In The Good Old Summer Time

     I always have these high hopes for all the things I want to accomplish during the summer time when the kids aren't in school, things like take the kids to the library every two weeks, go to the park and have picnics, you know the, "I'm a really good mom" kind of stuff.  It never works out that way somehow.  With my two youngest boys, I always feel as if I'm trying to corral ants just getting them to come in for food during the summer.  My kids have always been outside kids.  I think that secretly comes from being afraid I might ask them to do something like clean their rooms so they avoid me for hours at a time.  I'm serious, last summer the boys would take off to a friends house to play at nine in the morning and at about four they would come storming in starving, scarf down what ever was within reach and head back out again the minute my back was turned and we wouldn't see them again until about ten.  And that was usually to see if they could have a late night with their friends.  I know you're probably thinking, so what's the problem with that?    Nothing except to do all the good mom stuff I have to make them come home, hose them off in the yard, make them put on matching clothes and force them to leave their friends to go to the library.  I wonder why I bother, they never read the forty books they check out. I wind up taking them back by myself, four weeks late, feeling like a failure. 
     So this year I'm not doing any of it. This is going to be my summer.  I am going to read, and write, and watch movies that I want to watch.  I may even take a nap if I can arrange it.  And I am going to let my boys run wild all summer long.  I feel better already.  Maybe there is a lesson to be learned here.  I should have lowered my expectations years ago. :)