month of July as well, 2 days a week. But don’t worry, there will be some of “fly by the seat of our pants” days too! : )

  17. Our summer consists of softball, softball and softball. Both our girls play and we are happy to have them on the same team this year. They play travel ball so that keeps us going about 7 weeks in the summer. By the time they finish softball, it is time for volleyball tryouts for high school. Call us crazy – but that is the life with athletic kids. They love it and get to meet so many great kids from others schools. Because of the athletics, they don’t do summer camps simply because they have no time.

    I have been feeling the slump of a cold coming on as well. Are you sure you didn’t send an attachment with this post?

  18. Cute post! I hear you about the family bed. I keep joking that our is like a revolving door…I never know who I’m going to wake up with (which sounds way more interesting than it is).

    Thanks for stopping by my blog!

  19. Summers are a mix of schedule and nonschedule around here. There are swimming lessons for 6 year old ALL summer…praying this year she will get over her fear of jumping in the pool in water over her head. 🙁 She also plays soccer 1 evening a week. The 3 year old just tags along to said activities. 🙂 Besides that, we go to the town pool a few times a week and story time at the library. I like to be home part of the time and MUST get out at least for a little while each day.

  20. I hope you feel better! I can’t wait till Sammy is old enough for summer camp.. I plan on spending all of the summer days in the backyard with a book while Sammy runs of some energy 🙂

  21. I flew by the seat of my pants last summer and was almost homicidal by the time school started. Today I signed the boys up for summer camp. I think I managed to schedule it so that there is something going on at least one day of every week of break.
    Now…if I can just survive spring break next week!

  22. Being sick is not fun. I have felt like the flu all week.
    Some cities do a kid thing where you can buy a movie thing for cheap. Here in Utah last year we went to the movie every Wednesday. We got 10 movies for $5.00 a person. It cost me $20.00 dollars for 10 weeks of entertainment, well the weeks we went.
    I am a homebody but that gave us something to do at least once a week to get out of the house. I am not a planner for summer though.

  23. Oh you poor thing! I hope you feel better very soon!!

    We do a bit of both. This year Hunter will be with us for the summer, so that changes things bit. Both kids will have a week of YMCA camp with a week long trip wiht Grandpa (Woohoo!!!). It breaks things up and bit and that helps a great deal.

  24. I just have to say that I love your writing style. It makes me feel like we’re chatting on the phone or something. I’m sorry that you’re not feeling well. I would suggest that you get plenty of rest but that just sounds like more trouble than anything for you! I feel your pain there, my two kids do the same thing. They’re restless sleepers which basically translates to my bedtime slumber turning into some kickboxing session wherein I end up hanging onto the bed by my fingernails.
    As for summer, we usually fly by the seat of our pants. We spend alot of time at our neighborhood pool and we’re hoping to go on a vacation at some point but other than that, I don’t want too much scheduling b/c then it just feels like the school year all over again. Feel better soon!

  25. Sorry, you have the spring time sneezes! No family bed here. Our king size bed is still not big enough for me, hubby and 2 kids. I don’t think they make a bed big enough for that. Thankfully, our girls don’t like to sleep in our bed. And my summer is already planned away. With homeschooling all year summer become my break! So, we’re stacked up with camps and the girls taking trips, without me! My oldest is turning 10 this spring so my inlaws are taking her to Disney for an entire week! And her Aunt has invited her to stay at her house for a week. And my 7 year old is attending several camps this summer. That all adds up to some much needed Mommy time!

  26. Bless you! Hope you feel better soon. I have never been much a summer planner but I have tried putting the boys in some sports camps but they never really seem to enjoy them that much. Seemed like a waste of money but if they did enjoy it more, would be nice to have a little time with them occupied.

  27. I hope you feel better soon!

    (And now I’m worried about that family bed issue – I thought we’d avoided it for good, but Annalyn is still in a crib…) 🙂

  28. I was just wondering the same thing myself… the summer issue. This is our first official summer with our daughter in elementary school, so we’ve never gone from school all day to summer nothing!
    Yikes! I need to investigate what’s in my area. VBS is a definite – at our church as well as at the church where my daughter attends school. Hopefully they’re not the same week, lol.

  29. Hope your sneezing has settled down!!

    We’re big co-sleepers…but I imagine even we would get a little cramped with that many people in a Queen bed. We’re already pretty cramped with just our 2-year-old!!

    I HATED summer camps. My mom never sent me to an away camp. She knew better. But she did send me to day camps. HATED it. I’ve never been a super big social or organized activity person. As for my teen…it’s pretty unstructured during the summer. She has so much structure when school starts, with Color Guard…..so I try to let her just chill during the summer.

  30. Oh I wouldn’t send them to an away camp. I’m thinking the half-day day camp sorta thing. But I’m getting sticker shock from the prices. Perhaps with our pool membership and the swim lessons in June and 2 vacations, we’ll have enough to do.

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