peskypippi.comBecause I have a lot to say…

If Summer ends unofficially on Labor Day, then here is a warm hug to send it on its way.

To me, this was Summer:

Thanks for the great memories!

XO,

Pippi

It is nearing the end of summer and our family is a bit weathered. You can feel the energy slowly eeking, wearing us down.

• My kids seem tired. Too much playing? Too much fun?

• The flowers are spent. Too much blooming? Too much color?

• The car is filthy. Too many road trips? Too many activities? Too many snacks?

• My skin is weathered. Too much sun?

The community pool is now closed for the summer. Already. Drained. Empty. A drained pool is so depressing, I tweeted. My friend @RayChatie tweeted, “I love this tweet! In a simple fact it speaks of emptiness when once there was joy, the passage of time, memories of lost days.”

Time to rest up this week and re-energize because Fall is upon us. Next week: Labor Day. Bringing early morning schedules, school, homework, shuttling, deadlines, practices, commitments, appointments, kids’ sports, activities, meetings.

All the “have tos” that are Fall in a busy family.

Good-bye Summer. We will miss you.

“I’m bored.”

You’re WHAT??!!

I can’t accept boredom from children. My children or anyone’s children. At my house. In the middle of summer.

• There are crafts. Bendaroos. Play-doh. Modeling clay. Water paint. Acrylics. Markers. Stickers. Stamps. Hole punchers.
• There’s a puppy. He loves to play. And cuddle. And wrestle. And fetch.
• There’s Xbox 360 and Kinect. Party games, sports games, Lego games, shooter games, dance games.
• There are board games. Would You Rather? Sorry. Monopoly. Trouble. Operation. Bird Bingo. And about 20 others.
• There are outside toys. Bikes. Scooters. Pogo Stick. Roller skates. Full-size basketball hoop. Chalk. Giant bubbles. Frisbees.
• There’s an outside swimming pool, sandbox, swingset. Or I’d be happy to set up the sprinkler.
• Nerf guns. AirSoft guns if you’re over 13.
• Oh yeah and what about tag. Kick ball. Hide-and-go-seek.
• Snacks. Pizza. Juice. Ice cream sandwiches. Watermelon cut in wedges.
• There are Legos. Zoobles. Littlest Pet Shop. Star Wars figures. Ponies. Barbies. And, oh, about 58 stuffed animals.
• Movies. Take your pick.

Do kids really need prompting these days? Do they need an activity list of things to choose from?

Yikes.

When I was a kid and was told, “Go and play.” I did. And I didn’t ask what to play.

I chased after the ice cream truck on my bike. My sister and I played Frogger on Atari. I read everything by Judy Blume. I showed my friend how Barbie and Ken could make babies. I sketched. I played kickball and Nerf football with the neighbor kids in the street. I caught frogs and lightning bugs at my Dad’s. I did rubber stamps and stickers. I sprawled on my friend’s pink carpet while listening to the Grease soundtrack. I crank-called strangers. I practiced kissing in the mirror. I tried out cookie recipes. I wrote in my diary. I bought Fun Dip and Jolly Rancher Sticks at 7-11. I stared at the clouds. I watched The Brady Bunch and The Beverly Hillbillies. I made those goofy nylon potholders with my goofy potholder loom.

And if I said “I’m bored,” I would be given chores, which quickly shut me up.

So, if you’re a kid at my house and I hear “I’m bored,” I just may hand you a shovel. And you can pick up dog poop. #choices

What are some of the things YOU did as a kid?

I returned home from a camping trip with my family. To the same old campsite we go every year. The same old trees. The same old lake. The same old dock. The same old hiking trails. The same old s’mores, spray cheese, hot dogs, and bean dip.

That’s what makes this trip so special to me. It’s one of our annual traditions. And it brings us back to connecting as a family. And to nature.

No, we don’t sing Cumbaya around the campfire (yeah…have you HEARD me sing? #frightful).

