More on rhythms and summertime

When I was a kid, I never realized how difficult summer holidays were for my parents. I figured “hey, nothing to do, I can hang out, eat, play, and generally be a full-time nuisance!” and likely was just that for 2.5 months every summer. Now I’m a parent and, well, it’s clear why structure and rhythm are so important to a kid’s life, that’s all I can say. After the first week or two of crazy summer non-schedule, we have settled into what I’ll call our Summer Rhythm, where we’re all fairly oozy out of bed, but still have fixed meal times as much as possible, a physical activity every day (swimming, biking, walking, whatever), a good dinner, and a bed time cycle that starts at around 7.30pm or so every night. Usually the kids are asleep by 8pm or thereabouts.
This week is fun because our daughter, A-, is in a local summer camp with 18 other kids. She’s making hats, learning about bugs, doing crafts, and getting to be outside making new friends and playing. In fact, speaking of “making new friends”, we decided to deliberately send her to camp when none of her existing friends were going, so that we could expand her social circle and let her make a friend or two that isn’t a school mate. It worked great! She spent much of yesterday babbling excitedly about her “new best friend.”
So once we’ve gotten into the swing of things, summer is pretty nice! We’ve even had some lovely weather so far, not horribly hot, and cloudy, drizzly afternoons, with a wonderful evening zephyr to cool the house. We only hope that everyone else is having such a nice break and getting lots of time to spend with their kids!