Summer Shenanigans!

Ah, summer.

School is never actually out for us, since we home school, but we take the summer days to dive into that good old unstructured, unplanned fun.

This year we are in one of our nomadic spells, so we are traveling a lot. The kids really enjoy hotels and museums, which is great because that's exactly what they'll be seeing as we make our way around! We have trips planned from now until the tail end of August, which is epic because I feel like I've been in the house all year.

The kids have been asking a lot about what I was like as a kid, and what I was into. They are interested in what I ate, read, watched, and played as a child, and I'm doing my best to recreate a lot.

My babies are city kids. They're being brought up in a subdivision with tree-lined streets and a clubhouse. They each have activities, ranging from tot soccer to swim class, so they are always busy with something. In addition to that, they travel a lot with us, so there's really not much time for them to do the stuff I did as a kid.

Read:I didn't do soccer or music lessons in the summer. I played outside. I drank sugar and caffeine and ate grease and cheese. (Not literal combinations--just illustrating how health conscious I was not!) I ran in the sprinklers and jumped in the pond to swim, and I did all of that pretty much every day. I am an 80s baby, so I had Surge and Clearly Canadian when I wasn't drinking Hi-C or tap water.

Somewhere in my quest to be the best damned parent I could possibly manage, I forgot to give them the simpler parts of my childhood, things that didn't really cost money but still helped make my little life really nice. I have enjoyed giving them the best of everything we could--schools, food, travel experiences! But hubby grew up on an island, and I grew up on a farm...

...and our kids have mainly only read about those places.

I'm making it my mission to take them to my hometown, the little town in Alabama where I got my roots and wings. I hope some of the places I used to frequent are still around: the parks and playgrounds, the schools I attended, the little restaurant and ice cream stand I used to get my double scoop from every Thursday afternoon. While I'm sure some of those places have since closed, I still want them to know those places.

I guess as I get in touch with my own roots and try to untangle the beginnings, I'm searching too for things to pass on. I don't want my childhood to be a mystery to them, because it wasn't all traumatic. In fact, the vast majority of it was darn near idyllic! I grew up in a really cool rural area, where I could play freely and enjoy fresh air and sunshine.

My kids are growing up a lot more sheltered than I, due to the times, but I don't want them to have fear. They need to feel the sun on their backs! They need to wake up, go down to the pasture, and run wild until lunch time. To catch turtles and frogs, and make tree forts and obstacle courses.

So...

...our summer shenanigans begin.