Summer of Sanity 2016

Ok ya'll, it is time for my 3rd installment of Summer of Sanity, where I try to figure out how to stay sane with my 3 little ones all summer. I've been doing this the past two years with really good success, but then again how can the summer not be a success?

I've found myself once again thrown into SAHM status and am trying to balance all that I want to get out of summer vacation for the kids and myself.

Now usually my good intentions go by the wayside once we are about a week into it, but I still find it helpful to have some direction of where we're at this summer.

So far this summer, June is once again packed full of baseball finishing up, camp, and family visits. The flip side is that July is wide open.

For the kids, my goals are for them to just enjoy their summer.  I bought our first "big" pool that is no longer inflatable with hopes that we'll actually get some decent weather to use it.  It's been a very chilly spring for us here and last summer was far from being filled with dog days of heat. I also hope that they boys become more skilled at riding their bikes.  I hate to say this, but Alex still can't ride without the training wheels.  The boy just has no interest. I hope to get that changed this summer.  I also hope to have a diaper free house by the end of summer, but I am not holding my breath on that one.

To keep up with enrichment, I have plenty of trips to the library planned along with some nature field outings. I also made the boys each their own binder full of printed off age appropriate worksheets for them to complete.  I am not some crazy mom forcing work down their throat. They were very excited to get their own binders and have even started on some things in them. We'll see if they still keep that excitement when I ask them to journal.

As far as management of screentime, I plan to enforce "a chore = screentime" rule.  My goal is that they understand that certain things need to be taken care of before we can relax.  I don't want them to think of screentime as the "payment" or "allowance" but rather, something they can actually do once they have earned the time to do so.

August 1st will be here before I know it, so I am hoping to just sit back and enjoy the time I so desperately need to recharge before another school year.