2 more days

One. Two. That's how many days left until school is officially out for the summer. Can you sense my enthusiasm? That's over 2 1/2 months. That's 11 weeks. That's 77 days. That's 1848 hours. That's over 110,000 minutes of curtailing cases of the "I'm bored"s. Lordy, give me some strength! Just for fun, I might keep a tally of how many times I hear, "Can we go swimming? Can I watch tv? Can I play on the computer? It's too hot to play outside! Can I have another Popsicle? I'm thirsty! I'm hungry, can I have another snack?" All these phrases not to be outdone by my own sputtering of "Quit teasing your sister! No, you cannot have more cookies. We'll go swimming later. Go outside and play, it's nice out. No you can't have more tv time today." Don't get me wrong, I think we say these things every day already, but when summer comes it sure is a long day of repeating.

I'm trying hard in my mind to reach into the happy place and change my attitude about the dog days of summer. Attitude definitely has a hand in anything you need to handle, so if I change my outlook to something a little more positive then maybe it won't seem so bad right? I'm curious about what the people who just love summer say to themselves about it. For me, first I'm not anywhere near a "summer person". I actually yearn for Labor Day to get here so that I can see the light of Fall at the end of the sweaty, buggie tunnel of 90 degree weather. Being hot is just plain annoying. It makes me crabby, and sticky and that's not a fun combination. I'm a much nicer human around 7:30 pm when the sun is beginning to set. Here in Indiana though, it is still light out past 9:30 pm, so when I say the day is long I mean it.

Maybe I'm too uptight? What do you summer lovers actually love about it? Don't you sweat and get irritated by the heat? Do the bees and wasps find you in the midst of a thousand other people around like they find me? Do mosquitoes feast on you when no one else is being bitten? Does it not bother you to go through 5 bottles of sunblock every season making sure to slather your children up until they resemble the hue of a sheet of paper? That slimy greasy feeling that you can't wipe off your hands and your children never fail to rub it into their eyes.... Ok, yes, I already know I am very cynical about summertime so stop shaking your head! When I reread my thoughts on this, my own eyes are rolling. How do I change? I want to wake each morning and think, yes what a beautiful sunny, hot summer day to enjoy lots of time with my children outside in nature doing things they find FUN!

I think I will pledge to myself that I will try at least a few times a week to lie to myself and pretend that I am enjoying it all for the sake of others. Who cares if I need to shower for the second time in a day so I'm no longer sweaty. So what if I have to smell like a citronella candle from bug spray that will keep the vampires off me while I'm outside after dinner. I can keep the fridge stocked with freeze pops so that it doesn't matter if they eat 10 of them in a day. And I can buy a few cans of that aerosol spray sunblock. It's all sounding better and better already just talking through it with all of you. Cool!

Let's try this again shall we? Hey, did you know the kids get out of school for the summer in two days? Yeah, they do - and we get 77 days off to enjoy the summer together. I sure hope it's a hot one so we can spend lots of time outdoors playing. I'm really looking forward to it....