Mom’s Summer Bucket List

Posted on April 18, 2012 by FoBaM-Jamie

Summer is nearly here.

I can hardly believe it. Seems like just yesterday, I was bringing my daughter to school for her first day of second grade. Now, we’re poring over  summer camp catalogs and websites trying to figure out what she’s going to be doing while mummy works. She and I both wish I could take the summer off, but I’ve explained that I’d have to be a teacher in order to get those hours, and I’m not prepared to go into that line of work. (I bow and say, “I’m not worthy.”)

Despite the fact that I won’t get eight weeks off to spend with my daughter, I am already making a list in my head of all the things I hope we get to do this summer.

When I was a kid, it seemed like summer went on forever. My mom worked, but only part-time and often from home. Because of this, my sister and I enjoyed an endless parade of unstructured days at home. I spent mine reading, drawing, walking in the nearby woods, and playing with my dog, Boomer. Long hours of slow and quiet activities made the weeks stretch off to distant horizons. It truly seemed like it would never end.

But, of course, it does.

Now that I’m the mom, the summer seems to pounce on me from out of nowhere, and disappear almost as quickly, leaving me with regrets about trips we didn’t take, outings we didn’t have, and lazy afternoons that never materialized. Well, not this year. This year, I’m making a bucket list for summer. I may not fit everything on the list into the few weeks between now and the third grade, but I’m going to do my best to create some special memories. It will take some planning and some serendipitous aligning of the stars. It will mean ditching work once in a while. (And, that’s okay.)

I haven’t finished my list, but here is what I’ve got so far. Love to hear what’s on your summer bucket list – maybe I’ll steal a few of your ideas and add them to my own!

• Dance in the rain, preferably in puddles
• Catch fireflies
• Spend a lazy day swimming in a river and picnicking on the banks
• Climb a mountain
• Spend an entire day reading, playing cards, and journaling
• Make s’mores at a campfire
• Go to a nighttime, outdoor concert
• Use a rainy afternoon to do a few of those art projects we never seem to get to
• Have a lemonade stand
• Go on a whale watch
• Have ice cream for dinner
• See fireworks
• Spend way more days at the beach
• Meet a hobgoblin and a fairy (my daughter added this one)
• Ride the swan boats and feed the ducks in Boston
• Meet elves (that’s my daughter again)
• Go to the zoo
• Have strawberry shortcake for dinner
• Go miniature golfing
• Go to NYC (that’s my daughter … again)
• Fly a kite

Of course, even if we don’t manage to do any of the things on this list, I know that our summer will be full of its own adventures and memories. Even the days when we do nothing at all are special – as long as we spend them together.

What’s on your summer bucket list? 

Image Credit: Martin Rey

Summer’s over, but fun goes on

Posted on September 6, 2011 by FoBaM-Jamie

As the last few days of the summer slipped through my fingers, I felt relief (what mom doesn’t look forward to the kids’ return to school?) mixed with sadness and a little guilt. Back in June, as we were wrapping up the last hectic weeks of first grade, I was full of good intentions about spending more time with my daughter this summer. As a single mom running her own business from home, I have a history of getting caught up with work and letting the day get away from me. This summer, I set out with a new plan that included taking Fridays off and only working half days on Wednesdays. The idea was that my daughter and I would have a summer’s worth of day trip adventures to look back on at the end of the season.

My plan would have worked, too, if it weren’t for life getting in the way.

My business picked up suddenly and I was left scrambling to meet deadlines. I added camp days to my daughter’s schedule or let her stay home, watching movies, while I sat in the next room hammering at my keyboard – so close, and yet so far. My dreams of idyllic mother-daughter outings were evaporating like so much fog – disappearing before my eyes.

So, when the first day of school arrived (August 31^st for our neck of the woods), I felt like an utter failure. I’d let the summer get away from me, and now it was gone. I can’t get those days back. I can’t make up for the lost time that I sacrificed to the gods of fiscal responsibility. My daughter had a great summer, it just wasn’t the summer I’d hoped for and now it was too late …

… or was it?

A day before school started, my parents and my little girl drove north for two hours and spent the day at an outdoor adventure park with a ropes course, mountain slide, and other active attractions. Though I was grateful for the time to work (I was, once again, on deadline), I was sad that I couldn’t be the one spending the last official day of the summer with my daughter. Sometimes it feels like everyone except me gets to have fun with her. But, it doesn’t have to be that way.

