The Summer Situation

I’m pretty sure that this past winter was the snowiest one I’ve ever experienced.
It kept piling up, week after week. Then it stopped and then it started again.
“I can’t wait for summer! I thought and said repeatedly. Warmth, sunshine,
pool time, beaches and time with my boys. Yes, that’s what I was looking for-
ward to. Just get rid of the snow and give me the sun.

Well, the months passed, the snow melted and summer arrived. Yippee!
Warmth, sunshine, pool time, beaches and time with my boys were finally
here. However, with these things, also came other realities. It included
finding experiences for the boys during their two and half weeks, in June,
before camp started. Next came the planning of how to allow the boys to
enjoy summer, while still engaging in their summer work, then managing
my own work and vacation time with the boys, and lastly finding time to
connect with family and friends.

That’s my story. I can imagine that you might have a few things to subtract
or add to your personal summer situation.

I believe the Summer Situation calls for strategy and structure. A strategy
to determine your method of approaching your child’s or children’s sched-
ule and structure to ensure your sanity and that you make it through this
thing alive.

Depending on when your children’s school year ended, you’re either a
month or so into summer or just a few weeks. Either way, there is plenty
of summer left. How do we create strategy and structure for our
summer situation?

Well, failing to plan is planning to fail. My children were out of school on
June 3rd. Too early, in my book as they don’t return until after Labor Day,
but I digress. The first thing their father and I had to do was to plan out
the summer. We printed a calendar, sifted through camp website after
camp website, identified our options, factored in vacations and completed
our calendar. Next, we needed to plan for the vacations and incorporate
our boys’ educational activities, which included summer work given by
their school.

Once all of that was in place, we moved forward with determining our struc-
ture. My former husband and I like to create as much consistency between
the boy’s two homes as possible. Whether it’s sugar intake, exercise or
timing of summer studies, consistency and structure without compromising
the complete freedom of summer, we take it seriously.

At this point, our summer situation is looking good. If you’re still strug-
gling to make sense of your own summer situation, take a moment to
do the following.

Create a vision. What is the experience of the summer you would
like to experience for you and your children.

Determine what needs to be done for the vision to come to fruition.
Make a plan.

Activate the plan (make calls, do the research, sign up, etc.)

Monitor the plan. Check in weekly to determine if the experience
matches the vision.

You can have a great summer situation!

Let’s live wise and explore motherhood. . .together