Our Rainy Day Summer

Every mother has guilt.  It is one of the first things we get when we see those pink little lines.  I have done my best to push guilt aside, because it gets you no where, except maybe on a therapist couch or down at the toy store handing over your paycheck.  No where productive, anyway.  I have huge guilt hanging over me this summer.  It is hot, I am huge and the kids have much unleashed energy. 

I have high expectations after the kids are in bed, which is usually the easiest time to have high expectations.  I promise myself we will make cookies, play games, go to the park, etc.  Then morning comes, usually at 230am, and all those promises fly out the window along with any hope of getting a decent night’s sleep.  I can’t really blame Amber for getting up so early in the morning, because why not start your day of nothing as early as possible?  And it is totally lost on her that if she just let her parents sleep until 8 am that maybe we wouldn’t be so annoyed with her most of the day.  I know that is not really an excuse and we should act like adults, but do you know how hard all that is, especially with a golden head jumping bean rattling off questions and demands at you at 5am?  Pretty damn hard. 

So I try my best to, at the very least, be patient and accommodating within the confines of our home. Then I read posts like this and this and start to think that maybe I should send these bloggers a little FedEx care packages.  My kids!!  Because, obviously these people have found summer nirvana and we are stuck in some hot suck hole that produces nothing but heat and suckage.  Everytime I read these blogs, I sit in wonderment and ask where did they find these neighborhoods with their overflowing friendly adults, matching age kids and fun, fun, fun.  Truth be told, I get the sinking feeling that even if we lived in this type of hood I would probably still keep to myself out of fear of being overbearing.  I do have a boy my son’s age, but rarely call on his mother, because I don’t want her to think I am taking advantage.  I don’t need to be That Woman in the neighborhood.  I do have to wonder how will this affect my kids, only being around each other and me.  There is no one to ship them off to, like when I was young and went to my grandparents.  I find summer camps ridiculously overpriced babysitting operations.  And setting them loose in the backyard only releashes their inner door operation specialists. 

It is just unwise to leave the job of social director up to a socially inept 8 month pregnant woman.  In regular times, meaning those when I am not knocked up, I make the best effort I can.  There are swimming lessons, outings and playing in the Easy Set pool in the backyard.  This time I can hardly make the effort to make them lunch everyday.  It does help a bit that Amber seems so gung ho to make lunch for her and her brother.  Although, I think there is a FDA limit on the consumption of hotdogs by growing humans. 

I tell myself that this is just one summer and next summer we will back into the swing of things, but then I flash back to when I was pregnant with Sam and said the same thing.  Guilt is a hard mistress to get rid of.  She seems to always being lurking around the corner ready to ruin a perfectly good day.  I wonder why logic never seems to be as good a mistress as guilt.  Maybe because logic is too busy just being instead of worrying about the affects she will have on everyone around her.  I guess logic is more of a giver whereas guilt is more of a self-centered whore.