The Full Suburban: Summertime, and the livin’ isn’t easy

My kids have been out of school for exactly one month, and I think if I hear my name – Mom? Mom! MOM!!! – one more time, I’m going to enter myself into the witness protection program.

I am apparently the only one in this house who knows where my oldest son set down the deck of cards he’s been using for tricks the past two weeks. I’m the only one the second-grader wants to play board games with even though I have provided him with five other siblings just for this purpose.

Only I can properly plunge the toilet, figure out why the dog is acting weird and truly answer the constant question, “What is there to eat?” I know for certain that I’m the only one who will listen to a detailed retelling of Chapters 23-27 of whatever book someone is reading.

No one else can give permission to fill the Costco pack of water balloons, or sign off on chores being properly completed, or take everyone on an outing to the library/ice cream shop/pool/park/friend’s house/looney bin. It’s all me, all the time, with the bonus of a steady stream of damp towels to wash at the end of the day.

The chaos is my own fault. I’m not one of those moms who goes into summer armed with a calendar filled with three months’ worth of organized activities. I used to do stuff like that, or at least try to.

One of my sisters-in-law is an epically amazing planner, and I would beg her every year to send me the calendar she had come up with that filled each summer day with fun and wonder.

I would then proudly present the plan to my kids: “OK, Monday is science day. Tuesdays, we’ll head to the pool. On Wednesdays, we’ll do a craft that starts with the letter W. Thursdays are library days, where we’ll research foods native to different regions of the country, then head home to prepare a corresponding snack.

“Fridays are movie days! Grab a cozy blanket and snuggle in for a good old-fashioned family movie party, because I’m sure everyone will instantly agree on which movie to watch, and no one will drop an entire slice of pizza face down on the carpet.”

But over the years, I’ve realized that I’m not the best at keeping up with such ambitious plans, and my kids aren’t the best at not turning most activities into a three-ring circus. Don’t get me wrong. They are awesome, but

like most children, they don’t really give a rip about how Pinterest thinks an activity should go. And, in all honesty, their interpretation is usually a lot more fun anyway (for them – often not so much fun for me).

Like the time we did a craft that required them to swirl drops of food coloring through lumps of shaving cream I’d doled out onto cookie sheets, then press a piece of paper onto the design before letting it dry into a marbled masterpiece.

It ended exactly as you can imagine it ended, with rainbow-colored shaving cream smeared all over their bodies and me spraying them off with a garden hose in the front yard. It would definitely be called a Pinterest fail, but my kids had a blast, so … success?

One of my favorite ways to outsource my status as the One Who Must Plan and Do Everything is to get my three older kids to hold “sibling classes.” Each older child plans a 20-minute activity of their choice, and the three younger siblings rotate through the classes, thus giving me a full 60 minutes of uninterrupted quiet time.

They have jumped through obstacle courses in the basement, made cookies in the kitchen, played board games upstairs, practiced basketball drills in the driveway and mastered trampoline flips. Anything goes as long as I don’t have to do it. And in this frazzled mommy’s mind, that’s the best kind of summer activity there is.