Start-of-summer struggle

It was great last week, the first few days of the kids' summer vacation and our radical change of gears. We enjoyed each other, the kids were getting along, and everything was much, much better than the first week of LAST summer (shudder).

It all fell apart this last Monday. Horrible day -- well, afternoon. The kids were crabby, I was crabby, there was no relaxation or enjoyment but miserly crabbing and dissatisfaction with everything, on a background of rush, rush, rush. At the end of the day, when we were going to pick up dear husband from work, we were all nearly in tears and I realized that I felt responsibility for how badly the day had gone though I wasn't sure exactly what I'd done wrong. I told the boys so, apologized, and promised to do my best to figure it out and do better. My first thought was that we can't do three scheduled things in one day -- or at least not on a nearly daily basis; I can't prep and catch up and take care of that day all at once on a consistent basis.

It took me a day or two, but now I think the day was horrible mostly because I had a deadline I was working on in between a meeting, swim lesson, and evening baseball games, and what I needed to do to prep for each of them and make sure everyone was fed. Oh, and I'd forgotten to wash the baseball uniforms. Bleagh. When we got to the games I bought everyone a hot dog to "top 'em off", relaxed and enjoyed the (hot, breezy) summer evening and watching Son1 play second base -- that was fun! And he did pretty well, yay Son1!

Yesterday was better. I hope today will be better still. We're spending all morning and early afternoon at home. I'll do some kitchen work and my table work and a telephone call, all of which I can do companionably with the kids -- except maybe the phone call. I even have a plan for dinner and for laundry. And we have new books from the library to read and/or read aloud. A favorite that Son1 read to us on the way to baseball practice last night is Technically It's Not My Fault: Concrete Poems. Sooo hilarious! We laughed all the way to practice. We have baseball games tonight, so we'll be in those hot summer breezes again, cheering on our boys as the sun slips wonderfully low in the sky.

We saw the tiny moving stars of fireflies above the fields a night or two ago. Summer is well underway.