Summer is a Super Villain.

Summer’s here……yay. (that last part is dripping in sarcasm) Don’t get me wrong there’s a lot of fun things that happen in the summer time pool swimming, beach going, vacations, no school, but along with these fun things come some of the things I hate most in life.
With swimming and the beach comes the oh so fun swim suit hunt. Uggghhhh. Well at least my options have been naturally narrowed down for me. The fact that I’ve had two kids causing stretch marks that rival the stripes of a Burmese tiger…. bikinis are out. I’m also not a huge fan of one pieces because, more often than not, they hug the wrong spot the wrong way, although there are a few that work really well I don’t always feel like trying on 50 to find that 1 that works. The safest bet for me is what I like to call the momkini (it’s actually a tankini but let’s face it, it’s a mom’s best friend).

Along with the bathing suit problem the beach also brings the sand problem. I hate sand almost as much as I hate chalk and for those of you that know me that’s a lot. (I won’t even touch chalk, I will touch sand so that’s why I say “almost”) Sand is the worst. It gets everywhere, I will try to sit as neatly on my towel as possible and yet somehow it finds a way to get cover my entire body, not only that, but it finds it’s way home with me which drives me INSANE. It gets all over the car, tracked into the house, stuck to the floor of the bathtub, in little piles in the bedroom. It’s like glitter but without the pretty factor.

Vacations bring tons of fun but they also bring 6+ hours in the car with two children (and a dog) asking how much longer. We used to have dvd players but after going through our 4th set I decided I was done. I was bored as a kid driving to our vacation spot, my kids can be too, but lets face it I’m basically shooting myself in the foot for making this decision. No dvd players = triple the amount of “how much longers.”

No school is great my only issue is that I seem to have lost all since of time during the day. I’ll get on the computer to work on a few projects and the next thing I know Caleb’s walking in the door. (Crap, I haven’t even thought about dinner, and we all know my 30 Minute Meals with Rachel Ray isn’t going to help me at all) This part of summer is by no means terrible it’s just that I need to find my own will power to stop watching Bat Dad videos and make sure I get done what needs to get done in the house.

Heat. I hate heat and summer brings tons of it. I’m pretty hot natured to begin with so summer often makes me feel like I’m sitting in a crockpot that’s sitting in an oven. In the winter you can add layers until you reach a comfortable temperature, you can’t do this in the summer, you can only get a certain amount of naked before people start judging you. I already sweat more than I feel a normal person should on a mild day therefore during the summer you best believe I wear black all the time so that sweat doesn’t show. I also wear a lot of skirts/ dresses and people always ask why I’m so dressed up…. I’m not it’s just that wearing any kind of pants in this kind of heat makes me feel like Ross in the “Leather Pants” episode of Friends. I’m afraid at some point of the day I will no longer be able to pull my pants back up after using the restroom.

The worst part of summer… the sun. The sun is my nemesis.(all you pale ladies know what I’m talking about) No matter what I do I will get burnt and not just kind of burnt we‘re talking lobster status. I could be sitting under an umbrella lathered in sunscreen and someway somehow it would still happen. My skin does not tan, if you think I look darker, you should look closer, if you did you’d notice that it’s not tan it’s just a darker shade of red. Sometimes the red isn’t as noticeable, other times I’m burnt to the point that people will literally stop me just to tell me that my sun burn looks painful (yeah thanks guys, I had no idea how painful it was until you pointed it out). The sun HATES me but that’s ok the feelings are mutual.

Even with all of this I will still be very involved with summer activates because there are a few things that make it worth it, I love watching my girls running and jumping off the diving board, or making sand castles in the sand. I love the smiles on their faces when they find the perfect sea shell or they’ve done their first underwater handstand. I even kind of love my husband playfully shooting me with the water gun. Therefore, you’ll see me out there, just look for the lobster in the black tankini sweating profusely while sitting under the umbrella…..

This Year Was The Worst.... Hopefully

We are officially done with our first year of home schooling and it was the WORST….. or at least I hope it was. I’ve had several moms try and comfort me this year by saying “Don’t worry, the first year is always the worst.” I am holding these women accountable if that statement doesn’t turn out to be true.
I feel like I can safely say that I didn’t completely screw up my daughters’ education this year. Neither of the girls seem to be worse for wear and learning has definitely occurred. They haven’t especially loved the no sick days (granted if they had been terribly sick I wouldn’t have made them do school, but they were never that far gone), or the lack of snow days (not that there has been much snow but Alabama is very similar to South Carolina in the fact that if there’s even a single flurry almost everything shuts down), or the snooze-fest lessons because sometimes creativity failed me (there were days that I was doing good just to get through what we needed to do); but they didn’t seem to mind the sleeping late (mostly for my benefit, I am NOT a morning person), not starting school until 9:30 (to be honest that start time would be on a good day), and the ability to travel (although they weren’t always happy that school followed them wherever they went).
Waking up on the last day of school this year was very different from years past, instead of that emotional “My babies are growing up” feeling that I got at every awards day ceremony and final classroom hugs and goodbyes, I woke thinking “Thank you Lord nobody killed each other this year !!” Although there are a few added grey hairs and possibly a few years shaved off my life, I still feel an immense amount of accomplishment that we all actually survived.
I am very proud of my girls, they have endured a lot this year between moving and home schooling and they have faced it all like champs. I pushed them to their limits daily and they worked hard and came out victorious. They are both crazy good mathematicians and have grown a lot in their reading abilities, but the most important thing to me is that their characters rock. There have been multiple occasions this year that my heart has swelled with pride as I’ve watched them work through hard situations without whining or trying to take the easy route, and they’ve handled difficulties with friends with grace and kindness. I had no awards to give to them today (our printer decided to go on the fritz the last week of school) but if I could I would've give them both the Citizenship award. They have grown in academics, yes, but they are growing into good people with big hearts which, to me, is the biggest accomplishment they can achieve.
I made cupcakes for the girls for their end of the year celebration and we toasted them to all that we’ve accomplished this year. Looking ahead to next year I’m excited for the changes I’ve made to their curriculum that I believe will enable us to have more fun with learning. I am hopeful that I will be a little more together and grow in my teaching effectiveness. For now though……… LET’S ENJOY THE FREEDOM OF SUMMER!!!!