Summer reflections

Hello! My name is Michelle and I am brand new to the world of blogging (so be gentle with me). I am a Mom to two energetic boys who keep me on my toes. I also spend the rest of my time taking care of other people’s kids as a pediatrician.

Since we are now knee deep into summer (I don’t know about you but it feels like school just let out and already we are starting back to school shopping!!) I was reflecting on our busy summer days and how they are different then the laid back lazy summer days of my youth. Summers are a funny time when you are a working Mom. It starts a few weeks before school lets out when Moms start speaking of how they are looking forward to lazy days and all the fun summer projects they are going to accomplish. I often feel envious of the stay at home Mom’s summer. (And this is not meant to spark the stay at home vs working Mom debate. We are all valuable in what we do - we are all good people doing good things.) What I mean is I have a longing for lazy days with no schedule and no commitments. The ability to lounge in pajamas all day if that’s what we choose to do. I see facebook posts of cute kids with bed hair and pjs captioned ‘just woke up’ at 10 a.m. and I sigh. I hear my patients tell me that they are getting ready to go away for the summer and think ‘what is it like to take 6 weeks off’ and I sigh. I talk to other Moms and listen to them tell of putting their kids in day camps for a week to break up the boredom of their carefree summer days and I sigh. The fact is in my family our summers look a whole lot like our school year does. Summer camp is not a boredom buster for us but a requirement for our two working parent family. We still get up at the same time and leave the house at the same time to get to summer camp everyday. I still try to get them in bed at a reasonable time at night while allowing for some ‘it’s summer can we stay up late’ requests. Aside from not having homework to do and after school activities we have the same rhythm to most our days. And at times that is a great thing - because my kids do thrive on a schedule (and really so do I) But there are many moments that I long for the lazy days of my summer. When I was a kid we didn’t have summer camps and scheduled activities. We woke up whenever we wanted to and watched way too much TV and swam most of the day. We rode our bikes back and forth from my Grandma’s house where she would make us grilled cheese sandwiches and let us eat popsicles in the hot sun. I wonder sometimes if my kids are missing out on that and wonder how I can get that for them. Which is ultimately ironic because I work hard to make a better life for my children and now I contemplate a life not working to give them a more schedule free life. I know this is my own internal debate because my kids are having the time of their lives - they are doing Hogwarts camp and Lego camp and all sorts of fun things. I hear no complaints from them at all. I do worry about their need to be on the go all the time and wonder if that is a byproduct of our scheduled life. My oldest, especially, has a hard time when there is no plan for the day and has a hard time with unscheduled down time (which of course as a parent is the thing of my dreams!) So I worry - as we all do - about making the right choices knowing all along that the choices we make are often not in our control at all. But I still can daydream and live vicariously through those stay at home Moms leaving with their kids for their long lazy summers on the lake and think ‘maybe someday’.