Awkward Mom vs. Summer Fever

Hi, Parents! It's nearly August and time to take your summer temperature. Your risk of fever, of course, depends on many factors, not the least of which is your summer-parent affiliation. Someone nudge the pool parents; they aren't listening. Looks like they are plugged into their audio-books and might be napping under those Jackie O. sunglasses, I can't quite tell. The super organized parents have had new planners since July 5th, are crafting a brand new French Bulletin Board for their Kitchen Command Center, and, naturally, can NOT wait for school to start. The working parents are sick of paying for camp, thank you very much. The homeschoolers took a 2 week break in late June to visit the National Parks, refreshed the schoolroom the first week of Target's back to school sale, got right into the new curriculum, and would like us to keep it down, please. The no-screen parents are running out of ideas. The all-screen parents haven't actually seen their 12-year-old leave the basement in 6 days and are wondering when and if he is going to the bathroom. They have also taken to humming the Fortnite music around the office and coworkers are concerned. Someone pass the Disney parents some granola bars, they look exhausted and this is gonna take awhile.

Summer Fever happens every August; we all start to panic or rejoice that the summer is coming to an end. In August. The most summer of the summer months. Even the word August sounds like the sigh of a Southern gentleman as he sits under a weeping willow, slowly fanning himself and sipping a sweating glass of lemonade. And yet, we hear it and start freaking out about school shoes and fall leaves and pumpkins and backpacks and plaid skirted nostalgia. Old Man Calendar shakes his fist and yells at us that we have tons of time, summer doesn't actually end until September 22, why aren't we listening to him and why won't we get off his lawn?! We could blame the change of farming culture, a more robust education budget (compared to the 1800s, mind you), more fall/spring breaks, and Target. I love you, Target, but that back to school sale started the second you put those fourth of July flags away, and, holy cats, is that Halloween stuff I spy over there?! Target, take a nap already!

Summer Fevers are fevers; they make you sweaty, tired, dizzy, and pretty crazy. They will convince you that you are totally failing your children by not having enjoyed the stuffing out of every precious day of summer so far and by not infusing every remaining day of summer with memory-making, bucket list experiences, and circus-level excitement. And you will feel this way whether you yourself like summer or not; the fall-lovers will just feel more guilt about the proceedings. And this will go on until the first day of school, when you will trade your Summer Fever for Back-to-School Flu, where everyone obsessively compares first day photos until someone throws up. Which, in turn, gives way to Football Fatigue, Homework Shock, Halloween Haze, and Christmas Paralysis. On and on and on until you set up a chair next to Old Man Calendar and yell at your grandchildren to slow down and get off the lawn for Pete's sake!

Or you could join the resistance...

This is the Resistance.

Of course, we have dinosaurs. 

First of all, resist the urge to compare your summer to anyone else's summer. No one else knows the inner workings of your life, bank account, patience, or sand tolerance. Facebook thinks it does, but that's just your political preference and Amazon search history. I know it's tempting, but don't confuse those things with your soul. Your summer is not going to look like the summer of the woman with the gorgeous hair that you went to middle school with. And here's a secret I have to tell you; her summer doesn't really look like her summer either, I don't care what Instagram told you. Comparison and selective framing is a way of life in our social media existence, but that doesn't make it healthy or sane. Please stop comparing your summers and thinking anyone's opinion matters. The only summer opinions that matter are yours. And your children's. And speaking of that....

Second of all, resist the urge to create magical summer experiences for your children. They are going to hate them anyway and tell you the best moment of the summer was when those two neighbor dogs got into a fight on the lawn and you had to break it up by turning on the hose. Children are children; they have the attention span of gnats. They will have the worst day of their lives because you gave them 4 chicken nuggets instead of 5. 10 minutes later, they will be elated because the Disney channel is showing the Little Mermaid. 5 minutes after that they will upend the table you set that Pinterest craft on, that took you 3 hours to prep, and declare they are building a fort, which they will abandon 14 minutes later to stare out the window for awhile. This is why we take 800 pictures when we do anything with our children that cost us energy and money because we know our children are not going to remember it. But that time your dropped a watermelon in the Whole Foods produce section and also dropped the F bomb? Yeah, they are never gonna forget that. Look for that one to come up at Thanksgiving 2037.

