Guest Contributor: Stephen Gosewich, Dad blogger
We are all waiting for next Tuesday.
The first day of school and the first day back to normal.
This week, my wife and I are off and are dealing with two kids who are waiting for the end of summer, as they know it, to come to an end.
While it is very nice to not shave, not wake up at 6:30 in the morning and be able to take nice long walks with my wife every day, we are also trying to keep our kids entertained on a shoestring.
Our youngest daughter, was supposed to spend half days in daycare this week. She is formally finished with daycare at the start of this school year…advocating to my wife and I that she is old enough, mature enough and responsible enough to get home from school on her own. She convinced us with much tears and whining that she didn’t want to go to daycare this week..instead wanting to stay home with her mom and dad as we hang and enjoy our week off.
Ok…fine…whatever!!
Our eldest daughter was signed up for Math Camp…a course that was being offered at her new high school. It was a 6 day long math camp. She missed the first three days because she was finishing off with her regular camp where she has been a counselor in training. So, she only had to be brave and attend the Math Camp for three days. Well, day one was painful (according to her). She hated it, loathed it, wanted to be anywhere else but at Math Camp. She went with a friend…so after some conversations with her parents, we all agreed that they would both attend just one more day and that they could play hooky on the last day.
So, now we will have two kids home with us for parts of the day who will want to do something. “Something” invariably requires money being spent. As their parents, we are all “spent out”. So we are encouraging play dates with friends…which so far, seems to be working.
Other than day trip to Buffalo later in the week (mostly for lunch at The Cheesecake Factory), we are staying put. This day trip to Buffalo before the end of summer, we have taken for the past 4-5 years with my father-in-law….its a tradition! You can’t break tradition.
This has actually been a very good time to clean up rooms and purge months of crap that seems to always accumulate in the house. Two garbage bags in…I am feeling really good…the house feels cleaner…more organized…and the kids feel good about their bedrooms (which they normally complain about for one reason or another).
I don’t normally like to hang around, killing time…waiting for something to happen. My dislike for it is a result of getting older, I think.
When we are young, we waste so much time doing nothing. My kids have spent copious amounts of time watching television and playing on the computer this summer. Don’t get me wrong, they have also spent lots of time outdoors, running and playing and being with their friends.
However, it is a week like this one, you could call it a “transitional week”, when you are caught in that whacky vortex of summer holiday and back to school.
The days still manage to fly by quite quickly and not all of them have been unproductive (hell, I was able to crank out a blog!!). But, waiting around for the first school bell signifying the start of the 2011/2012 school year has some moments of boredom.
I hope I am not alone. I hope there are other parents in a similar situation. If you are just sitting around, waiting….maybe we can wait together? How are you passing the time as we live in this last week of summer before the start of school?
Send me your thoughts…I am waiting!
Stephen Gosewich is an aspiring enlightened male. He spends his weekdays as a commercial real estate professional, and all other times with his wonderfully supportive wife and two very active and inspiring daughters. He lives in Toronto and enjoys family time, pop culture, spinning up a storm and perfecting his downward dog. www.theenlightenedmale.wordpress.com
