August at last!

It probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone who saw my post at the end of May on having the kids home for the summer, but I’m really ready for them to go back to school. Fortunately, that’s just two and a half weeks now!

In many ways, the summer’s been easier than I thought it would be, although that probably has a lot to do with being willing to use electronic babysitters. Yes, my kids have spent an inordinate amount of time on the Xbox, the laptop, and my iPad — playing games, watching movies, and mostly staying out of my hair so I could still work and write. (I’ve even finished and sent out a couple of new stories this summer.) Which isn’t to say I didn’t do things with the kids. Library every week. One memorable trip to a playground (It didn’t end well). A trip to a different park. A trip to the museum.

I’ve made sure the kids are reading (okay, that’s not exactly hard, although my son is complaining that he doesn’t need any more recommendations of books to read now, Mom, thank you) and practicing their math (the boy has his summer algebra packet; I’ve had to print out addition, subtraction, and time worksheets for the girl). And the boy’s started up band camp, too, which takes him out of the house for a couple of hours every morning.

On the other hand, when the kids are both downstairs for any length of time, the squabbling starts. And when the boy has his best friend over, they tend to chatter a lot, which rather distracts me from what I’m trying to get done. And every now and then, we get that age-old plaint of children everywhere — “I’m bored!” (Although my son has learned to follow this up very quickly with, “No, Mom, I’m not asking for suggestions.”)

I’m probably the only one of us who’s eager for this year to start. My son’s still nervous about being a teen, and being in 8th grade weirds him out. My daughter? Well, she went to the same school for kindergarten that she did for preschool, so now that she’s going into first grade, she’s switching schools to a larger place with more kids, most of whom she won’t know. She’s nervous. Last night, in fact, she was telling me she was scared about kindergarten even though it was still the same school and she knew most everyone. So this? Yeah, big step for her.

Which doesn’t change the fact that I’m counting down to August 25.

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.