Ahh its finally arrived. No need to pack lunches, snacks, arrange carpools, arrive on time…just lazy mornings in our PJs, lots of lounging by the pool or beach and exploring outdoors.

WAIT - that was the “summer vacation” of my childhood, now days there are lunches, snacks and places to arrive on time. Summer Camp! So many options - sports, art, water play, YMCA, local parks & rec, private places. I’ve received several different threads of emails from other parent’s sharing their summer camp plan, all of us trying to coordinate so our kids’ summer vacation is fully scheduled. When did this happen? I suppose its due partly to working parents, needing to keep their kids cared for; and partly to stay at home parents, needing to keep a little sanity in the house; and partly, but probably a small part, due to the child’s interest.

We don’t let our kids sit still any more (myself included). We’ve become a scheduled, orchestrated, keep-them-busy-until-bedtime society. It’s hard to resist the temptation to click “enroll” when all your kids’ friends are signing up. So I’ve tried to strike a balance. We’re doing a few camps, a few trips, and I’ve left lots of unscheduled time on the calendar. My husband and I both use Google calendar and often that is our mode of “communicating” what’s happening to each other (surviving 10+ years of marriage is a topic I’ll save for another post) so sometimes I even schedule “don’t schedule anything” on the calendar. Crazy, huh?

This week my 7 year old is in Art Farm, a local art camp set at a farm. It’s a little hidden gem in our patch of suburbia: take a dirt road across several bridges of a meandering stream, arrive to a clearing nestled below huge, old tress to find llamas, chickens, ponies and art stations setup outside.  (When I dropped him off this morning, I confess I wished I was attending). This is our first camp of the summer.  I’ll post back to share how it goes.

How do you approach your summer plans?

This entry was posted on Monday, June 20th, 2011 at 1:47 pm and is filed under mothering issues, schedules. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.