Let’s get this summer started

The backpacks are looking worn and tired.
No matter how many times I clean the lunchboxes, they still seem dirty.
The school shoes still fit…I think.
And those whines about the last days of kindergarten homework? Those were most definitely mine.
At long last, the school year is coming to an end.
It has been a good year—a great year. I can’t believe how much our children have learned and grown. Our kindergartener and second grader have hit some significant milestones. And I’m so grateful to their extraordinary teachers and everyone who has helped them this year
But wow, this year needs to end. We all need a break from schedules. Of course, for our family, we will just enter into a new sort of routine.
Because even though summer is here, John and I still have our jobs. And as much as I wish I could offer our children the unstructured summer of my childhood, running free through the neighborhood, coming home just for lunch and dinner, that isn’t how life works. So we’ll give them the next best thing. My husband and I have very carefully crafted a schedule of camps and sitters and days off with one or both of us.
Our kindergartener is a little sad to have the school year ending. But mostly he and his brother are excited. They can taste the freedom. They imagine a summer without homework and with fun and games and a trip to the beach. That’s mostly how summer is going to look—especially because I refuse to believe their summer math and reading assignments will be as onerous as they look. They can’t be, right? (Don’t answer that. I don’t believe in academic anything over the summer, so I am in denial over this.)

We kicked summer off a little prematurely yesterday with a trip to one of our local snowball stands. I don’t love snowballs—am I allowed to say that as someone who loves Baltimore?—but I love taking our children for snowballs. They dove into their tiger’s blood-flavored snowballs—hold the marshmallow because how much messier can you get than a bright red snowball? And we sat and enjoyed a breezy summer evening together.
Hooray for snowballs. Hooray for summer. Let’s get this vacation started.

Catholic Review

The Catholic Review is the official publication of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.