So, on Friday of that week (the kids didn’t have school for some odd reason), I packed my daughter into the car and we retraced the route she’d taken with my parents a few days earlier. We spent a gorgeous (and exhausting!) day climbing, riding, sliding, bouncing, and chasing butterflies. And we enjoyed other mini outings over the course of the long weekend – aimless meandering about town complete with window shopping, a late season visit to the beach, breakfast out at a place we’d never been before.

Although the summer is over, I realize that there’s no reason we can’t make time for fun NOW. There is always this moment. There is always a chance to make a memory – even if it’s just a memory of walking around town, hand-in-hand. Sometimes, those quiet, non-events make the best memories.  So, instead of being sad that the summer is gone and my best-laid plans fell by the wayside, I’m now excited to think of all the adventures that still await us. There’s no expiration date on having fun with your kids. The summer season may be over, but the season of fun never ends.

Summertime Survival Tips

Posted on July 12, 2011 by FoBaM-Jamie

We’re tickled to once again have guest writer Renee DeLuca Deans here to tweak our funny bone with her own sense of wry and witty mama humor. Today’s treat is her list of  eight summertime survival tips. Forget applying sunscreen or hydrating – these tips come compliments of the experienced mom who knows the truth about how to get through summer unscathed. We hope you laugh as much as we did! Enjoy!

It’s finally here, another glorious summer! Living in Massachusetts I spend three quarters of the year waiting for this very season yet somehow, when it finally arrives, it rolls in equal parts amazing and ‘isn’t it time for you guys to go bed yet?’ This time, like a good boy scout with lady parts, I will face this mixed bag of a season prepared and I suggest you do the same. Here are my survival tips for a successful summer vacation:

Get Your Tan On. Everyone knows a sleepy kid means an easy bedtime so run those little suckers ragged. Hit the beach, the pool, the slip and slide, go pick some blueberries, play catch, take the dogs for a walk, splash in puddles, build a fort, blow dandelions on your neighbors lawn…just do it all outside. By 7pm they’ll be begging you to put them to bed and oh look, your arms look thinner with a tan. Double bonus.

Play Local. A vacation with young children really is just an expensive change of scenery so stick with whatever’s within sane driving distance. Save yourself the overpriced airfare, the oh-so-believable “Don’t make me turn this plane around!” and the trying to pretend that’s the first time your son has ever yelled, “CAN YOU SEE MY BUTT?” while walking through the full body scanner. Spend some of that money you save on Photoshop and insert your cute little kids in front of the Grand Canyon and then be all mock-offended that they don’t even remember going. “See, this is why we’re not going anywhere this year. You don’t even remember us taking you to one of our nation’s most treasured National Parks.” You can thank me later.

Don’t Forget Bath Time. Chlorine + water = bath, right? It’s summer vacation, if you can remember the last time your kids set foot in an actual bathtub, you’re going about things the wrong way. I trust the chemicals I throw in my pool to kill algae and whatever that brown funk is, I can certainly trust them to kill some kid germs as well. Plus, they cost a whole boatload more than Johnson & Johnson and everyone knows that the more expensive something is, the better it works. Their hair got wet several times, which means bath time was successfully completed. You may put them to bed now.

Lie, With Purpose. My two oldest boys are six and five and can’t read very well yet. Their teachers sent home several pages of summer activities for them to complete before school starts back up. How will they know if I add a few of my own? Sandwiched in between summer reading and ‘count all the forks in your house’ they might just find ‘practice mopping the floor’ or ‘rub mom’s feet’ or ‘be nice to your brother for a whole day. No really, a whole day’. Clearly, they had really smart teachers who thought to include such things, who are we to argue?

Create A Count Down Calendar. Kids get chocolate advent calendars at Christmas, we should get calendars for summer vacation filled with our own little rewards. 81 days left of summer vacation? You just earned yourself a massage. 45 more days until the big yellow bus pulls up in front of your house? Looks like Dad just “volunteered” to watch the kids while you get your nails done. I envision opening days with a babysitter, a play date with parents I like, a quiet place to read a book and some shopping money. See, summer just keeps getting better!

