IT’S TIME.
“It just doesn’t feel like summer,” my eldest said tonight, belly full of watermelon, face flushed with heat and eyes sleepy from swimming most of the afternoon.
My kids have just finished their last session of distance learning, and the relief in our family is like a thunderstorm after a two-week heat wave.
Despite the school’s best efforts, and their former love of school, the three-times-daily online group lessons were boring my six- and eight-year-olds to literal tears AND sapping their energy for doing much of anything else. It felt a little weird to say such a big goodbye with just a little click, but they got over that pretty quickly.
(We gave up months ago on my four-year-old’s preschool Zoom sessions, which required a different mountain of craft supplies and sustained parental involvement, every day.)
WE WERE ALL SO READY.
Usually, this time of year comes with freedom and adventures and sports camps and ice cream shops. For us, it also usually means an enormously (enormously) anticipated visit to see beloved grandparents and extended family that live a continent PLUS an ocean away.
Of course, this year is different. For all of us.
We want to celebrate our relief that our days are now totally, completely open. We can do whatever we want!
However, the days are now totally, completely open. For the whole summer.
And “whatever we want” doesn’t apply to seeing loved ones and going on airplanes.
So.
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It’s been hard to miss all the Internet’s optimistic summer plans for themed weeks and daily schedules. Doesn’t this seem an awful lot like the color-coded homeschooling schedules we all abandoned weeks ago?
But going rogue feels equally futile.
It’s not a plan that I want, exactly. More of a strategy. A rhythm. Game theory?
I’m thinking something kind of like pinball, you know, how the ball seems like it’s meandering down whatever path it wants and then, pop! One of the little flappers taps it back onto course until it finally makes it to its bedtime destination.
Anyway.
To be honest it has taken ages for me to write this post because really, I’m not totally sure how this is all going to go — how it should go.
BUT SUMMER IS HERE, READY OR NOT.
So I’m going to start with what I know.
- I know my kids are craving time to keep playing as long as they want to — they hated the stop/start schedule of their distance learning program.
- I know they need enough information to manage their expectations (Is today a pool day? When can we watch TV? What’s for dinner?), but that none of us really wants to follow a rigid schedule.
- I know that they seem to like knowing that I’ve got plenty of ideas in my back pocket, but that I need to introduce them little by little.
- I know that we need to find some safe ways to get out of the house, see some friends, and be in nature beyond our backyard. But that it’s also important for them to keep embracing this time at home, enjoying their own company.
- I know they need some surprises to keep their spirits up.
- I know that every day needs to include some time outside, some time one on one, and plenty of reading.
- I know that they love to follow their own whims in the mornings, but that we need to have a plan for the afternoon — and put it into play before their energy dips so low that nothing will do but screens and snacks.
- I know that we’ll probably only make our plans day by day, maybe sometimes week by week.
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Most importantly, though, I know how I want us to feel at the end of the summer:
- I want us to have felt energized by plenty of sun on our faces, fresh air on our skin and grass in our toes.
- I want us to have rekindled a love for learning, to have covered our walls with fresh artwork, discovered some music together, started to read aloud together every day, and finally begun a family movie watching habit.
- I want our muscles to feel stronger and our bellies to be full of summer’s treats, a few of them prepared by the kids.
- I want us to feel rested and connected and loved and optimistic and strong.
PLAY. NOURISH. LOVE. MAKE. LEARN. STORIES. NATURE.
There are so very many things that we don’t know these days. So many things that are not working, need changing, can’t continue. But maybe — if we know where we want to go, and we can find the good in where we are starting from — maybe we can get somewhere.
Happy Summer.