Mom vs. the Dot: Making it COUNT!

Half way through summer The kids are an inch taller and several shades browner (or covered in freckles). The well-manicured fingernails and hairstyles have long since grown out. The brand-new summer clothes and swimsuits have faded from being dried in the sun many times. The kids are sun bleached, too.  Their hair is lighter, their spirits are lighter.  They are unencumbered, free! I love this part of summer. The mad rush to "fit it all in" has passed in the form of June.  Picnics and water-parks, graduation parties, vacations and VBS - all the planning and packing and mass cooking is done. Now we enjoy what I think of as summer. Endless days to "do nothing."  I think this is really what kids look forward to...and if not, it's what I look forward to ! A playdate here and there, a backyard swim party, popsicles on the porch, catching lightning bugs at night.  Flip flops, bare feet, and drippy footprints in the house from swim-suite...

Did your grandparents ever tell you tales of the way things used to be?  Wash on Monday, iron on Tuesday...and ending the week with baths on Saturday?  Well, here in good ole' 2016, we still do Saturday night baths in this house.  Not for the sake of tradition, but it is for the sake of being clean for church on Sunday morning. After a week of summer, my kids are coated in layers of sweat, sunscreen, sand, chlorine, dirt, peanut butter, jelly, and Kool-Aid.  In fact, Saturday night may be the only bath they take all week. I am not against cleanliness.  I'm all for it!  The problem lays with timing.  And our summer schedule. If we play all day and swim before bed, they're passably clean.  Baths can wait for another day. If we play all day and go to the drive-in movies, they go straight to bed. If we play all day and we're planning to go to the water park the next morning, we skip baths. If the lightning bugs are begging to be ...

(Here my hubby is mowing the lawn, with the kids in tow, just for fun!  They love it!)   As I scroll through Facebook, I see many families who, as soon as their children are out of school, whisk their children off to magical places, awesome vacations, camping trips - you name it. We are just finishing our school year tomorrow. Do you know what I have planned? Absolutely nothing. Although I'd love to respond to this thought by putting my feel up, grabbing a book and letting out a long "Ahhhh" (sigh), I can't. I am experiencing a tremendous letdown. A total BLAH. Why? I don't completely know.  Part of it has to do with being in high gear for 9 months, spending half of every week day schooling the kids or planning fun, educational outings.  Many of my after-we-put-them-to-bed thoughts have to do with what we're going to be learning the next day, the next week, the next month and the next year.  My thoughts are consumed with how to make learn...

These past few weeks have been glorious!  Coming from a June that seemed like summer had died, with rain, rain and more rain.  Gray and cold and bleh for weeks on end - I thought summer would never get here! My kids felt the same way.  Hence all the posts on the Facebook page about great indoor activities for the kiddos.  What are we doing today, mom?  Well, since it's raining a-gain, let's... and we'd go bowling or paint pictures or play Wii games, but we can do these things all year round. Nothing can compare to endless hours of sunshine and free playtime outside. We Pennsylvanians depend on summer for our yearly dose of vitamin D, a mood boost, and a little bit of color.  We don't ask much.  Just 3 months of the year with decent weather.  And then - it came!   Sunshine all day long, crickets cricking every night.  Sending the children outside to play as often as possible, cold water and popsicles at the ready f...

So, the thermometer read 92 degrees outside and it was time. If you look closely, my thermometer says it's over 120 degrees - hmmm...may be time for a new one! After a long, cold winter and an equally long, dreary spring, Here it was.  The perfect day! I secretly hoped to fulfill a challenge given by Andy Stanley while my husband and I were at the Drive Conference in Atlanta a few weeks ago. What would a great mom do? Be a great mom! OK - I can do this!! So embraced the challenge and decided to do something about it.  Step One: I snuck down to the basement and filled up some water balloons, then began constructing a plan.  I'd get out the wading pool, water guns, and who knows what else?  What child doesn't love playing in the water on a blistering-hot day? So, as we ate our afternoon snack, I revealed my awesome plan to my children.  They were so excited that they ran upstairs and put on their swim gear.  Well, one of them did...