
Summer Break Is More Like Breakdown
On the way home from the airport, we stopped at Costco to load up on food for the troops of boys who traipse through our house. Walking in, I noticed Thumper looked like a piggy, with a Band-Aid stretched from his nostrils up to his eyebrows. “Really?” I asked. “I’m not with you, understand?” I was exhausted from traveling and not prepared for the stress waiting the second I drove past our For Sale sign. And I wasn’t in the mood to parent.
Every now and again I spotted them, climbing up to lie on the huge sacks of dog food on the shelves, carrying enormous stuffed bears around the store or sitting in the reclining media chairs playing with the buttons, up, down, up, down. “Don’t forget to eat your lunch at the sample booths,” I quietly yelled, and scooted into the next aisle. Bad, huh?
My first night back, I dreamed Wade and Michele staged an intervention and made me go on antidepressants. The second night, I dreamed I was at the airport dressed in bright colors and seashells, head to toe in Lilly Pulitzer. A police officer came up and asked to look in my bright pink beach bag, which happened to be full of marijuana. Busted. “But it’s legal in Colorado,” I exclaimed. “Everybody’s doing it! I’m like Mary-Louise Parker in Weeds. I need to pay my mortgage.” Anxiety much?
It’s funny: all my life I was infatuated with boys. Really, life was dull without them. And now? With no budget for camps, mannies or kid programs, my summers are days on end with a pack of high-energy tween boys, plus a few little ones tagging along, and I don’t always have the energy or the mental capacity to deal with it.
As the days go by, I’m reacclimating and my constitution is improving. I may even have more fun hanging out with my boys and their friends than with adults. In fact, when I run into an acquaintance, I worry that slang will pop out of my mouth. Could it be that I’m becoming socially inept?
I have it all figured out. I’m going to drink a pot of coffee in the morning so my energy matches the boys’, get revved up for the last two weeks of summer and pack in the fun. Since the boys are more keen on “hanging” than hiking to every lake in Colorado, I’m putting together a list of our favorite hangout spots, where I can slip in adventures before they realize what’s going on.
Tell me your favorite things to do with your kids and I’ll include them.




































































