Summer Vacation…

With summer vacation coming to an end soon, people keep asking me “So, how are you liking summer vacation?” I know they THINK they are being funny, but in reality they are just ASKING for me to remove their still beating heart with a very dull spoon and show it to them before throwing their lifeless body off an over pass. Really, they are.

Back in May as summer vacation quickly approached I had delirious hopes of schedules and crafts and play dates and fun adventures. Towards the end of May I was back in the REAL world, dreading the start of summer vacation just like all the other parents. I’m not sure why I thought it would be dreamy and fantastic when the two week Winter Insanity break usually leaves me needing a 12 step program by day 3. At that point I made a half-hearted attempt to find summer activities to sign up my offspring for and to give me some much needed peace and quiet. Sadly all the day labor places refuse to take them based on age and lack of experience and all the child labor places were already full up with Cathy Lee’s work force. Damn it. I was even willing to forfeit their ‘generous’ pay in lieu of having to pack them a lunch every day.

I realized that I was now going to be forced to entertain my own children for the whole fucking summer. At that point I could see a Betty Ford Treatment center vacation for me in August. Luckily things have turned out much better than anticipated. I haven’t had the urge every day to drink an entire bottle of vodka for breakfast (I try to keep that just for special occasions or 3 times a week, whatever comes first) and I stopped gun and ammo shopping online after the 3rd week. I’ve also almost completely stopped waking up screaming at nights.

This summer has afforded my offspring many exciting challenges and adventures and has taught me that occasionally I’m much more patient than I ever thought. It’s been educational for my progeny, though not in the ways I had anticipated.

The first wonderful incident… er… um... adventure, was the painting project for my grandmother’s 75th birthday. D and I spent a whole fucking week crouched over a tiny table full of paint bottles and glitter as the offspring occasionally painted with us but mostly just made messes and watched DVD’s. Very educational also, they learned that hard work pays off and as long as mommy is busy they can watch as many DVD’s as they want and probably eat all of the popsicles before mom notices.

Next was the fabulous day trip to Burnett to spend time with family and celebrate the grandmother’s 75th birthday. Dear gawd make it stop! The offspring got to spend time with some cousins they never get to see and mommy got to down 5 vodka tonics and 2 shots of premium vodka and still wouldn’t let them have a whole Coke to drink. What did they learn? Aunt D can’t always talk her way out of a ticket, Grandma has scary psychotic dogs, Grandpa talks a lot and drinks a lot, mommy drinks a lot around family and HOLY FUCK the spiders are HUGE out there!

And the next week was Help A Sista’ Out week! That was the week I got to help D move from one apartment to the next. Yeah that was great. What did they learn? Mommy is a bitch and orders everyone around.

The next week was take a little break week and let’s clean this fucking apartment week. During that week their room was completely cleaned through forced slave labor of my own offspring. Let me just tell you. They hated every minute of it. What did they learn? Not only is mommy a bitch who orders everyone around, but so is Aunt D!

Interspersed with all this exciting adventure has been dog watching (YAY Coco!), swimming, camping and tubing, many days of being grounded, steaming cleaning the carpet, walks in the park, 100 million questions a day (at least half the same damn question), a birthday party complete with bad pizza and good rides and the daily counting of the days until school starts (by me) and daily fights between the offspring. Hey, I never said this was the happiest place on earth did I?

Things I’ve learned for next year:

• I need to start on antidepressants about a month before school ends… if not within days of school starting.

• I need to sign up the kids for summer activities sooner than the middle of MAY.

• I really need to secure ‘vacation’ time for the kids with some foolish family member for next summer – I really REALLY miss them being gone for a week to visit Grandma (damn the luck that my grandmother would be in declining health now that she’s 75, that’s very inconsiderate of her ya know).

• I need to start on antidepressants sooner… on did I already mention that… hmmm... go figure.

• My kids will NEVER stop having NAP time. I don’t care if they are 30; I’m still putting them down for a nap every day.

Seriously, it hasn’t been horrible; though I am SOOO looking forward to the start of school it’s almost criminal.

Must run, gotta start on that second bottle of Vodka before they wake from naps.