Besides the pure, natural beauty of camping in the Pacific Northwest, there’s the beauty of simplicity. Face it, we don’t have to make difficult decisions while camping:

• hike or swim?
• play Monopoly or Sorry?
• explore or bike?
• Oreos or Chips Ahoy?
• balance on the logs or skip rocks?
• sit in the sun or sit in the shade?

We met up with a forest ranger named Jennifer at a “campfire talk” on ecosystems. She distributed neon rubber wristbands that say “Smokey’s Friend.” I am still wearing mine. And I probably won’t take it off for awhile.

This simple bracelet is a reminder of the quality time I spent with my family…connecting and enjoying the simpler things in life.

I have come up with a lazy-days-of-summer-to-do list. Let’s call it my Summer Bucket List:

1. Eat Doritos tacos at Taco Bell. Done!
2. Pig out at Cold Stone.
3. Run through the sprinklers.
4. Cheer at the rodeo.
5. Ride a dozen rides and pet the piglets at the fair.
6. Have a handful of picnics. One down!
7. Hike around the lake. Find a brand new place to hike.
8. Go to the drive-in movie before it closes forever.
9. Bowl with the family and eat nachos (and share a pitcher of beer–maybe two–with my husband)
10. Open swim. Family swim. Whatever. Get my butt in a swimsuit and go!
11. Pick peaches.
12. Go camping.
13. Paint my daughter’s and my toenails a new color every other week. Neon orange…done!
14. Pet Otis-the-puppy as much as possible.
15. Shoot off fireworks on the 4th.
16. Pick a wildflower bouquet.
17. Read in the shade of my swing.
18. Make a berry cobbler.
19. Play frisbee.
20. Lay in the grass and watch the clouds go by.

What’s on YOUR summer bucket list?

The 4th of July is my favorite holiday.

It is the holiday that screams summer, family, yummy food, and celebration.

As a kid, when I spent summers in Missouri, I’d shake my apple bank empty. (I had a bank where you would insert a coin and the worm would grab it and take it to the inside of the apple = coolest bank ever!) I shoved the handfuls of coins into my pockets until they bulged. Then I would climb on my bubble gum-pink Schwinn–with the banana seat–and bolt to the nearest fireworks tent, Famous Dave’s.

Back then, $5 would buy a lot of awesomeness. Smoke bombs, Piccolo Petes, Roman candles, sparklers, snakes (that would make a permanent black mark on my Dad’s driveway), and bottle rockets–my favorite! Those suckers are illegal where we live now. Just the other night, when my 13-year-old son and I were buying fireworks, how you’d balance the glass Coke bottle on the wooden fence, drop in a bottle rocket, light the fuse with your punk, and run.

On the 4th, my Dad always made ice cream. The old-fashioned kind. Always vanilla. With ice and rock salt and a crank. It took way too long.

The street asphalt would bubble under the sweltering heat. I often went shoeless. Coming home after meandering through our neighborhood on my bike–with black-bottomed feet–I just in time to help with the final cranking of the ice cream, and suck on an ice cube laden with salt, until the ice cream was ready.

It was the 4th. And it was a celebration of all of my senses.

Happy 4th of July!

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You know those fancy wicker picnic baskets? The kind that are lined with red-and-white checkerboard fabric? The basket with the miniature plates and cups and silverware snuggled inside?

Yeah. I don’t have one of those.

Every time I see one at the store, I think I want one. Ah, the picnic. Perfected.

Well, let me tell you, the perfect wicker picnic basket is not needed for a perfect picnic. Neither are the perfect “picnic fixings.” In fact, I used to spend a lot of time making the sandwiches, chopping up a fruit salad, packing homemade cookies, adding carrots and dip and extra snacks. Then we would arrive at our destination with a frazzled (slightly resentful) mother; smashed, soggy sandwiches; limp carrots; and–oops–watermelon juice oozing all over our Igloo cooler.

Our new-and-improved family picnics are more like this.

1. Stop by Subway.
2. Pick up sandwiches, chips, drinks.
3. Simple. Done.

Our family picnics are not drawn-out, check-off-your-grocery-list-kind of picnics. They are pick-up picnics. As in let’s-go-on-a-hike-around-the-lake-and-grab-some-food-while-we’re-out kind of picnics.

