Today was my daughter Molly’s last day of kindergarten. About 10 weeks from now she’ll officially start 1st grade, but until then she’s completely free (minus a couple of fun summer camps). When she arrived home today I asked her how it felt to be done with school and starting her time off. “Good”, she said with an indifferent shrug. And that’s when it hit me: I’m 1,000 times more excited about her summer vacation than she is! Make that 10,000 times more excited than my younger daughter Abby, but that’s because a) she’s 4 and still somewhat clueless about the whole concept of time & seasons and b) she just finished a year of 2-day per week preschool, so her life is already a perpetual vacation.
Molly is ready for some summer fun!
So why am I so excited about summer for my girls? The first reason is mostly a selfish one. Like many parents, my wife & I just spent an entire school year trying to keep the kids on a decent sleep schedule and struggling to get them out the door for the bus in the morning. There were countless evenings when we’d be having a good time reading books, playing games, or watching the Celtics and we’d have to force ourselves to cut the night short because we wanted to be sure they got their proper sleep. Then on the flip side, there were the mornings of dragging Molly out of bed and having to hustle her along to eat breakfast and get ready. I’m looking forward to 10 weeks of extended playtime at night and stress-free early mornings.
The second reason is plain and simple: I loved the summers of my youth. I have fond memories of waking up late and grabbing the newspaper to devour every box score and game story I could find. Then I’d head out to the back yard to toss the ball up in the air and catch it, or imagine those game situations where I’d come through in the clutch. Afternoons and evenings were filled with bike rides, pool time, and summer food like watermelon and corn on the cob. Sports were popular as well since I’d play driveway hoops and summer league baseball. The best nights were those where I could poke around the tube and find a random doubleheader or late game from the west coast. The sights and sounds of those summers in northern Vermont are some of my most vivid memories.
This all leads to my belief that it’s our parental duty to make our kids’ summers memorable. There is no secret recipe for doing this, and in fact it’s mostly a state of mind. In order to get the ideas flowing I’ve decided to jot down some of the things I plan to do in order to show my girls what summer is all about. So without further ado (and in no particular order), I present:
The Summertime Bucket List
- Go see a baseball game under the lights. It doesn’t matter what level it is, anything from MLB to a local American Legion game should do the trick.
- Run around catching fireflies in the yard (bonus points for going barefoot). Store them in a glass jar with holes in the cover. Make them an unconventional night-lite for the evening.
- Go night swimming. (Molly thinks I’m kidding about our pool having a light in it. I plan to prove this to her this summer!)
- Go out for ice cream. Go a lot. You need to average at least 2 ice cream trips per week in order to cross this one off the list.
- Have a picnic in your yard or a park. Picnics are greatly underrated, especially when it comes to young kids.
- Take the family to a beach. The ocean or a lake, it doesn’t matter. Be sure to pack peanut butter sandwiches so you can test my theory that the beach makes any food taste 50 times better than it normally would.
- Sit outside some warm night and listen to a baseball game on the radio.
- Roast marshmallows over an open fire.
- Camp outside in a tent at least one night, even if it’s in your backyard. Granted the kids might not last out there the whole night, but the excitement leading up to it will be memorable.
- Take your kids to a drive-in movie if you’re fortunate enough to have one nearby. Be sure to pop the popcorn ahead of time and store it in a paper bag for maximum effect.
I could keep going, but I’d like to request some help from the reading audience. What’s on your Summertime Bucket List? Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments.
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Chad…this is excellent. I'm totally stealing that bucket list and may add some to mine, including teach them how to body surf, grill hot dogs, grab me a beer out of the cooler (kidding, but really not), go camping and have a lengthy water gun fight.
4 and 7 I can already check off. 1 is on the schedule when the Portland Sea Dogs visit Richmond in early August. Camping is also on the schedule, although we haven't locked down the exact weekend of the annual father – son hiking weekend. I'd kill for a drive-in movie, but the nearest one is a two hour drive.
Have a water baloon fight
Run under the sprinkler
Catch frogs in a pond
ride bikes in the rain
Lobster rolls on the beach
Frozen Custard trip an hour away just because it's that's good
4th of July Bike Parade
go blueberry picking or rasberry picking or peach picking. Go kite flying. Let the kids plan the menu for an entire day or weekend's worth of meals and then shop for ingredients and cook together. I could go on and on, too. Thanks for the list, Chad. And it was fantastic seeing you last weekend!