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Monday, June 08, 2009

Summer Parenting

Summer's here! Alright, really it's officially two weeks away. My younger son is a summer solstice baby so the first day of summer is on his third birthday, June 21st. I have to admit that before I became a parent, summer was take it or leave it. This was particularly true during my first couple years after college where there was limited AC in both my apartment and at work. Summer mainly meant working while sweating. Sure, the sunlight was nice, but it's nice in the spring and fall too.

To be truly honest, I didn't really become a fan of summer parenting until my boys were a little older. Trying to keep sunscreen and hats on them so they didn't burn while making sure they didn't crawl around and eat rocks and sticks was stressful. Why do that when I could be inside and not have to worry about all of that? On top of it, I felt pressure to pretend that I was so glad it was summer or else be seen as some weirdo much like in Twilight. The summer that YS was born was the worst. OS was old enough that he wanted to be outside doing things, and YS was too little to wear sunscreen. I don't care what other moms say, putting him in the infant carrier or a sling may have kept him out of the sun but it also made him really sweaty. Instead of worrying about suburn, I was worried about giving him heatstroke.

Now that I don't have to worry about them burning or putting gum from the sidewalk in their mouths, summer is great. The main reason I like it is no surprise...the kids can run around outside and burn off some of the energy. You're bored? Play outside. You want to run and scream? Go outside? You want to eat a messy popsicle? Go outside.

Playdates are great because the other mom(s) and I can lounge on a chair while the kids run around yelling and screaming. Since we're outside, we can still have a conversation despite the noise while keeping an eye on the kids so that they don't kill each other.

Today was one of those days. A friend from OS's soccer team called us up and asked if we wanted to come over to her house. We had a fabulous time. It was one of those playdates that went so well, we were gone much longer than I intended. The kids came home happy and tired. It was a great day.

Lest you think that summers are always peachy keen for us now that both boys are a few feet up from nasty things on the sidewalk and therefore shouldn't be into anything let me share a little story. I love using those sunscreen sticks on the boys' faces. We've had problems in the past with sunscreen running in their eyes when they sweat or, big shocker here, have a meltdown. The other week I rubbed YS's face with the sunscreen stick at the park. Then he went off to play. For reasons I still don't understand, he thought it would be a good idea to stick his entire face directly into the sandbox. It was like glitter on glue. It was a perfect sandmask. No matter how hard I rubbed at it with my hands, his shirt, or the bottom portion of my shirt, I couldn't get it completely off. Yes, summer is here.

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: There are similarities between sunscreeen sticks and glue sticks.

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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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