Thursday, May 14, 2015

School Is Out!

Life is full of irony. We want our children to be healthy and grow, but when they do, we lament that they grew up too fast! We coax and discipline our eaters into eating, and we sigh with exasperation when they're asking for food AGAIN! We cry when we want another baby so desperately, and we cry when we make the startling discovery that we're expecting another one "too soon"! (Or maybe no one else ever had that problem) We look forward, with great anticipation, to a date night with no children in tow, and when they all leave home we'll gaze sadly around at the empty nest! (Or so they say) And, we also do this: in August we write blog posts like this http://bethany-aboutmyfathersbusiness.blogspot.com/2014/08/getting-used.html?m=1 and in May we write posts that are quite the opposite!

I guess my Mom's old saying holds true - "As a rule, man's a fool. When it's hot, he wants it cool. When it's cool, he wants it hot. Always wanting what is not!"

I've been going around for the last couple of weeks with this grey cloud hanging over my head. In big, block letters the cloud read "I JUST DREAD SCHOOL BEING OUT!" The man in the house was very sympathetic and helpful when I explained the reason for the dreary, grey cloud. He listened to me read the big, block letters and then he gave me some very helpful advice. "Just stop dreading it!" I believe was the exact quote.

I can't say that I listened very well. I kinda shoved the whole deal into a corner and set out to enjoy the last days of peace and quiet to the fullest! But, here we are, last day of school. Ready or not here comes the days of bored children and cooking lunch every day and taking everyone along everwhere you go and settling twice as many fusses and cleaning up 4 times as many messes......

Wow. I feel like a really bad mother saying all this. You probably think I have terrible children and wonder if I love them at all?! Really, I don't have terrible children, and I do love them. The problem is this: School imposes a schedule - you have to get out the door at a certain time, you have to pack a certain kind of lunches, you have to pick the children back up at a certain time, the children have certain things to be done after school, you have to get to bed at a decent hour.... No school means No Schedule.

"Oh, that's easy!" you say. "MAKE a schedule!" you say. "Have some goals for the summer." you say. And I nod my head. "Yes, a schedule," nod nod. "Some goals, yes indeed." But, when you're gone I shake my head. "Sure! MAKE a schedule. Have some goals. Go for it. I did that last summer too, right?!" You see, what you don't understand is this: I don't do good with self-imposed schedules. They last for....oh, I don't know, 3 days? A week? And then I start saying, "I don't HAVE to do this! Last night was a late night, today we're not going to do this." And the next day I say, "Oh, big deal. It doesn't really matter if we do this, we're going away this afternoon anyway...." It all goes down hill from there. Til evening, when I look at the wreck of a house and I'm tired and somebody's wanting a snack and somebody else is tattling and another one doesn't know what to do and I hold my head and say, "This is so silly! There is no reason I need to feel like this!"

So, all you wonderful, school-is-out-loving-mothers, what is the answer? Tell me all your helpful tips for summer vacation! Email me, message me, comment to me, call me - I'm all ears!

8 comments:

Shannon said...

No answers because I am with you. sigh.

Mrs L said...

Your second last paragraph is so ME at our house! My friends call me "organized", but I am not a disciplined or scheduled person! I want to hear all the advice you get! LOL So far I'm just resigned to blunder through another summer...

Tina said...

Didn't strokes for different folks, aye?:) We are, so far, keeping a set time that we have the older children wake up at. The boys go to work with their dad if possible. That, of course, helps mom!:) It's good to have a quiet\nap time after lunch, for those at home. It helps tremendously if the children can go outside and play. I would be 'up the creek', or worse, if I had to come up with stuff all the time for them to do!!! But, some things I thought of, that maybe everyone else has to, is: Fingerpaints, play dough, puzzles, build models of 'whatever' out of popsickle sticks, or buy a kit, make cards for the elderly at the nursing homes, story tapes. Outside: Help with the garden, have a kiddie pool, get some kittens or puppies to play with,:), go to Grandma's, have some other little's over (seriously, that helps entertain your own!!) If at all possible, have the children help with stuff. (my encouragement:)) They could Spring clean your house!:) o.k, maybe not. They can do a lot, and like to help!:) Rewards coming you know! And go on trips when you get desperate. Take them to the zoo, the library, the McDonalds. Have water fights. Fill up water balloons. Pull weeds for Grandma.
O.k, this is starting to get out of hand. (?)
. I hope to hear from others!!! :)

Tina said...

Oh my, the first word in my comment should say Different . Sorry about that.:)

Anonymous said...

I think I hear you saying that it's not so much having the children at home that you dread, it's the lack of an external schedule that forces you to stay on track that you dread. And you feel powerless to keep yourself on track? Could that Man in your house help you with this? You together figuring out which child could be responsible for which chore: cooking lunch, washing dishes, doing laundry, etc. You have access to a work force that you have been sending out the door everyday and now can do much of what you have been staying at home doing all by yourself. With that help doing the work there will be plenty of time for 'fun' things. I found that my children enjoyed and were more creative with their free time if they had done 'chores' for several hours every day. They knew not to complain about being bored- that often spurred mom on to thinking about another job to do. :) Mr. Man's contribution could include checking everyday whether the delegated chores were done, speedily and correctly. Trust me, I know how much energy it can take to keep everybody on track. It's nice to have some help with that! Here's hoping you will find the answer to your summer 'black cloud' - that silver lining somewhere in there. Jo

Bethany Eicher said...

You are hearing me correctly, Jo!!! It is really easy for me to want to skip all the drama and just do things myself and that feeling doubles when everyone is at home all the time and I know good and well I should be putting them to work and being more intentional and scheduled! I've been resisting buckling down and commiting to solving the problem :) I like your input, thank you for sharing!

Miller scribe said...

Speaking as one who simply muddled through until now summer means yay! my helper is home all day!... I don't have a lot of sage advice. It's tough at your stage but will get better. Maybe it's not Mennonitely-correct, but I think there are some summer days when it's ok to sleep in, don't do more than you have to, and stay in jammies until lunchtime just simply because you can. Not every day has to be filled with teach 'em how to work and stick to a schedule. Don't tell anyone, but I've been known to give myself a time-out with my secret chocolate stash when there was too much fighting, or messes.

Anonymous said...

Oh the joys of summer! Throw the schedule out the window along with the guilt!! I do like summer better now that my littles are older. (ages 4-16) We try to do our work in the mornings and take a pretty long afternoon break for fun things. Sometimes just a cold snack, or a special outing once a week just because. As I near the big 4-0 I realize that things are always changing including summer. Blessings to you! jane