I have been talking to some of my friends who are absolutely dreading spending the summer with their children. They are dreading the days of hearing the refrain “mom I’m bored” and are trying now even before school gets out scheduling every minute of their child’s summer so they do can avoid that dreaded refrain. First let me be honest. My child has been out of school for 2 weeks now and before they ended school I too was trying to schedule every minute of their summer. I contacted every camp I could and looked into every class available so I could keep them busy. This morning I filled in our summer calendar with all of the classes and camps and various scheduled things and instead of feeling relieved that I have scheduled my child’s summer I felt a little sad that I scheduled my child’s summer. My child is starting kindergarten in the fall and as many fellow moms never fail to remind me I will not have the option to spend as much time with them once they start kindergarten as I have since the day they were born. I have this vision of their first day of school when I send them off on the school bus that my heart will be ripped out and life as I know it is over. I keep trying to overcome that vision because I know I will see my child and we will always spend time together just at the end of the school day or during vacations. Yes my life will be different but my sadness is overcome by my child’s excitement about school and knowing how much they are looking forward to it. It is a little different for me as a mother of an only child because all of the experiences of my child when they were younger are changing and I am starting to see my child as growing up before my eyes.
Last week we had a horrific scare when my child was hit in the head and ended up in the emergency room with a concussion. Fortunately my child is well on the road to recovery and I have never been so scared in my life to see my child hallucinating and vomiting due to the head injury. I found myself sacred but also realizing that was a reminder that things can change so quickly. After coming home from the hospital I immediately had to clear our calendar being careful to not remind my child of what they were missing due to us being confined to our home with their head injury unable to be around other children afraid that they would be sad. But my child never questioned me about what we weren’t doing-instead they commented on how they just loved spending the time with me. That proved to be a wake up call to me. In our constant quest to keep our children busy we forget one thing-they are kids and will only be kids for a short time. I honestly do not remember much about my summers at my child’s age other than playing in the sprinklers and spending time with my mom. I may have gone to other activities but I do not remember. Although I am looking forward to the activities we have planned this summer I do not want to regret on that day I put my child on the school bus for the first time that we did not do the simple things of childhood-unscheduled, unplanned simply spending time together and not trying to worry about the dreaded “mom I’m bored” and scheduling so much that you do not even hear what your child truly wants which is time with you. Some day in the not so distant future my child will not want to spend time with me, their friends will come first so I am going to enjoy every minute of this summer with my child as a gift not a scheduling challenge.
