Loving Summer

As I was driving in the car today, I was thinking about how much I love summer. One of the big reasons (besides the obvious reasons) is that I have no schedule.
For the last three years, while Paul had his office, I had to work part time in the summer which meant that I had to find child care for Abbie or bring her with me. That was not how either of us wanted to spend our summer.
During the school year, we have a pretty tight schedule and Abbie is not in a heck of a lot of activities. Monday, right after school is ballet for an hour. Then home where Abbie starts homework and I start supper. Then we do some chores - dishes, sweeping, feeding the cat, scooping litterboxes. Suddenly, it is time to start the bedtime routine. On school nights, we expect Abbie to be in bed by 8:00. Since she is slow getting on her pajamas and brushing her teeth and putting away dirty laundry, we usually start bedtime at 7:00. On weeknights, she has to read at least 20 minutes and log it in her daily reading log for school.
On other weekdays, when she doesn't have ballet, sometimes we run errands and sometimes we come straight home, but there is little time for play. It always seems that something gets left undone or we have to compromise and say we'll do some sort of desired activity the next day.
Either before bed or after she goes to bed, we pack lunches, make sure her homework folder is in her backpack (I have to sign the reading log), etc.
The days can get tedious. At the beginning of the school year, I make sure we pack a healthy, balanced lunch. By the end of the school year, we are just throwing whatever in the lunchbox and politely quarreling over who gets to pack the lunch that day. And we all dread the early morning alarm and the getting-ready-for-school routine.
Ahhh, but summer is here. We ignore the 8:00 bedtime. We're still reading a lot each day since we joined the summer reading program at the library, but it feels more carefree when there is no "requirement" to read each day. We have no set schedule. Anything on the calendar is usually a fun activity that we want to do.
So far, we have gone bowling, stayed in a hotel out of town and toured around, gone swimming, browsed the library, went to a pocketbook party, spent the day with my dad and then my mom, made strawberry jam, baked a cake, played outside, gone for walks, baked cookies, had a picnic....
We've got more things planned, but nothing is a have-to, nothing is required. Abbie might take swimming lessons (probably definitely) and she might go to horse camp, but we'll plan it when we want and skip it if we want.
I love these schedule-free summer days, and I love sleeping in while we can!