Last day of summer vacation . . .

Last day of summer vacation and I’m sitting in a chair in the sun, struggling with the decision of what to do, how to make it meaningful.   The kids are on the trampoline, not fighting for a moment.  

Summer has rushed by again, and I’m left with that sense of disappointment we sometimes feel when we overplan a holiday celebration that somehow didn’t quite live up to expectations.    

Once again, I’m kicking myself for overdoing everything that now seems unimportant and underdoing things that I think would have been more special.   Next year, I swear, I’m not overscheduling like I always do.  

My kids are old enough now that they can entertain themselves and I’m old enough now to let them.   When your kids were younger, didn’t it seem like there was just this tremendous pressure to enroll them in classes, camps, activities?   Especially your oldest?   Gymboree, junior soccer, swimming for tots, music lessons . . .  because we can’t let them get BEHIND.   Behind what?   All the other two-year-old who are doing THINGS.  

I still feel a bit of that pressure every summer.   Though I have two kids now who definitely have developed their own interests and know what they want to do, and I don’t have to offer up the summer camp sampler platter.   

Still felt the pressure, though.   Austin needed some dance workshops, Will needed sports camps, they are California boys and by God this is the year they learn to surf.   And so on.    

Austin, always wanting to please everyone around him, simply said okay.   Will, however, always determined to please Will, put his foot down.   “I want to do beach camp and swimming lessons.   Maybe tennis.   That’s all.”   Art classes where you learn to draw superheroes, Will?  No.    Science camp where you build robots?  No.   Hiphop?    No.   

Will may have saved my life this summer.    In the end, though, we still did too much.   Won’t go into all of it.    Austin is blessed to have reached a place where people now call him to do shows.    We just have to occasionally learn to tell them “no,” now.    Or perhaps we let Will take the call.  

So last day of summer vacation, and I’m wondering:   beach?   zoo?  Universal Studios?    pool?   

The day is getting later, yet I still sit in the sun, watching the boys play on the trampoline, not fighting.