Free style summer

I never knew how much parents looked forward to summer until my kid started school. Although I'm guessing that same statement might not apply to stay at home parents. But it does for this mom. No more homework or car rider lines or worrying about AR tests and conduct grades and unexcused absences! This summer is going to shape up much like last year with Bub at summer camp at Button's daycare. He has a good time there. We don't have any summer plans for vacation or anything. We could never quite work it out. I'm calling it our free-stylin' summer since I think we are just going to see how it goes. The kids have swim lessons later in June and that's the extent of our current plans. We visited BT's parent's new house in Florida for Memorial Day weekend and I think we'll go back either before Bub goes back to school or for his fall break.

Bub's last day was Wednesday so my dad had him yesterday and I have today. He is going to start summer camp on Monday and I thought I'd give him a couple of days off before he started that (and save that money to be frank). I ended up keeping Button home and we are going to the public library's summer reading kick-off to have some fun over there and sign-up for the program. One of my plans this summer is to have at least 15 minutes of quiet reading a day. I'm looking forward to having a quiet summer in general.

Arts and other creative things

Bub goes to the arts & technology elementary school in our parish (county to the rest of the U.S.) and they take 7 arts for K-2. At the end of 2nd grade each child has to chose 3 arts to take in the 3rd grade and then narrow it down to 1 from those for 4th and 5th grades. It's kind of like choosing a major only they give you 4 years to try them out and pick. The goal is to be able to get into the arts middle school program with your chosen art. I'm not sure at this point if he wants to do that or go to the science middle school. I'm fine with either. So this year he was highly recommended for piano, which is great because we recently acquired BT's parents' piano. He was recommended for drama, dance, visual art, strings and band. The only one not on the list was vocal and it's easy to see why. He sings like I do, full of emotion but lacking in tune and/or pitch. So he ended up choosing piano, drama and dance which is perfect for him with band as his alternate. I'm not sure when they send out the final schedule of which ones they were assigned. But hopefully he gets the ones he chose. Dance is perfect since he needs all the physical motion he can get and drama is perfect because, well, he is a very dramatic child. Although I'm not entirely convinced that he understands the concept of drama equals plays, but I guess he'll find out.

Party like it's my birthday

Because it is!  My birthday, I mean. Yes today I'm turning the crusty old age of 37. My plans for today including going to work, taking my son to school, going back to work, working, and then leaving early and going to the movies to see Pitch Perfect 2. I'm pretty excited. Maybe not for the work part but the movies sound pretty good. My coworker mentioned lunch but I think I just want to eat movie nachos and chill. It's not exciting but then I've never been inclined toward the exciting so it suits me just fine. I may even buy myself a book and the drink a margarita with the fajitas my husband is gong to make me.

I kind of can't believe that I am 37. You ever have one of the those moments when you suddenly realize how old you are. Yeah, that's me. I had a moment the other day when I was suddenly surprised to find that I was 36 and a mother of two. It was weird but it was a moment of just supreme awareness. And I know that 37 is nowhere near old but I keep thinking about how close to 40 I am. Turning 30 didn't bother me and 35 was whatever but I have a feeling I'm going to take 40 hard especially judging by the way I'm dwelling on 37. But a coworker asked me what more I wanted to accomplish in life?Nothing, really. I have a beautiful family, a good career and a nice house. I think I've done pretty well for myself. So it's not that. It's just a weird thing.

Take me out of the ball game

Sportsball. So Bub has been playing soccer since he was 3 and baseball since he was 4. We are big supporters of team sports around my house. I'm pretty much of the mind that it's good for my kids to do something. Sports is a good something but I would accept music or art or something similar. Just get out and do something. And while he still likes soccer, baseball has become a struggle. I don't know if it's because they play so many more games (18 this season) or if it's because he's not as good at baseball as he is as soccer. He lacks focus and baseball is not a game where the action is non-stop so I think that is a contributing factor. If he practiced more I know he could be better but we are struggling just to get him to go to a game. He wanted to quit basically after baseball started. But the lesson I think he should learn is that if you tell someone you are going to do something for them, you have to finish it out. He signed up for this, he has a team so he has to play out this season for his team. It's the right thing to do. Right now I'm thinking that he is going to sit out next year. That even if he says he really really wants to play, I'm not going to let him. I rarely deny my kids this kind of thing. Like I said, I want him to get out and do something. But I want it to be something that he loves. And he doesn't love baseball. If, after sitting out a season, he thinks he wants to play again then fine. But I want him to want to do it. I'm not going to make him. We can always look into other things to do.

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It's been a while. The thing is I haven't had the brain space for a long while to keep up with anything other than a stupid app game on my iPad. It's like when I was young and I'd visit my (future) in-laws and I'd play The Sims all the time but worse because I own this so can play it whenever I want. I'm trying though to get back to reading and writing and doing things I use to love. But everything is so busy lately, work being incredibly stressful as of late and multiple sports things happening with Bub. But now that he is down to one sport and the big project I am in charge settling down into a rhythm I might be able to get my head together.

I've had several blog topic ideas lately but I've forgotten them right now, of course. I'm not sure anyone is interested in the struggles of a Collection Development Librarian or in my latest management difficulties. But I'm going to try to get back into doing the things I use to like doing.