5 reasons I don’t want summer to end

1. No packing lunches. It’s been so nice not to deal with the mad scramble to plan a packed lunch in the morning. Yes, sometimes I still have to throw together a picnic, but since I’m a lucky mom whose kids don’t have food allergies, it’s a lot less stress. PB&J? No problem! This granola bar has nuts in it. All the better! I don’t have his name on this. Who cares! But come September I’ll be back to those mad dash mornings and reading labels on the lookout for “May contain.” And speaking of mad mornings…

2. Sleeping in. I’ve written before about how my children are not sleepers. They take after their father. I LOVE to sleep. And my logic is, it’s the person who’s genetically responsible for their early rising tendencies who should have to get up with them in the morning. Doesn’t that seem logical to you? During the summer my husband is not as busy with work so there are some mornings when he doesn’t have to dash off at his usual pre-sunrise time. And on those blissful mornings I get to sleep in. Sometimes even past 8 a.m.! No backpacks to arrange, no bus to catch, no mad dash mornings. Ahhh, illusive sleep.

3. Sunscreen over snowsuits. In the winter, when my kids yell, “Mom, we want to go outside and play in the snow,” I almost cringe. Don’t get me wrong. I’m as worried as the next mom about my kids getting enough fresh air, vitamin D and time away from the evil TV. But it’s the whole daunting process of gathering up all the boots, hats, mitts and snowsuits that causes the cringe factor. Inevitably a boot is missing, these mitts are wet, she doesn’t like that hat, she wants the other one. You have to try and get them to pee before you put everything on and then they always come back five minutes later, take everything off and then want to go out again five minutes after that. Painful. In the summer I hand them their hats and Crocs – which they can put on themselves, BTW – and off they go! Okay, maybe in this day and age we also have to deal with sunscreen. But there’s no on and off with lotion. I’ll take sunscreen over snowsuits any day of the week.

4. The sun. Towards the end of the summer I think we start taking for granted that we wake up to the sun and generally still have its wonderful, warm presence with us until around 9 p.m. I was on our usual evening walk with my neighbour when, at 8:30 p.m., we found ourselves losing light and I realized those days are fast coming to an end. It won’t be long before we wake up in darkness and come home in darkness. The only upside of this is that I’ll no longer have to convince my kids that, yes it’s still light out but it’s still time for bed.

5. The cottage. No, I’m not one of those lucky people who own one. Although, I still maintain that I have enough to keep me busy with the one house I own. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a whole other house that not only takes up as much time, money and effort to maintain, but also takes me hours to get to in order to expend said time, money and effort. But I digress. We rented a cottage this year, the first time we’ve done so on our own, just our little four person family. And so we experienced the long standing Canadian tradition of summer family time at a cottage. It was wonderful. Or I thought so. Hubby, who isn’t as used to spending 24-7 with two children who alternately love each other passionately and two minutes later fight equally passionately, thought it was slightly less wonderful. But, in my opinion, it’s a little harder to be stressed when you’re surrounded by sun, sand, gently lapping waves and fresh air. The kids loved it when their dad buried them in the sand. Here’s a photo. Tell me, do I need to be worried that she wanted us to make her some boobies?


Stay tuned next week for 5 reasons I want these children to get back to school already!