Summer Break

I understand if you hate summer. If you have little ones, it’s just more of the same chaos, except your whole family is sweaty and sunblock-slimy. A summer break from nursery school is no break at all. But, nursery school isn’t like school school. Nursery school doesn’t bring with it the unique joys of standardized testing, homework, and science fair projects that bring out the competitive witch Martha Stewart in the alpha moms.

If you have a baby, summer’s a major challenge. Mostly it’s like holding a hot water bottle all summer, while trying to lose the baby weight. If you’re nursing, the whole situation just gets funky. There’s no glamour quite like sweating and nursing at the same time. Plus, you don’t even have the fun of drinking margaritas or hard lemonade or Frodka*, or whatever your favorite summer beverage may be. When I was nursing in the summer, I would have happily stabbed myself in the eyeball with a fork if only someone would have let me have a cold beer.

But if you have school-aged kids, how can you not love summer? Every year I hear other moms grumbling about summer break, and what they’re going to do to keep their kids busy all summer. They can’t wait for their kids to go back to school.

Here’s a thought: if you don’t love summer break, you might not be involved enough in your child’s schoolwork. Of course, you might also be that mom that lets her child roam the neighborhood to knock on my door at 8:30 p.m. on a school night, to see if Cookie and the Pork Lo Maniac can come out to play. (“Um, no, they’re sleeping. Because they have school tomorrow, not juvie.”) Then my kids want to know why they’re not allowed to stay out as late as Juvie Jenna. (“Because her mommy doesn’t love her as much as I love you, sweetie.”) If keeping your child in your house during sleeping hours is a challenge for you, then yeah, I guess your summer’s going to suck. I hope you can at least find a day camp staffed by half-stoned teenagers to keep your kid busy, so she doesn’t turn to arson in my neighborhood her boredom.

But for us, by the end of the school year, we all need a break. Right around April our house becomes Anxiety Central because it’s time for state testing. In Texas this is known as the TAKS, which I think stands for “Teachers And Kids Stress.” My little TAKS masters are well aware that this test means their jobs the world to the teachers and the principal. It’s a lot of pressure for a nine-year-old, helping grown-ups keep their jobs.

So my job this week is to let my kids chill out. I’m going to let them watch as much TV as they want, play as much Wii as they want, and eat lunch whenever they want. After a week, they’ll be bored and ready for all the cheap, fun stuff we’re going to do this summer.

*Frodka = Fresca and vodka, with a splash of orange juice or lemonade or whatever’s in that half-flattened Capri Sun over there.