Summer My Way

 Can Freestone play?

Summer is a paradox.  It's relaxed and super-intense.  It's wonderful and nauseating.  I love spending all that time with my kids and I dread spending ALL that time with my kids.  I've tried to pinpoint exactly what the good parts are and what the parts are that turn me into a raving monster, so that I can avoid the monster episodes and embrace the kickin'-it-in-the-Florida-Keys Circe that is buried in there somewhere.

First of all, I'm not good with unrestricted relaxation.  It's easier for me to relax if I know when the laziness is going to stop.  So...

Rule #1:  Corral the free time into two-hour blocks.  And spend most of it at the pool.
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I have one violin student who was willing to take the 8:00 AM time slot.  She is Swedish, practices every single day and always gets a 4.0 in school.  My other students acted like 8:00 was torture and complained that they would rather sleep in until at least ten.  Whiners!  We don't want Sweden taking over the US as a world power, now do we?  So...

Rule #2:  Everyone is up by 8:00.  To accomplish this, I have to get up at seven, which is no fun, but I know what I have to do to stay sane.
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If the kids are wearing their pajamas and watching TV, I tell myself I'm fine.  And then, suddenly, I just SNAP.  I lunge for the TV, turn it off, start yelling about chores and slackeriness (not a real word) and the decline of our society.  Kids scatter in all directions to go look busy, but some still catch a bop on the back of the head as they run for cover.  It's ugly.  So...

Rule #3:  The first thing you do after you get up and make your bed is get ready and get dressed.  No TV unless I'm not in the mood to boss you around.
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Everyone getting up at eight also helps with meals.  I can't have people in the kitchen for three hours fixing breakfast and three hours fixing lunch.  It's a perpetual mess!  I run the dishwasher at least 10 times a week as it is!  So...

Rule #4:  We will eat breakfast once, lunch once and dinner once.  You can have a healthy snack outside in between if I say you can.  No rummaging through the pantry spilling bags of sugar and making your own glass of Kool-Aid.
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Practicing is a big deal for me.  I'm not going to pay for the good teachers and then squander the money by going unprepared to lessons.  I tell my own students in my introduction letter, "My goal is to show you what you can accomplish when you practice EVERY day, so if that is not your style, I would encourage you to find a different teacher."  Do you know how exhausting it is to get kids to practice 80% of the time?  It's much more difficult than getting them to practice 100% of the time because once the possibility of skipping it is in the equation, you might as well throw in the towel.  You'll have a battle on your hands every day.  My older kids know that if they don't practice that day and it's bedtime, we have no problem listening to them at 11:00 PM.  It really helps them budget their time when they have resigned themselves to the fact that there's no way out.  So...

Rule #5:  Everyone will practice every day.
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Nothing irritates me more than a kid showing up on my doorstep to play uninvited.  It may look like a daycare here, but it's not.  I need extra kids whose parents seem to be MIA like I need another puppy.  At any given time, I'm probably just leaving and my teenagers don't need another kid to babysit.  I know, I know, it's a personality flaw of mine, this meanness.  But at age 39, I know when to step outside my comfort zone and when doing so is just going to make me resentful.  That said, I LOVE to have my favorite kids over (and there are LOTS of them!) to play for two-hour blocks of craziness.  I can definitely do that almost every day if I time it right.  So...

Rule #6:  We will have friends over as often as we can, and we'll let the good times roll when they're here.
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Bored kids anger me.  So...

Rule #7:  If you're bored, get a piece of paper and a pen and plan a party.  Put it on my calendar, go pass out invitations and make something happen.  You're not allowed to be bored.  And if that doesn't work, I'll give you more chores.
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Reading between the lines, I see that I am a control freak.  Sorry.  Like I tell my kids, that's just how I roll.  Which leads me to...

Rule #8:  I will do summer my way, and everyone will have fun.  Or else.