Third of all, resist the urge the think that children experience time the same way adults do. They don't. Time doesn't move quickly until you can actually tell time. This is way toddlers hate naps; 10 minutes or 10 years, it's all the same to them. Some seriously heady existential Rip-Van-Winkle stuff going on up in here. Think about your own memories, your own childhood. Which lasted longer; ages 10-20 or ages 20-30? I bet you lived about 18 lifetimes between 10-20, and 20-30 passed one weekend during a particularly intense Burning Man. Childhood feels endless, and that is why stuffing it with every possible activity, outing, and freezie-pop is just ridiculous. (Testing is not complete regarding freezie-pop possibilities; check back with us around September 22.) Children don't feel summer slipping away or escaping; they are busy on 14 different adventures you will never know about until they need some tape. Now, you. Well, you feel like summer is rushing by because it is. It really is.

My dear Friend, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you are an adult. We're adults, everything is rushing. We can tell time now, and, unfortunately, time takes this familiarity as an excuse to speed up. Time's like a professor that knows you understand the material and decides to push through at double speed. This sucks, no real way around that. However, being an adult does have its perks. I vividly remember the summer I was 12; it just would not end and life would just not start and being an adult and able to drive and escape and control my destiny would just be the best thing ever. Guess what? You are an adult; you get to decide what the best thing ever is. In case you are napping by the pool or finishing up that French Bulletin Board, I've taken the liberty of making a summer best thing ever list for you.

Best things about summer because you are now an adult

You can love summer, every second of it, all the way to September 22, and sit poolside until you need a sweater over your bikini. If you want to sun some more and skip back-to-school night, I'll pick up your packet for you, just let me know.

You can hate summer and long dreamily for pumpkin spice lattes and flannel tights with plaid skirts and hipster scarves and the apple-scented chill in the air. Put an autumn candle directly in front of your air conditioner and close your eyes. We'll wake you up for dinner.

You can give your children screens. That 11 hour Minecraft session is gonna let you finish 2 books. Personal experience.

Don't give your children any screens. Sneak in some screen time yourself and print out some fabulous summer ideas. Your chalk art and train track building skills are gonna be expert level by mid-July.

Limit screen time; for them, for you, for the dog, whatever works. Your phone has a timer feature, use it.

Say you limit screen time and then totally forget the TV is a screen. Yes, Netflix, I am still watching. Gee, judge much?

Take an expensive vacation. You only live once.

Don't take an expensive vacation. College isn't going to pay for itself.

Decide a trip to the community pool is an expensive vacation because, let's be honest, why are they charging more than a $1 for chips?!

Homeschool fractions.

Embrace the summer slide.

Decide Octonauts is educational, throw a bag of cherries on the couch, and call it a day.

Make experimental art with your sunglasses and found items.

Sky's the limit. 

There are more, but these cherries aren't gonna eat themselves. It's almost August, and I've got summering to do. Remember, the best cure for Summer Fever is something delicious, a deep breath, your best calm-down voice, and the knowledge that you are doing the very best you can for your children when you are true to yourself and your unique skills. Fall will come, Summer will last, Time is what you make of it. It's going too fast and you have lots of time; it's weird but welcome to the miracle that it parenthood.

Be you. You are doing just fine, I promise.

Now, Summer Brain Freeze has no known cure.

Maybe the homeschoolers have figured it out, 

those guys are tireless! 

Awkward Mom vs. Sports Moms

Children propel parenthood. It's the natural order of things. You think parenthood is one big push of the children out of the nest, but, in fact, the children push you first; back you up, bit by bit, until you have a decent running start and a view of where they are trying to go. This slow backing up is just part of that important parenting lesson that even though this small human looks like you and talks like you and walks like you, he or she is not, in fact, you, but a complete and independent person who just isn't going to fit in your nest someday. Now, your basement nest, I suppose that is a different story and a tale for another time.

No, today, we are talking about autonomy-shoves. And these pushes are usually gradual steady slides that I wouldn't say you are ready for but they don't typically come out of nowhere. Super Oldest pushed me into the world of Dance Moms; I didn't love it, never have figured out those pesky false eyelashes, but I have a theater degree and a love of drama, so it wasn't a far leap. Super 1st Grader pushed me into saying, with alarming regularity, "Oh, don't sit there, Super 1st Grader's invisible spider likes that chair best." But, again, this wasn't too far from my own defiantly imaginative home base, louder perhaps, but familiar.

But, Super Kindergartener. Oh, Super Kindergartener. Well, you see, Super K. is her own fireball, always has been. That child entered the world like a tornado and really hasn't slowed down in 6 years of being here. So, I suppose it stands to reason that her pushing wouldn't be gentle or gradual. No, Super K. decided to shove me off a cliff into the world of Sports Moms, and I'm pretty sure I'm still falling.

