This week, I have been a very naughty girl. I have avoided going to bed before three in the morning every night for a week, and I plan on doing so again for the next two nights. This past week has been a perfect storm of busy, but I must admit I've enjoyed most of it. In the last seven days, I've simultaneously helped a friend with a pretty big yardsale, watched the entire first season of Glee, and helped to prepare for my sister's 40th birthday party, and entertained guests from out of town all while maintaining a steady schedule of karaoke singing and beer drinking. As you can see, my days have been pretty full and to create more time, I've been staying up way too late. Oh, and did I mention that I am still getting up in the mornings with the kidlets and doing the mundane things like laundry, dishes, pet patrol, grocery shopping, etc. I do believe, much as Edna St. Vincent Millay once wrote, "I burn my candle at both ends, it will not last the night. But ah my foes, and oh my friends, it gives a lovely light!" Sleep-deprived and all, I am having a blast this summer!
Next week, I have to get back into school-starting, uber-mommy routine, and I very much do not want to have to be responsible again. I am enjoying my summer break entirely too much and I feel like my children who begin lamenting right around this time every year, "Where did my summer go?" I feel like a kid. I just want to hang out with my friends, find fun things to do, go swimming, stay up way past my bedtime, eat tasty junk food, go on vacation, sleep late, be irresponsible, and just thoroughly enjoy myself to my own detriment. I mean, heck, that's what summer is all about!
Nonetheless, I do realize the benefits of the school year beginning again. Being back on a fairly strict schedule of school, soccer, and other extracurricular activities creates a smooth-running, well-organized utopia. Chaos reigns during summertime at my house and while it can be energizing and exciting at first to have no routine, towards the middle of August, everyone in my family, especially my poor, beleaugured husband who works all year long, begs for some order. I have always believed that children need, and surprisingly like structure, parameters and rules. I have come to find out from this past week of frenetic, spontaneous activity, that adults like those things too. More importantly, at this age, we need the structure just for our physical well-being. I feel like I am worse than a teenager, give me an inch and I'll take a mile in regard to having a good time. Please, somebody put me on restriction, because if left to my own devices, I may never sleep at a reasonable hour again!
In all seriousness, though, I am looking forward to another school year. Some of my best memories from childhood and young adulthood center around late summer and fall when school begins. Even my profession as an educator strengthens my affection for the ending of summer break and going back to school. I love the fresh faces ready to learn, the feeling of anticipation about what I might learn or be able to teach during the year, the new clothes and supplies, meeting up with friends not seen for a few months. I love it all. I really hope my children do as well. My daughter who is going into the fifth grade is excited to start up again and my five year old entering kindergarten is nervous and enthusiastic too. I hope they can maintain those feeling throughout their lives, because it makes something they have to do for 12 years a lot more fun, but it also makes them appreciate their summer vacation even more. I still have a few more days to appreciate mine and I am going to do it to the fullest--even if it means going to bed in the wee small hours of the morning!
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