Practice Believable Deniability. Warm weather always signals the start of the many times I will have to pretend my kids belong to someone else. Usually we’re at the playground and usually it involves public urination. When a mom I just met came running up to report that two boys were peeing onto to the sidewalk I quickly gave her my best, “Wow, that’s awful. Their parents should be ashamed” and she totally bought it. Until those same two boys ran up and asked me to help them zip their pants because they had just peed on the sidewalk. And they called me mom. This year we plan to get our routine buttoned down a little tighter.

Apply Your SPF Daily. Wine is my personal Sanity Protection Factor and my steadfast rule is to never run out. If my well do runneth dry, I’m the mom you see other people shaking their heads at as I meander the aisles at Liquor World with three boys in Super Mario pajamas. Don’t judge, I guarantee one of them just went all WWE on the dog while the other one smeared himself with a secret recipe of Poison Ivy and Windex all while I put the baby down for a nap. It’s mental sunblock. Reapply as necessary.

Most of all, Enjoy It. Some day when I’m much older, sipping a lemonade and Geritol spritzer on my front porch, I know I’ll look back at this time and I’ll miss it. My days may be quieter and my house may be cleaner, but neither will be filled with the nonstop craziness of a young family, a geriatric dog, and an insane puppy. I’ll miss those little suntanned bodies and sweaty heads that don’t yet smell bad. I’ll miss squirt gun fights gone wrong and popsicle-stained hands and the victorious screeching of a boy that finally learned how to swim in the deep end. I’ll see parents with young children who look like they’d give their left arm for a full night’s sleep and I’ll tell them that these are the good days and they’ll think my clichéd sentiment and I are crazy. The nonstop chorus of ‘I’m bored” and “I hate my brother” will have long-since faded and I know what I’ll remember the most is, “Thanks mom, that was the best day ever.”

Happy summer to you!

Renee is a married, full-time mother of three animated boys and two almost-as-animated dogs. Most days she can be found pounding coffee, playing cars, dressing up as the Super Mario Brothers and watching the world through her three boys’ eyes. Renee is a passionate cook who spends almost as much time finding new recipes as she does figuring out ways to convince her kids to eat them.

Image Credit: Sean Ganann

Creative Ways to Get the Kids Outside

Posted on July 6, 2011 by FoBaM-Jamie

Summer is really and truly here and it’s time to get the kids outside – there isn’t a moment to lose. So many of you responded to our post about “old-fashioned summers” with fond memories of spending entire days out of doors. Although we probably moaned and groaned at our moms as they kicked us outside, we seem to have enjoyed ourselves immensely. It’s time to pass that joy onto our own kids and here to help you with some creative ideas to encourage outdoor play is guest writer, Wendy Thomas of Lessons Learned from the Flock.

I consider myself to be a pretty creative mom. I’ve been able to convince my kids to set free all of the treasured  pebbles brought home in pockets so that they could go live with their stoney brothers and sisters on our unpaved driveway. The Toothfairy has been known to come a few days late not because parents have been too busy to keep track of such things but because there were so many kids in China losing their teeth that she’s too busy on the other side of the world and will get here as soon as she possibly can.

But getting kids to go outside? That’s tough. When I’m competing against TV, computers, and video games, that’s when I have to pull out my “A” game with regard to creativity.Most kids these days have their lives scheduled. If they aren’t in school then they’re at the soccer field, or baseball, or tennis for their team’s practice. That’s followed by coming home for dinner and homework. The days of kids playing games in the neighborhood seem to be over.

Which is why when summer comes and the kids don’t have their regular schedules they seem to be lost. It’s too easy to sit in front of the TV having it entertain you instead of doing the entertaining yourself.  Here are some ways I compete against electronic screens to get my kids to “just go outside!”

Frisbee Golf (FOLF) – I remember playing this in college and having a blast. For my kids I made up a course in our neighborhood (it actually goes all the way around the block). On the map the “holes” (a fire hydrant, an old birch tree) and pars for each hole are identified (I was pretty generous with the pars, 6 or 7 per hole). Each child gets a Frisbee and then they start the course. From beginning to end they are usually out for at least 45 minutes – added bonus, they get to greet many of our neighbors along the route. Like all good golf players do, the kids are rewarded with cold drinks at the “19^th hole.”

