It's summer vacation. The children are ready for their round the clock entertainment now.

Last week was the kids' first full week of summer vacation, and the novelty of it was a beautiful thing.

This week, sitting around all day in your pajamas is not holding the same mystique. And that, my friends, is a crying shame, because I got nothing. We leave for the East Coast in two weeks, so the idea of signing them up for camp seemed foolish.

Let's stress the past tense there - SEEMED foolish. Seemed foolish at the time, when the idea of sleeping late and gardening in your pajamas and "chasing the shave ice truck" as our only form of exercise sounded fanfuckingtastic. Plus last week we had Amber here and celebrated Jersey's birthday and there was a babysitter somewhere in the middle while I worked my last day in the office in town and WHEW we were going a mile a minute and it was all sunshine and roses.

Now we are sunburned and the bloom is off the rose and other kids have started camp or summer school and my kids are standing around staring at me slack-jawed and bewildered that I have absolutely *nothing* planned. And I'm not having the best time either. There is a whole lot of whining and Amber is gone and I am faced with a huge pile of laundry and no childcare because I don't have anything on the horizon which would require childcare. I figured we would all be happy with a game plan that centered around sleeping late and napping and trying to eat all of the food left in the pantry and freezer before we leave for the mainland.

I was terribly mistaken.

Max just volunteered to go to summer school.

So I am trying to come up with a list of things we can do to keep busy for the next two weeks. You know, something even BETTER than summer school:

GARDENING
Throw fruit and/or seeds in the ground and don't bother to water or fertilize.
See if anything grows.

CHORES
Wash the car, including the roof. Climb on the hood if you have to.
Rewash the car to remove the dirty footprints from the hood of the car.
Get the plunger and try to pull the dents out of the hood of the car.
Rewash car when you realize you should have washed the tiny pieces of dried toilet paper off the plunger first.

EXERCISE
Walk the dog. Get to the end of the street and spot the shave ice truck.
Drop the leash and run home for money.

ART PROJECT
Begin a complex art project involving cutting paper into minuscule pieces.
Scatter shreds of paper on carpet like snow.
Vacuum
(repeat)

WATER PLAY
Have a picnic on the deck. Abandon the dirty dishes for several hours.
Bring in dishes and stack on counter, oblivious to the ants now covering them.
Throw dishes out the window onto the lawn and hose them off.

CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING
Search the house for change. Count it. Put in ziplock.
Go to the store and see what you can buy for dinner with the contents of your ziplock.
Let cashier re-count the change to make sure you have enough. Refuse to use the CoinStar machine by the door because you don't want to pay the 8% counting fee.
Discover you are short 43 cents.
Return to deli and ask them to take out 2 slices of turkey to get the price down.

READING
(Me) Lie on the sofa cruising TMZ, Facebook, and The Awesomer.
(Them) Lie on the sofa cruising Lego.com and playing Draw Something while listening to an audio book.
Hit Refresh.
Repeat.

COOKING
Stand in the pantry with your eyes closed.
Reach out and grab something off the shelf.
Eat it. Even if it's a can of pate a friend brought back from Paris 7 years ago.

CIRCLE TIME
Sit around the dining room table talking about how much vacation sucks and how it could have been so awesome if only mom had ____.

See? Who needs summer camp? This is obviously So. Much. Better.












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