Relaxing weekend...yeah, right.

Greetings!

I should be working at something other than this, but I have to bring up the subject of summer weekends.  Once you're past the age of 16, I'm sorry, but the summer loses most of its magic.  Right now my kids, 13 and 16, both think summer is this lovely golden time of sleeping until noon, lazing around the house all day, and facebooking until the wee hours of the night.

Sure, for you.  But Skippy, the oldest, will be looking at colleges next summer.  Life, as far as he knows it, will be over.  And Peaches, well, she's already in a couple of classes this summer, so her evenings are taken with gymnastics and cheer camps.

But for adults, we know summer is a myth.  Lazy hazy days?  My sweet aunt fannies' fanny.  Even when I was a "stay at home mom"  (read here, the mom everyone dumped their kids on in the summer.)  I spent a ton of time running kids to the zoo, the park, the pool, the beach, the museum, the library, the video store, the grocery store, the liquor store  (HEY...you try dragging six kids, four of which are not yours, all over God's green earth and see just how long you can go without a little visit to the "grown up cabinet.")  Sure, I miss those days because bathing meant swimming in the pool, a rainy day meant movie marathons, and there's something endearing about six grubby pairs of socks wedged under the back seat of the car.

Now, however, those kids are teens and want nothing to do with me, with the park, the zoo, the beach, the museum, and the library.  The video store, will that's a maybe, but only if I rent the movies and then walk away, never acknowledging your relationship to them. 

So my mother decided I needed a relaxing weekend.  For the last three years she's decided this.  Three years ago we rented two mobile homes on a river with enough extended family to make two mobile homes seem....well, like two mobile homes.  Two years ago we borrowed my boss's adorable place on a lake.  I spent my relaxing weekend cleaning up after the extended family.  (That weekend was everyone's FAVORITE, btw.  Of course it was.  They weren't the ones who had to listen to the boss's comments about grubby socks left under a random bed...)  LAST year we borrowed my uncles time share.  Sleeps 8.  Right.  Only if the 8th person doesn't mind sleeping on the stone kitchen floor.  GUESS WHO THAT WAS?

So this year my mother has decided that family togetherness will be lovely renting some random two bedroom one bath cabin for a week.

Can I repeat that.

Two bedrooms.

One bathroom.

At last count, the number of people she was insisting showed up:  10.

Two bedrooms.

One bathroom.

Relaxing? 

I don't say this EVER...but THANK GOODNESS for work!  Skippy, Hubby, and I are in luck.  We have to work!  Peaches is not so lucky.  She'll be toting herself back and forth from the cabin to do her stuff in town.  After all, my mother informs me, that's why I picked a place close to home....

Couldn't we just pitch a tent in the back yard?  Our house sleeps 10 without putting a single body on the floor.  We have TWO bathrooms.  More important, we have FOUR TV access to a city pool, and hot running water.  Oh, and our house is fairly bug free, and has central Air.  Plus, no packing! 

Of course, looking at the pattern, these relaxing weekends are getting closer and closer to home.  Maybe next year we will just all camp out here!

Hey, if they want, I'll charge them all rent and they can bring their own linens...

Anyway, hey, enjoy the 4th of July!  And, seven more weeks of summer vacation before we can lock the kids back in school where they belong!

When momma's away...the world falls apart apparently.

Good morning!

So I spent the weekend doing writerly things.  Mostly, I was out of town at a friend's house.  When I returned I remember why it is I don't go away very often.  Let me just share a few of the high points:

1)  The kitten learned, over the weekend, how to escape the enclosed space in the house we put him when we're gone.  He managed this because no one put the enclosure together properly.  The result was when I returned home loaded with suitcase, briefcase, and purse, kitten got out of the house because he was not in the enclosure and no one was home to catch him. 

2)  The whole house looked like a frat house after a serious toga party.  I'm not a great house keeper, but even I know that dirty socks and dinner plates shouldn't sit on the same footstool.

3)  The checkbook.  (insert dramatic sigh here)  My husband is a very smart man.  However, there is some disconnect in his brain between using the check card and actually entering his purchases in the check register.  I left the check book right on the table for him to write down whatever he did.  I also informed him that since the house payment was going to be due soon AND he wanted to go to his class reunion next weekend, maybe we shouldn't spend money liked drunken sailors.  I kept my part of the bargain.  I only spent the money I got from the book signing.  He, however, did not.  When I got home there were two receipts on the counter  (Why not in the checkbook on the table?  See #2 above).  Then, when I called the bank to check my balance, there were THREE MORE TRANSACTIONS he hadn't told me about.  (Okay, does he honestly think that if he doesn't write them down or give me the receipt, I won't know about it and it won't come out of the checking account?)

4)  The bedroom.  I loathe unmade beds.  Ask anyone I went to college with.  I'm not a good housekeeper, but I loathe unmade beds.  I'm gone two days...TWO DAYS and my bedroom looks, again, like a college dorm room, complete with underwear on the floor.  (Our bedroom door is six inches from the clothes chute.

The kitten was obviously needing some TLC, wich I gave him while I was shoveling mountains of rubbish from the living room into the garbage can.  (Seriously...ten feet apart.  You couldn't get the dirty kleenex ten feet?)  As family members returned from where ever they'd gone, it was also obvious that personal hygene had gone the way of house keeping.  Now, my kids are 13 and 16.  But sometimes even they need to be reminded to SHOWER.  I couldn't even stand next to THE BOY he smelled so bad.  (It was 4 in the afternoon...no one thought to say, Hey, maybe rinse some of the filth from Summerfest off?)  The GIRL was little better.  Oh hubby was fine, sure.

This weekend brings me to the question that pains mothers everywhere:  If I'm not a single parent, why am I the only one who is capable of keeping things in order?  I mean, I realize the HUSBAND is a good dad.  And he's always telling me I nag the kids too much about things, that I should tell them once and then move on. 

That might be fine for him.  But I really can't stand the idea of the house looking like some flop house in Calcutta with my kids wandering around covered in their own filth.

Maybe that's just me....

I'd trade one dirty kids for a balanced check book.  At least I'd know how much money I had to pay a disaster clean up company.