Summer break’s a goner.
Has been for a good week and a half now — for two out of three kids. Official Time of Death: Aug. 4.
I never thought I’d say this, but I’m actually a little sad about that this year.
Now, I’ve made no secret of the fact that Summer Break and I are total frenemies. Summers past have been a chaotic mess of camps with schedules that don’t quite match up with those of working parents. Still, that time period from late May to early August does bring welcome relief from carpooling and homework, or, more specifically, me nagging about finishing that homework.
This year…. Well, this year things were — I can’t believe I’m admitting it — easier.
We had basketball camp, of course, and a four-week long Freshman Academy for the new high-school student conveniently scheduled from 8-9:25 a.m., which is just a slight exaggeration. The timing wasn’t quite that bad but it wasn’t that convenient either.
Now that the kids are older and more responsible — which is just a slight exaggeration, but they do all know how to use the microwave — they logged a fair amount of time at Camp Comcast. That’s code for sitting around the house and binge-watching TV, specifically “Brooklyn 99” and “The Office.” You can do stuff like that when you know how to work the 5,000 TV remotes.
Things were, perhaps, too laid-back. To wit, this actual conversation with my oldest child:
Me: “It seems like you haven’t done laundry in quite awhile.”
No. 1: “That’s because I don’t wear clothes — I’m in pajamas every day.”
Another time, No. 3 asked what day it was. Only a kid on summer vacation would need to ask that … on a Friday.
Summer break brings out this weird sense of entitlement, that all kids everywhere have earned the right to do as little as possible and create butt-shaped divots in the couches where they spend their days and never even fire up the ol’ gray matter, even for simple parental inquiries like, “What are you up to?”
“I dunno.” Accompanied, of course, with a shrug.
Not that they don’t deserve a break, but all that time spent in a TV coma does come at a price, as I saw on the very first day of school. Just 10 minutes before classes started, I got The Call. Lunch had been forgotten. Sigh.
Then, there were the two high-school orientations on the same day at the same time, and apparently one was super-secret because no parents I know had heard a peep about it. Double sigh.
Back to the grind. How many days until summer vacation?
