Is Summer Over Yet?
July 31, 2009 by Frank Hooks · 2 Comments
Everyone has their favorite season. Some people love winter because of the snow and the cool crisp air. Some people love the spring when all the flowers come out and the trees and grasses turn green again. Some people love the autumn leaves falling to the ground. I happen to love summer. I love the hot days. I love the long days. I love the warm evenings. Why am I ready for it to be over?
When school gets out for summer, there is a collective sigh of relief from everyone. The school year is a grind for everyone. The teacher’s have had enough. The kids can’t take it anymore. The parents are worn out from helping kids with homework and end of year projects. The first day of summer is usually a beach day. The kids are excited. Mom gets the cooler out and loads it up with snacks. The beach chairs and boogie boards go into the back of the car. Everyone has a great day at the beach. You come home a little sunburned and a little salty and there’s no homework for 10 weeks. Yeah!
Where has all the goodwill gone? The last I saw it was under a pile of laundry by the garage. The time before that is was under a couple of dirty dishes that were found on the ground outside’s someone’s bedroom door. I didn’t realize we had room service here. There has been a complete break down of society in the last six weeks. The school year brought structure to daily life that doesn’t exist during the summer. It’s hard to have structure when you get up a 10am, watch tv and then eat breakfast at noon. I don’t know what’s going on anymore. People are coming and going out of this house and I can’t seem to keep track. When you’re at the beach until 10:00pm at night and it’s your turn to do the dishes, they don’t end up getting cleaned. When you’re spending the night at a friend’s house and you didn’t fold your laundry, it just ends up on the floor. Help!
The worst part is trying to re-assert your parental control. The wife and I were happy it was summer also. We know the kids need a break. We want them to do fun things during the summer, but you can’t have fun every minute of the day. We still need some dishes washed and some clothes folded, but they are resisting. Six weeks of no daily routine and the kids have gone feral on us. Finally, this past Tuesday, I had to wield my fatherly powers and get everyone’s attention. Yesterday, Karen finally had enough and whipped this place into a frenzy. I almost had to leave for a couple of hours:) We had a family meeting and the kids even admitted they haven’t been doing their chores and promised they would get better.
Hope you’re having a great summer. I’ll see you at the beach after I wash the dishes.
I'm a 41 year old happily married father of three great kids. We live and love in Southern California. My blog is an outlet for me to pontificate on all things great about being a dad.
Listening to your blog post while doing my dishes. I agree, with all the summer activities, features like the audio listen blog feature you have helps with multi-tasking … so that there’s MORE TIME for … MORE SUMMER FUN!
Frank. I think you may be on to something! As the summer in SoCal progresses and the demands of the school year recede into long-lapsed memories, the world around us obeys the second law of thermodynamics: entropy increases, or, chaos abounds.
Nevertheless, you may be in error thinking you have now, or ever have had, “parental control”. It seems to me that’s just a misconception we have about the world. If you were on a runaway stallion and it jumped over a ravine, would you say you “had control”/ If that locomotive were highballin’ down the tracks, but you couldn’t stop it RIGHT NOW!, would you say you had control?
No. Same goes for parental control. We might have the reins in hand or the be pulling on the brake, but control is an illusion! Think of the rodeo bull rider. If he lasts more than eight seconds, he’s a winner. Sometimes it’s like that: the least bit of smoke-and-mirrors and we’re a winner.
Keep up the good work, and listen for the eight-second horn, and we’ll be fine!