Summer Blues

School has finally started. After 445 days of summer vacation Baby Girl has started fourth grade at last. I’ve got the puppy playpen set up in my office so she won’t whine and I’m watching the cat stalk around it with her tail twitching. The cat is supposed to be outside. But she is so fascinated by this puppy that she has insisted on being inside today so that she can follow me and the puppy around the house. I can only assume she’s a tad bit jealous, worried that her Queen of the Castle role is being usurped by a tiny canine.

This summer was literally 96 days. May 18th to August 23rd. The longest summer of my life. We started and ended with a bang, having gone on a Disney Cruise a week after school let out and getting a new puppy four days before school began again. Yet somehow I am still the most unfun parent on the planet. During the summer we went on a week long vacation, we went to the water park, to the zoo, shopping, nails done, hair colored (twice), ears pierced, to the mall, to meet friends, swimming, birthday parties, the movies and did two weeks of summer camp. We went to a major horse show where Baby Girl rode well and won Reserve Champion. These are all the things we did outside the house when I could convince her to leave it.

Baby Girl is a homebody. Every day during the summer vacation she would prefer to stay at home on her ipad and/or computer. Occasionally play with her toys or do painting. Every morning was a struggle to get her to go outside and ride her ponies. Every afternoon was a beating to get her off her electronics. Sure, I’m impressed by all the things she can create in Minecraft but I really don’t think this, and watching endless YouTube videos, is the best use of her time.

Every time I laid down the law and made her quit the electronics it would then become my responsibility (according to her) to entertain her. 500 golf cart rides later (she learned to drive it), feeling as if you are heading straight into the ovens of Hell, it finally became a little less fun. The trampoline got blown away by a June storm and we ended up selling the pool she never used. One day I had to help her make a UNICORN HOUSE. For her plastic unicorns. That she doesn’t play with. We had to glue cardboard to a wood bottom that she painted, we had to add corners so that the sand wouldn’t come out. You’d think this would be a fun little project but all I can think of is where is this thing going to end up when she’s done with it? It’s just one more thing to add to her room which is overflowing with crap already. She’s a hoarder, this one. Can’t get her to get rid of anything, especially her stuffies. Of which she has thousands. Picked up three more on our Disney trip alone.

Trying to get her out of the house to run errands was a trial. She’d throw a fit. Demand to be allowed to stay in the car. Wear her pj pants and no shoes. Then, we had to listen to all her favorite songs in the car. Gone are the days of the Disney songs that I also enjoy. Now we’ve got people I’ve never heard of before like Ava Max and Elijah N. I try and introduce her to classic stuff like Nickleback and end up having to play “Rock Star” (a highly inappropriate song) eight hundred times, and arguing whether I should play it with her friends in the car (I didn’t). Upon reflection I should have listened to that song before I played it for her in the first place. My mistake. So I finally put on “Brave” by Sara Bareilles and luckily we have a new favorite. Have you ever heard “The Wellerman Shanty?” Don’t. It’ll be stuck in your head for a year. Roxette was a flop though I did try to get through “Joyride” with her. She wasn’t interested.

And yes, we rode. Well she did. But she’s got one pony that’s too old to be ridden, one pony that can only walk around, and one pony that bites her at every turn. So it wasn’t a terribly successful riding summer. Not to mention the heat. I love the heat. BUT. 105 degrees by 10 am for weeks on end is a little intense, even for me. So back inside it was. Punctuated by days out as illustrated above. Y’all. This shit is expensive! Going to zoo was over $100. Movies and water park over $50. You don’t want to know how much the cruise was. Every time you want to do something fun outside the house you have to pawn another piece of your mom’s jewelry. It blows my mind.

This post is a little disjointed. That’s because my mom brain is thoroughly over stimulated by this summer of hell we just endured. I have so many thoughts and things I’d like to say that I never got a chance to sit down and write about this summer. The grocery store. Going to buy groceries with Baby Girl is a nightmare. She wants to push the cart. Hang off the edge of the cart. Sit underneath it. Get inside of it. Jesus. She also wants to tell me what to do all the time, which aisles to go down. What I do or don’t need to buy. Whether electrolytes actually work. How many candies she’s allowed to have. This kid is strong willed and basically feral. One of the things I am most looking forward to doing alone again is going to the store. Also sitting on the toilet without her calling for me.

She’s also sassy. She has the attitude of a teenager. One minute she’ll be playing Barbies like she’s just a little girl and next thing you know she’s rolling her eyes and back talking. Because I reminded her of something. “I knooooowwwww” is her favorite expression. She tried to tell me that electrolytes don’t work, after first asking what they are. She insisted that they’re just water (whatever that means) and then responding with “so you’re calling me dumb?” when I said she doesn’t know everything. Lord bless me for not losing my shit in the grocery store right then and there. Is this what a nine year old is? A happy five year old playing Barbies morphed with a sneering, snarling 13 year old that knows everything? Just yesterday I refused to take her back into Walmart to buy things from the gumball machines after we checked out. This, apparently, makes me the most unfun Mom in the world. She was incensed that I would not do it. She had quarters in the car and she saw the machines full of junk as we were walking out. We had the puppy with us, as well. Needless to say it wasn’t going to happen. I told her to remember to bring her quarters into Walmart next time. She huffed and puffed and snarled at me. I kept walking. Of course by the time we got to the car she was over it and never mentioned it again. This is one of her good qualities. She doesn’t hold a grudge. And she forgets about things quickly.

At any rate. Today she is finally in school. And I am finally sitting down to cleanse my soul of all the joys and miseries of this past summer. (She did love the cruise and is ecstatic over the puppy). The first thing I did this morning after I got back from dropping her off was to put Luna (the puppy) back in her crate and lay down for a quiet, peaceful, uninterrupted nap. It was blissful. Now I’m writing, which is something else that makes me happy.

I’ll spend the rest of my day doing laundry and taking the puppy outside to go potty. It’s quiet here. I hope she’s having as good a day in school as I’m having here at home by myself! Sometimes we Mamas just need our kid to be in school for eight hours a day. I might not even need a glass of wine tonight. That remains to be seen of course, taking her attitude after school into consideration.

So all I have left to say is Bless the teachers!!! I’m your number one fan.