This summer will be different

As my kids wrap up their last week of school, I am gearing up for summer. This summer will be different… because I’m (drumroll please) pregnant with my fourth and (likely) final baby. The last few months I have felt tired and nauseous, but I’m just crossing into the second trimester and I’m hoping that means I’ll feel good and have more energy this summer!

A perfect day from last summer.

Last summer, I signed my older two kids up for a bunch of summer camps. Between those and a few trips, I felt like we were never able to get into a true routine for the summer. Every week was different, and I realized I really didn’t like that. So this year, I haven’t signed my kids up for any camps. Instead, they’re doing a local rec swim team, with practice 2-3 mornings a week for ten weeks. I think the predictability will be good for all of us, and I’m hoping they gain a lot of confidence in the water. But in addition to all those benefits, a few years ago a mom a season ahead of me told me that she signed her kids up for swim team when she was pregnant with her last kid. She schlepped all her kids to the pool every morning, and sat in the baby pool with her toddler while her big kids practiced. I was in awe, it sounded like a dream, or as close as you can come to a dream when you’re heavily pregnant and have other young children you’re in charge of. Ever since the moment she told me about her “final baby” summer, I felt in my bones that if I was in a similar situation in the summer months, then I too would live the dream she had described to me. My time has come.

Next up on my list for this summer: figuring out a new laundry system. Historically, I have been a one laundry day a week kind of gal. I gather all the dirty laundry in the house and sort it into piles by people, color groups, clothing type, etc. But as my family grows, this system is slowly driving me insane. There are more loads of laundry, and I usually can’t actually get through them all in one day. Which means piles of dirty laundry linger on the floor, and then when my kid wants to have a friend over I’m hesitant to say yes because a pile of our dirty underwear is still sitting within view of the front door. So, I would like to figure out a new system this summer and work out all the kinks before this baby comes in the fall.

What else for this summer? I want to teach my kids some skills. What kind of skills? Life skills! I’ve seen lists on Pinterest, “How to be a person camp,” etc. I do believe my kids are already fully persons, but I would like to teach them how to be persons who can more adequately care for themselves and the house. This will mostly be aimed at my older two kids, but skills I’d like to teach them include making their bed, memorizing our home address and my phone number, learning to make a few very basic meals, how to tie their shoes! I’m sure I’ll think of some more, but these feel like some basic skills that they probably are ready to learn, and would allow them to access some freedom in the process.

Finally, I want to do a lot of reading with my kids this summer. We’re in the middle of the Narnia series now, and I would like to finish those up. I’d also like to read A Wrinkle in Time, and a few other classics I snagged from Half Priced Books. Is it outlandish to think we could read a book a week this summer? I guess it depends if I’m actually able to read to the older two while the toddler naps, or if I’ll need to be napping myself. Again, really clinging to my second trimester dreams here.

Those are my summer hopes and dreams! Luckily I am the kind of person who can set lofty goals and usually go easy on myself when I don’t reach them (sometimes too easy). But if my kids don’t learn every skill I hope to teach them, if we don’t make it through every book in my stack for them, no sweat. There’s always next summer. And either way, I’ll be splashing in the baby pool at swim practice, so sounds like it’s going to be a win for me.