Summery
This has been the kind of summer where I often wear my sunglasses on top of my head when I'm not in the sun, not just because it makes me look so cool* but because I might need them at any moment. I might need to go out and set up the wading pool for the kids, or I might need to pick zucchini, or walk to the grocery store, or hang laundry, or do something else bright and shiny.
I'm trying to balance my angst about not having a job, plus my guilt about not holding up my financial end of the household, with my pleasure at having this kind of summer. At the end of the day, when Cook comes home and I'm telling him about our adventures, I frequently have to admit that yes, I had a really lovely day. Sure, the kids were sometimes (or often) assholes, and I spent about half the day escorting them to their activities, and I did some tedious housework and errands, but the truth is that I also did a lot of stuff like lying on a lawn chair at the pool reading a book while Duchess swam and Skipper talked to Rosemary the baby doll.
Truly, I don't even mind the escorting part of my days. I just read a (different) book in which a character referred to something she did as a parent as making a deposit into the account of her kid's future wellbeing. I think that my faith in that idea is what gives me satisfaction from the soccer-mommy part of my summer. (Not that anybody's doing soccer at the moment, but you get the gist.) Yes, I'm spending my time helicoptering my children around,** but it's not a bad thing to do. It feels, mostly, like making lots of future-wellbeing deposits, and that's very satisfying in itself. Last week, for example, in the short-term wellbeing investment category, Skipper very much enjoyed "Space Camp"*** and is feeling very confident and excited about her big-kid chops. (The teachers were somewhat concerned about the fact that she just watched everything and didn't talk to them or to her classmates, but I assured them it was actually a raging success, because she didn't cry, and she reported she had fun.) We hope this will translate into a smoother transition when she starts preschool in September. And in the longer-term category, Duchess is learning how it feels to swim for five hours a week. In my parenting fantasy, this will help get her into a lifelong habit of regular exercise. **** I'm pretty convinced that that parenting doesn't actually work like that, but I can pretend it does, in an optimistic summery kind of way.
I'm trying to balance my angst about not having a job, plus my guilt about not holding up my financial end of the household, with my pleasure at having this kind of summer. At the end of the day, when Cook comes home and I'm telling him about our adventures, I frequently have to admit that yes, I had a really lovely day. Sure, the kids were sometimes (or often) assholes, and I spent about half the day escorting them to their activities, and I did some tedious housework and errands, but the truth is that I also did a lot of stuff like lying on a lawn chair at the pool reading a book while Duchess swam and Skipper talked to Rosemary the baby doll.
Truly, I don't even mind the escorting part of my days. I just read a (different) book in which a character referred to something she did as a parent as making a deposit into the account of her kid's future wellbeing. I think that my faith in that idea is what gives me satisfaction from the soccer-mommy part of my summer. (Not that anybody's doing soccer at the moment, but you get the gist.) Yes, I'm spending my time helicoptering my children around,** but it's not a bad thing to do. It feels, mostly, like making lots of future-wellbeing deposits, and that's very satisfying in itself. Last week, for example, in the short-term wellbeing investment category, Skipper very much enjoyed "Space Camp"*** and is feeling very confident and excited about her big-kid chops. (The teachers were somewhat concerned about the fact that she just watched everything and didn't talk to them or to her classmates, but I assured them it was actually a raging success, because she didn't cry, and she reported she had fun.) We hope this will translate into a smoother transition when she starts preschool in September. And in the longer-term category, Duchess is learning how it feels to swim for five hours a week. In my parenting fantasy, this will help get her into a lifelong habit of regular exercise. **** I'm pretty convinced that that parenting doesn't actually work like that, but I can pretend it does, in an optimistic summery kind of way.
In conclusion, I'm having a lovely summer. I'm not becoming a better person, I'm not doing fun/educational activities with the kids, I'm not working on my resume , I'm not learning any new skills. I'm not even keeping the house very clean or growing lots of vegetables. But I'm enjoying the time, I haven't broken the kids, and I look extremely cool.
*Though, of course, I look extremely cool.
**Except that while I've got the spending-lots-of-money-and-time-on-kids'-activities part down, neither Cook nor I are actually very helicoptery about the activities themselves. I'd chalk it up to a healthy sense of perspective, or our desire for the kids to own their activities, but it's also at least partly about our disinclination to invest any more energy in something we find boring. Swim meets, for example. Ugh.
*** Actually 2 hours each day of low-key preschool activities with a space theme. She brought home several craft projects involving aluminum foil and glitter.
**Except that while I've got the spending-lots-of-money-and-time-on-kids'-activities part down, neither Cook nor I are actually very helicoptery about the activities themselves. I'd chalk it up to a healthy sense of perspective, or our desire for the kids to own their activities, but it's also at least partly about our disinclination to invest any more energy in something we find boring. Swim meets, for example. Ugh.
*** Actually 2 hours each day of low-key preschool activities with a space theme. She brought home several craft projects involving aluminum foil and glitter.
**** Which will probably mean that she'll give me lots of lectures about my own poor exercise habits, but I'm okay with enduring them.
Comments