You're killing me, Smalls! 

I am not competitive or coordinated. I usually lose at Monopoly because I've given all my money away so we can all keep playing, and even I know that socialist-monopoly is a pretty bizarre winning strategy; much more of a jigsaw puzzle kind of girl. And then, of course, there is my ability to trip on mere air. I mean, my name is Awkward Mom, you do the math. Point is, Sports and I have never been allies. I wouldn't call him a villain, I enjoy his Olympic events and the occasional baseball game hot dog and watching all the hotties in the World Cup, but Sports and I aren't exactly buddies. I've got no major problems with him, but sometimes his followers are hard to take. (Restrains self from launching into a tangent on organized religion)

Sports fan are wild and loud and I wouldn't want to be stuck in an elevator with them, but for the most part they are good natured people who get really excited about penalty arcs or encroachment, no different than your average comic book fan. For comics and sports, the panels and spread are all still there, there's just usually more sunlight involved in the latter. Anywho, like I said, I'm cool with Sports and I'm at peace with most of his followers, so where does the reluctance come in? Well, where it always comes in; looking foolish in front of my peers. And there aren't any peers more intimidating than Sports Moms.

You've met them; these masters of the mini-van, these behemoths of the ball field. Leaders in lululomon and north face vests, who always seem to have an unlimited supply of orange slices and energy. Valkyries who stalk the sidelines, too powerful to sit in the tricked-out camp chairs they set up by the dugout. You've met a Sports Mom. She's always early and somehow her son's hockey stuff is always clean. She knows the schedule and the score without having to ask the coach. She is completely aware of your child's strengths, weaknesses, and season record, and you still aren't quite sure if her daughter is Evelyn or Avery or Eva. Sports Moms are amazing, self-assured, strong, beautiful women who know how to inspire a herd of 8-year-olds, while making reservations for next month's tournament on their phone, and weaving coordinating ribbons into pigtails, while assessing the other team's goalie's covering angles, and keeping an eye on 3 siblings at the nearby park. Basically, they are terrifying.

Especially if your pale self happens to be used to life in the wings, this dazzling display of athletic fireworks can knock you for a loop. And it did. At Super K.'s first softball game, I wanted to run right back to the wings and hide, and I would have, if we were talking about 6-year-old Awkward Mom. But we aren't. We are talking about 6-year-old Super Kindergartener, and her autonomy looks nothing like the cool dark library mine lives in. No, hers lives in the blaring sun of a diamond. Super K. has needs that I don't understand; a need to win, a need to run, a need to chant rude things at the pitcher. I could deny it. I could easily shoehorn her into my dreams for her. I mean, she doesn't look like an athlete, with her tiny frame and little flapper bob and hands still with baby dimples. It would be easy to pass her off as anything else. She's got it all really, she could function in any world. And yet, it's there and it won't be denied. Not really denied. Maybe delayed but never denied. It's there in her eyes. A fierce focus that will not be cooed or rationalized away.

It's always been there.

I don't understand it, but I respect it. Her need to be herself will be respected, I swear it. But Sports Moms? Why did it have to be Sports Moms? I have nothing in common with them, and lord knows what they are going to make of me. I can't do this. I don't want to freeze in April and burn in June. I don't want to fend off bugs and uncharitable thoughts about umpires. I don't want to prep water bottles and clean helmets and have every pair of shoes I own covered in dirt. I don't want to sit here in this comfortable chair in the shade and shout "Hustle!" at sweating 8-year-olds wearing face masks and baseball pants; I'll choke on the hypocrisy. I can't hang with Sports Moms, they are too strong and tall and knowledgeable and confident and tan. I just can't.

But I will. 

For her. 

I'll do it for her. I'll back up for her. I'll back all the way up and tetter on the edge of my nest, windmilling my arms to try not to fall, if that's what it takes to help her grow her autonomy. If that's what I have to do to get her where she is going. If that's what she need to be herself, then OK, let's sports-mom. Let's sports-mom all that way to ribbon ponytails and powerade.

Because that's parenthood, isn't it? Stretching further than you've ever thought possible, sometimes literally, just because your baby asked you to. Propelling forward on nothing but faith and the needs of your child. You can't see the other side, but you know they need to get there, so you go. You say a prayer and you jump off the cliff. Maybe you try to remember the sunscreen but you still go. You swallow your fear and you chat with the impossibly fit woman next to you about batting averages and the cut-off man. Maybe it will never feel totally comfortable and maybe it will never truly be your home, but that's OK; this isn't about you.

It's about her.