O'Doyle Drools: All Is Quiet On This Front

Friday, August 8, 2014

All Is Quiet On This Front

I wish I could say that we have been up to uber exotic things in the past month and a half, but, well, we really haven't. And, while I was recently called the "meanest mom ever" (credit for that to remain anonymous) for not signing anyone up for any camps, I seem to have redeemed myself (for the time being) by being incredibly committed to bringing good snacks to the lake. Yup, this is the summer of small victories. For us, this year, small was good. After doing a major move last year, and being commitment averse when it comes to children's activities (I mean c'mon, do we really need to sign up for fall soccer in MAY?), and wanting a summer fairly free of schedules, I decided I wanted to go low key for 2014. So we have done some trips to Maine, trips to Block Island, a trip to New York, the Cape and some various really fun day trips thrown in there (that sounds far busier than I remember being. But remember -- no camp due to mean mom). On our other (most of them) days we have gone swimming and hung out with friends. Aaaaand, that's about it. Oh, and we eat good snacks too. This year has been really great for us. Littles have made incredible strides (hah!) in their swimming. Bikes are getting ridden a lot. My garden is actually producing real, live vegetables instead of brown leaves on forgotten vines. It's nothing really special except it in that it's all special. These opportunities to do very little don't come around all the time and I'm basking in the mellowness and relaxation (please note that I also break up fights, spats, wrestling matches, wooden toy throwing, shrieking, and whining a-plenty but I am currently wearing my very attractive rose colored glasses and I refuse to take them off). I have a feeling we'll be doing some more stuff next summer, which is good. I also have a feeling that some of us (even the mean mom utterer) will look back on this summer as a great one. One fairly free of demands and where the structure of our days was largely dependent on how much swimming we wanted to do. It's a pretty rad life, Charlie Brown... just not an overly exciting one and there is not one change I would make.