Why I Love Being a Mom in the Summertime

There are so many things I love about summer. Swimming. Long days. Popsicles. Ice Cream. Watermelon. Corn on the cob. There are a few things I don't like, mainly involving heat and too much sun, but the things I like outweigh the things I dislike about summer. Summer as an adult is different from summer as a kid. But when you get to be a mom, some of summer's childhood greatness comes back. As I think back to the great memories from my childhood, they mostly revolve around summer and Christmas--the two highlights of the kid year. As a parent, I get to try to give my kids some of those same great memories and traditions. And it kind of brings back the kid in me. I get to participate in all their fun summer kid stuff.

This is the first summer that my kids have taken swimming lessons, but it has brought back a flood of memories for me. Swimming lessons were always the highlight of our summer (along with our trip to Morro Bay). I don't know how my parents afforded to put all 5 of us in swimming lessons every summer, but we had them. Now, unlike my kids, we did not have a pool readily available to us. We had some neighbors with a pool who sometimes let us swim in it and then there were the Hunters around the corner who let us swim in their pool. But for the most part, swimming lessons were our pool time in the summer. We looked forward to them with great enthusiasm.

This started me thinking about other great summer things and I thought of Thrifty's ice cream. We used to go in there sometimes to get an ice cream cone. My dad routinely bought the great big boxes of their ice cream to keep in our freezer. Every summer when we went to Morro Bay, we would ride our bikes from the campground into town to the local Thrifty's. We'd all have a big triple scoop cone for lunch and then we'd ride back to the campground. Today I got a hankering for a Thrifty's ice cream cone and wanted to share that with my kids. Thrifty's got bought out several years ago by Rite Aid, but the stores that used to be Thrifty's still have the counter for ice cream cones and I think they pretty much all at least sell the ice cream in the freezer section. I decided that Thrifty's cones would be a great treat for after swimming lessons today and I checked where the nearest Rite Aid was, crossing my fingers that they'd have the cones. Well, we lucked out. It's very close to us and has the cones. (Sara--this is the one right by your house.) The kids loved it and so did I. And I couldn't believe what a good deal it was. It's a far cry from the $0.30 single scoops of my childhood, but is still a pretty good deal. We got double scoop cones (and these were pretty good size scoops) for $1.69 each. A single kids scoop at Baskin Robbins is $1.99. The kids decided that the double scoops were a bit large for them to eat, so tomorrow they are getting single scoops (at their own request). I had a double scoop of Pecan Praline, which is absolutely wonderful, and Chocolate brownie, which is also very good. Ruby got chocolate brownie and vanilla. And Russell, not quite sure how to decide on more than one flavor, got two scoops of strawberry. I love the scoops they use there. I wish I could get an ice cream scoop like that.

A fun tradition that I started with the kids and would like to keep up is the summer road trip. A few years ago I decided that it was dumb for me and the kids to be stuck home all summer just because Charles didn't have much vacation time. So, I decided to pack the kids in the car and take a two week trip to Utah to visit some friends and relatives. I had my cell phone and I used McDonald's online trip planner to figure out where all the McDonald's with play grounds were along my route and which exits I needed to take to get to them. I planned how far I would drive in a day and where I would spend the night and off we went. It worked great. Russell was still a nursing baby at the time, so we would stop and eat and I'd nurse Russell while Ruby played on the playground.

That trip was such a success that the following year we expanded it. We went for four weeks and visited Utah, Wyoming and Idaho. We had a fabulous time, but I was really ready to come home by the time the four weeks were up just because it was hard to be away from Charles for so long. And our last stop was at my mother-in-law's house in Idaho. I was already really missing Charles by that time and all the pictures of him at her house didn't help. Next time we'll fit her in earlier in our trip.

Charles loves it when we go on these trips. Whenever I suggest that the kids and I might like to take a trip, he doesn't even hesitate to say yes. Sometimes he doesn't even let me get the details out. While we're gone he watches movies that I have no interest in and he loves that the house is in the same condition when he gets home as it was when he left in the morning. He does miss us, though. Last year, due to the extremely high price of gas, we didn't get to do the big trip. We just did a short trip to Utah with my brother for a family reunion. It was fun, but I can't say I liked the whirlwind pace of the trip. If I'm going to drive that far, I like to stay a little longer. This year, what with moving in the middle of the summer, we haven't gotten to take a trip either. I've been hankering for one since the weather started getting nice in the spring. I'm thinking we'll have to do one during one of the breaks from school. Like the "ski week" in February or during spring break. Maybe a weekend trip up to see my cousin Carolyn. School starts in less than two weeks and it seems like the summer just barely began. I'll have to plan a good trip for next summer. Maybe we can take off as soon as school gets out. I'm hoping that these trips will be cherished memories for my kids when they get older. I know I enjoy them. I need to go camping, too. It's been a couple years since I've been camping. Maybe I'll plan a short trip up the coast to see the big redwoods. That would be fun.