Self-sufficient picnics -  My kids are old enough to realize that I have work to do and can’t entertain them all the time. I went to a discount store and got one of those picnic backpacks that included plates, wine glasses, a tablecloth, utensils, and a cutting board. My daughters love to plan a picnic with their friends and will spend hours both preparing the picnic and then walking to the perfect spot to have the food. It’s the next step in little girl’s tea parties.

A pet that goes outside – in this case, chickens – granted not everyone has chickens but you might want to consider getting a few. (If you can’t have chickens a dog,  goat, or even a rabbit that needs exercise outdoors will do). When we started our small backyard flock two years ago, I had no idea how our hens would help me in the outdoor/indoor war. Chickens and other animals need to be taken care of, they need to be exercised, fed, and watered, houses need to be cleaned out, and with chickens eggs need to be gathered. If the kids want a pet, the kids will all have to pitch in to take care of it.

Meals on the deck – if it’s warm and if it’s not raining we have dinner outside. That’s an unbroken rule in our house. Not only is it a time for us all to come together to share our days but it also allows us to see nature right in our backyard (chipmunks, a red cardinal that is building a nest nearby, a toad that we almost stepped on). More than once we’ve pointed out clouds that look like animals or a flower that is particularly beautiful, it’s amazing what you see when you slow yourself down and pay attention. For my kids, being outdoors is more than just exercise (although that’s an important aspect, of course) it’s an important way to remind them on a daily basis that they are all a part of a greater whole.

How about you? Any time tested tricks you have for getting the kids outdoors?

Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons. Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens).

Image Credit: Jessica of Hammonton Photography

Longing for an old-fashioned summer

Posted on June 7, 2011 by FoBaM-Jamie

Last week, someone sent me a 100-part Facebook question about the summer activities of my childhood. It’s not like I have time to answer 100 questions about Kool-aid, red rover, and climbing trees, but it was a walk down memory lane that I couldn’t resist. I found myself smiling as the questions triggered recollections about the homemade Chinese Jacks set I designed one summer, the hours I spent in the woods with my dog, and playing my treasured 45s on the turntable in my bedroom (yes, I’m that old). Even things my daughter would consider inhumane now glow with the warm patina of nostalgia: life with only half a dozen television channels (and no remote!), chores done for free, grocery bag book covers.

The made it all too easy to see the differences between my childhood summers and my daughter’s. As they say, “times have changed.” I was fortunate a fortunate child. Summertime stretched out before me the way that languorous season should. The days were unscheduled and lazy. We weren’t allowed to watch more than a half hour of television (my sister and I chose “I Love Lucy”), so the rest of each long day was wide open for us to fill with our imaginations and ingenuity.

I spent most of my time either outdoors or with my nose in a book. I also did a fair amount of drawing and journaling. There were many trips to the local library where we’d sit on battered beanbag chairs and roam up and down the shelves, trying to find the perfect adventure story to haul up into our tree house. The swing my dad built kept us occupied for hours, as did the old deck of Bicycle brand cards (after my mom taught us to play solitaire).

My summers were wonderful. They were an actual respite from the school year – giving me the gift of unstructured time. I was able to unwind, explore the world, and spend time with myself. My daughter’s summers are also wonderful, but in a different way. She will attend at least two different, full-day camps. She’ll have a couple weeks off with her dad, and I’ll take some time off as well. Even so, her summer itinerary is nearly as busy as her school year one. Throw in some play dates, errands, and our usual outings and it quickly goes from dog days to crazy days.

When I was my daughter’s age, summer seemed like it might go on forever. Maybe it’s just the perspective of my age, but I feel like it goes by in the blink of an eye now. It’s a few measly weeks sandwiched between the end of one school year and the start of the next.

I want to take summer back this year. I want my daughter to experience some of the freedom and downtime that I had as a kid. I want to give her days of doing nothing and see what she does with them. I want to leave her to her own devices so she can hear her own voice in her head. I want to help her step off the rollercoaster of life for a minute, let her catch her breath, help her enjoy the stillness.

It won’t be easy. As a self-employed single mom, I’ve got a lot of responsibility to uphold, but I’m determined to give my little girl a taste of my old-fashioned summers. Maybe I’ll teach her to play Chinese Jacks.

Image Credit: Aitor Escuariaza