The End (of Summer) is Near...

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For this year.

Last time I wrote here I complained about how different, how 'bad,' summer was going to be - as an adult and a parent. I wasn't wholey wrong. Of course, I wasn't entirely right either. Having to adjust and re-work schedules or, in my case, completely forget having a schedule was a pain in the ---, well, I'm sure you get where I was going with that. Yet it also gave me a sense of freedom I hadn't expected.

As a stay at home mom I always have a certain degree of freedom when it comes to what I do, and when I do it, but this was a different. If I wanted to take the kids swimming in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday, I could, there was absolutely nothing to stop me. If I wanted to go camping for 2 weeks straight, I could. And if the kids wanted to go away with family for any length of time, and that family was able to take them, they did. It was actually sort of... Nice.

But, like the title says, the end is near. The kids go back to school next Monday (in less then a week!) and we're back to the extra-curricular schedule within a week of school starting too. And now, I've decided to go back and do a few classes at the local University as well. It's going to be stressful and busy, and all of us are going to have to stick very closely to our new schedule or it's going to be chaos.

I can't wait.

Of course, as I've been debating the last couple weeks over whether I should be going back to classes or not, I've had to consider the extent to which I was willing to allow my writing to be, shall I say, inconvenienced. I've talked to some other authors, some friends, and they've all told me very similar things.

Writing is a full-time job. As such I should treat it as a full time job and therefore devote that amount of time to it. At least I should be doing that if I want to "succeed." I don't disagree with that.

But I've also been told, and taught since I was a child, that all knowledge is power. If I can use what I'm learning in my classes to help me with my writing I'm not really abandoning the effort then, am I? The actual number of hours that I'll be able to spend writing may decrease, that's pretty much a given, but my classes may work for me rather than against me. Especially if they are the 'right' classes.

I've also had to consider how much I was willing to allow school and writing to detract from the time I'm able to spend with my kids.

It's a hard decision to make. But I made it. There are some things that no matter how much I read about and research, I'm never fully going to be able to figure out on my own. In that way, I need the classes. And where it comes to considering the kids... well, I've had to make a few allowances there. I've compressed the time I'd be busy in school to two days a week. I've made sure that I'm there while my oldest is at her school. That leaves me with the other two. For them, I decided that spending a bit more time with Grandma and Grandpa, or Auntie, really won't hurt them. And they are more than happy to keep them.

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So I'll try a semester. I'll keep writing on the days when I'm not at school and spend time with my kids when I'm not doing either of those. Weekends are going to be extremely important for all of us, I think. But I'll make it work. School plays into my writing. The writing plays into supporting my kids. And the kids are the most important thing.

I will make it work. I have to.

So the summer is at an end, but something else is just beginning. Again.

Lazy Summer Days?

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When I was young I used to look forward to the summer holidays with a type of gleeful anticipation. I was always busy during the school year - with dance classes, piano lessons, skating (for two very fun, very long winters), cheerleading, homework, dating, having friends, just generally having a life - that by the time June rolled around and summer was approaching I was more then ready for it. Now that I'm older, now that I've got kids of my own, summer doesn't hold quite the same appeal.

Now it's just another season, a couple of months out of the year that the temperatures soar and the kids are sprung from school or whatever other activities they usually do to occupy themselves. I still have to do all the same things I always do. I still have the same responsibilities, the same (or at the very least comparable) demands on my time. I don't get to spend all day at the pool or at my friends house. I can't lounge in the backyard and run through the sprinkler when ever I want.

Summer hits and I lose the 9 hours a week that I had during the afternoons when I didn't have to be just a mom and push my needs to the side. Schedules that have worked for ten months straight have to be completely reorganized and refitted. New activities need to be found to replace the old. Until this year, and I'm not entirely sure why it hasn't occured to me before, I'd never really realized that summer time is actually a really crappy time of year for most parents. If you work away from home, it means finding (and PAYING for) childcare for the X-number of hours a week that you don't usually need it. If you work at home it means having your kids constantly underfoot, never truly having the time you need to do whatever it is you do. For me, and mind you this is after only a week of 'summer holidays', it means giving up what little free time I did have and having to focus on the kids instead.

Looking back on my own childhood summers, and I do this with very fond rememberance, I certainly remember being told that my parents were too busy to do this or take me there, but I also recall that even at a very young age I had a great deal freedom and often spent a lot of time doing whatever I wanted to do, and doing it without a lot of supervision. I know that doesn't make my mom and dad bad parents but now, having kids of my own, I can't imagine leaving them up to their own devices and trusting that wouldn't do something to get in trouble. I don't think that means that I don't trust my children to be good or that I expect them to misbehave, I just honestly can't see myself doing that. Okay, scratch that - most of the time I would expect my kids to misbehave but they are still young, so I do know that they wouldn't be good all of the time. Still... even if I did trust them, and they wouldn't get in to trouble, I don't know if I would leave them to it.

Why am I even bothering with this line of thought? Well to be perfectly honest, mostly just because it's been bugging me. It's been on my mind. Of course, with the changes in schedules and everything else it is also interrupting the writing I've been doing and that bugs me because I'd been having so much trouble writing anything for so long, then finally it was like the fog in my mind was burned off - and now it's summer and there's this new obstacle. If I were a pessimistic person I'd nearly be tempted to say that fate seemed to be trying to tell me something. Fortunately I'm not an overly pessimistic person, most of the time, and I know that every road has its bumps. Mine are no different than any other writers. In anycase, I'm going to have to work with against the new schedule that my children's summer holidays have pushed on me, at least until I can convince it to work with me.

Wish me luck?