What’s important is who you’re with. Not what you’re eating. And it’s not about the “perfect presentation.”

My buddy @NoRegretsParent reinforces this nicely: “It’s not where you go but who you’re with and what you do there.”

With Subway sandwiches in-hand, we sit on the grass. Or the boulders. Or a park bench. We talk. Chomp chomp. We drink. Gulp gulp. We laugh. Chomp chomp. We slurp. We throw away. And head on our hike.

And you know what? No heavy-ass wicker contraption to lug around.

As a kid, Saturday nights were get-ready-for-church nights.

I would soak in the bubble bath, lingering until the water turned cold and the bubbles had vanished. Emerging, with my towel wrapped around my hair like a turban, and my nightgown that my Grandmother had laid out for me, I would join her at the kitchen table. Out came the tray of wonder. Her mirrored tray, with the golden handles, lined  with bottles of nail polish in all shades of pink. No red. No purple. Just pink.

Peachy Keen Pink. Pink Lemonade. Rose Blush. Pink Carnation.

What a choice! I made my selection. But what I liked most, was shaking the little glass bottle with the miniature beads inside. The mixing beads. They don’t have those in nail polish bottles anymore, do they?

My Grandmother would paint my nails. And while they dried, we watched The Lawrence Welk Show. It was our thing.

She would tuck me into the crisp, freshly-laundered floral sheets. She would turn the sheets inside out, so that the folded-over sheet showed “the pretty side,” A homemade quilt at my feet. I would say my nightly prayer, “Now I lay me fast to sleep…” The box fan was going full speed, humming, on a hot Summer night. My Grandmother would sleep next to me, smelling like cold cream with her freshly curled-sprayed-and-set hair in a hair net.

It was Saturday night. Time to get ready for church the next day. What I remember most were the sweet rituals and time well spent with my Grandmother.

Alice Cooper sang it best with School’s Out for Summer.

And I think this picture says “it’s summer” best.

Happy Summer!

Love,
Pippi

You know you’re too busy when…your child doesn’t have time to poop because you are rushing from activity to activity.

That’s when you know that you have too much going on. And that’s when you know you have turned into PSYCHO MOM.

School. Playdates. Doctor appointments. Extra curricular activities. Sports. Lessons.

When is enough enough?

It is enough when your child gets home from school, goes upstairs to poop, but you stop him mid-poop and yell, “HURRY UP! GET YOUR PIANO BOOKS! WE’RE GONNA BE LATE FOR YOUR PIANO LESSON!”

Do we want to speed through childhood and life? So much that we can’t even go to the bathroom?

This week was my breaking point. It is now time to reassess. And maybe not sign up for that extra summer camp.

Am I turning into the type of mother who over schedules her children? One of those psycho Moms that I find annoying? The kind whose children are so busy, they don’t have any down time to simply lie in the shade to discover that grass blades indeed make great whistles?

Summer is upon us. We need to drop something. Lower expectations. Something.

I used to believe in only one activity per child at a time. Then one activity turned into two. But does swim lessons count as an activity or is it a necessity? I care and want my children to be well-rounded and interesting and active. But I also want them to be happy. Are they happy when they are rushing from activity to activity? Their distressed faces tell me otherwise.

With three kids, there’s soccer, piano lessons, gymnastics, art class, horseback riding, football. Three kids multiplied by x number of activities. Now we’ve got an algebra problem. And I suck at math.

As a child, sure I had lessons–tennis, ballet, gymnastics, swimming, horseback riding, even drama and cooking class–but I also remember having lots of free time. Idle time. Play time.

Run-through-the-streets-to-chase-after-the-ice-cream-truck time. Time to loll with my friends in the shade and pick blades of grass to turn them into whistles.

Fast forward a few decades and now I’m yelling at my child to hurry up while he’s pooping? Yikes.

I don’t want to be THAT kind of Mom. I want my children to be happy. And have plenty of time for pooping and whistling.

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