have this thing I do every summer, where I decide that this is going to be the BEST SUMMER EVER! I have big plans for big fun with my family of four. We will hit the splashpad and the pool, the zoo, the children’s museum. Ice cream! Grill outs! Parties! VACATION!!!!

We need to make memories, people! We’ve got two months to MAKE IT MAGICAL!

I have this theory that teachers are particularly bad about big summer plans. We get the summer off too and are afraid of wasting even a second of our precious vacation. We think, after spending all year wrangling five sets of 35 teenagers a day, surely I can handle my own two children with almost no effort! Y’all, did you know that sometimes children listen to you simply because you aren’t their mother? It is true. Also, did you know that three-year-olds are just like teenagers, only with twice the will power and half the ability to reason with someone? This, also, is very very true.

My big plans for the summer have never really quite made it into the epic trips I imagine.Once, when the girls were just barely two and ten months old, I decided to take my family camping. Like camping camping, in a tent, with a fire and a walk to the bathrooms. I have really great memories of camping growing up and I just wanted them to have the same experience. It didn’t really occur to me the reason I have those memories is because I was old enough to remember.

You can read the rest here. It is a good one.