18 SUMMERS.

Years and years ago, someone once told me, remember, you only get 18 summers with your kids, if that, before they won't want to spend time with you.

It stuck with me.

Therefore I have never sent my children to camp. With the exception of one this summer because I won a fundraiser at their school.

Besides that I always try and tell myself, these three months are mine.

Those kids are mine.

So I ran out to a big box store and got one of those semi above ground pools, a trampoline, hammock and god knows what else so the backyard would be their own country club.

I have to admit.

It was fantastic.

I started off the summer grilling chicken and steaks and veggies.

I went out and got an electric Hawaiian ice shaver for fuck's sake.

In my head I felt like when Clark Griswold was going to Wally World.

We are going to be so happy we will be whistling zippity do da from our assholes.

But let me also be brutally honest.

After the first few weeks, this whole we are all in this together 24-7 happy go lucky vibe started to grow stale.

After hearing Mommy, "watch this", approximately 1.4 million times, my ears have shut down.

My eyes have officially glazed over.

After being asked what there is to eat approximately 2.1 billion times, they may as well be living on the beloved food group parents call, snacks.

I may as well call myself Marie Antoinette, since by the end of the summer I am pretty sure all these kids ate was cake.

But I wouldn't know, because during the course of these past three months, I have gone both deaf AND blind.

Just as teachers go into each September full of hope and promise and wishful thinking, I see the exhaustion on their faces and bodies by June.

The look of hope not entirely dead, but fading.

As I put my children on that bus two days ago, I felt that same June elation that teachers do.

So cheers teachers, here's to a year where may everything go as planned, and also may your doctor have prescribed you enough Zanax to help you make it through when they don't.

And if you hear someone yelling,"freedom" at the top of their lungs, it's just me, sitting in my little above ground pool, sipping on a margarita in your honor.

In the meantime teachers, tag, you're it.

Best wishes and God Speed!

Xoxo,

C.