Tomorrow's the Day!

Hooray! Tomorrow is my last day of work until September!

I have been looking forward to this day for a very, very long time. Last week I wrote about getting ready to sink my teeth into summer break. Now it is practically on top of me, and I must say, it feels fine. After posting last week, I started wondering... "Should I have made more plans for the month? Should I have booked some trips? Should I have made plans to remodel a room? Should I have organized some friendly gatherings? Will we be bored? Will we eat each other alive? Will we become slaves to the television?"

Ah. So it took a couple of days for me to relax from that anxiety-producing monologue. Now I can't wait to have a few crash days - days where we just let things happen slowly and quietly. Then we will take it as it comes. We have some ideas such as going up into Vermont to visit friends, or going south to Maryland to visit family. I would like to paint our dining room, but for those of you who live in humid climates like we do, you may understand how painting in humidity is not a treat, and not for those who do not like to sweat (such as Me!).

I have made a contract with myself to make sure I spend an hour each day exercising in some way. I can go to the gym, take a walk, use an exercise video, whatever. But an hour per day it must be. This may seem harsh to those who know that I am learning some self-compassion, but I really need a hard and fast rule to actually get out there and take care of myself.

Something my husband and I are working on is an activity program for our younger son. We brain-stormed on it into the wee hours last night, and I'm pretty excited about it. Currently just an idea right now, what I can share with you is that we are looking to develop a monthly program for boys and a parent (mom or dad) to build, create, explore, discover, learn and have a really great time. After seeing what an amazing time our son is having at an invention camp he is in, we want to recreate the experience throughout the school year, adding other boys his age (11). We thought of activities such as:

1. Building go-karts
2. Building ice forts
3. Building volcanoes that actually erupt without spewing all over the kitchen
4. Building model rockets
5. Cooking a full meal
6. Building a robot
7. Building inventions from trash and broken or disabled equipment
8. I'm sure many other ideas will surface as we contemplate cool stuff

We have nothing against girls - in fact, being surrounded by boys all the time makes me long to do things with more girls. However, we feel our son needs some real rough and tumble activities to learn how to make friends his own age, while doing things that do not involve a screen. When girls are involved, he tends to shut down or be obnoxious (he's just that age), completely bypassing the whole point of the gathering.

Have you ever done this? We will be focusing on the 11-12 year old boys in our town, helping our son to reach out to a wider circle of friends than the one or two he has now. We have several books with activities, such as "The Dangerous Book for Boys" as well as others, which I will consult for good ideas. But please - if you or someone you know has ever done this, do share your thoughts or ideas. Even if you haven't done this, but have thoughts or ideas, I would love to hear them. No one I know has done this, so I have nothing to go by as of yet. Of course, that won't stop me (he he).

I think it's going to be an amazing summer.

And by the way - another giveaway is coming!! Check back with me tomorrow!