I am a stay at home mom to two routine-loving toddlers. They don't know they love the routine, but they do. And I do too.
Enter summer...
I've been longing for warm weather, playing outside, freedom, maybe *gasp* a small vacation or two. And here it is!
Eric is a Christian elementary school principal. Before the current year, he was a Christian elementary school teacher. "Summer off", right? Ha! I have a husband who shrinks away in terror from the idea of "down time". He gets incredibly anxious when he has free time. Luckily for him, "summer off" is an imaginary concept. There is no "summer off" for someone in his position. Today is the "first day of summer" in his world, since yesterday was the last day of school. He was gone by 7am to be at school for multiple meetings. Will spend the afternoon helping teachers pack up their classrooms so that each room can be painted (by, you guessed it, him!) and moved to a different room for the start of next school year. That's right, my husband will be spending his "summer off" painting an entire school. And taking his admin. classes. And going to meetings.
The hardest part of our summer schedule blossoms from my own mind. In actuality, these summer days don't look much different from any other day of the year. The problem is that a large piece of my brain thinks, "This is summer! Eric will be home more! We will do fun things! We will go on adventures! He will be around to help me with the kids and household tasks!" But it doesn't happen. I get my hopes up that he may come home for lunch or be home early so that I can go to an appointment without the kids or we can go to the park as a family. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. It really is much easier when I don't even get my hopes up. At least then when he's home unexpectedly, it's a welcome surprise, unlike the opposite when I expect him home and he can't make it.
Here's to a wonderful summer of adventure! Hopefully I'll be able to get us all out of town a few times!
Do you think part of it is your internal "teacher/school calendar" that expects summers to be different that the rest of the year? Mine is in high gear - I should be getting my classroom ready and it should be fall because I've had almost 3 months "off." Driving me nuts! I wish you were stopping to visit at our house again this summer!
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