Summer continues to be manageable around here. I started out using a notebook to write down what we did each day, but then I realized I wouldn’t end up saving that notebook or wanting to look at it again. I ALREADY keep a family journal, in which I write down anecdotes, milestones, and descriptions of the children’s terrible behavior so we can get the story straight when they’re grown and remembering their childhood as unjust; I’m putting our summer days in there instead.
At first I was a little agitated about this because I had a couple of weeks’ worth written in my summer journal and with the new system none of that was in the regular journal and if I copied it in NOW it would be OUT OF ORDER, but if I DIDN’T copy it then there’d be NO RECORD OF MY EXCELLENT EFFORT—and then I just wrote a sentence in my regular journal saying what I was doing, and then I copied things over in a few minutes while the kids were in karate and I was bored anyway. Now I’ll have it the way I want it, and my future self is not going to care about things being a little messy in the journal for a page or two. My future self is going to say, “Oh, good, I’m glad you did that, because this way it’s all HERE for my argument with the Grown Children about whether it’s true we ‘never did anything fun in summer’.”
The summer notebook will still be useful: I’m going to tear out the few pages where I wrote daily activities, and use the rest of the notebook for a continuation of the Things We Might Want To Do This Summer list. I was already planning to save THAT, because that’ll be a good way to accumulate ideas we might otherwise forget about from year to year. Plus, it’ll show the kids how THEIR list corresponded to what we DID DO.
In the meantime, the kids have added several more summer requests of the kind I find fun to grant:
1. They want to try Lucky Charms
2. They want to have Pop-Tarts
Do you mean to tell me your kids have never had Lucky Charms before? Def time to remedy that.
This was my thought exactly! I ate so many sugary cereals as a kid, though, I can imagine not letting that happen with my own kids.
I have good memories of Lucky Charms because they remind me of visiting my grandmother. I only ever had it when I was visiting her house.
Ha! I don’t think I had Lucky Charms or pop tarts until college – or maybe at a friend’s before that. Ours was a Grape Nuts house. I remember being grumpy about this at the time, but I ended up preferring the healthy stuff in the long run, so maybe it was for the best. It will be a fun summer treat though!
Keeping a record, for your defense? Ingenious!
Lucky Charms and Pop Tarts are a part of childhood. They definitely need to experience that…at least once.
I used to love going on sleep overs, because the next morning, I would get to eat my host’s sugary cereal for breakfast. Captain Crunch and Crunch Berries were the best.
I granted a request for Otter Pops before breakfast today, and felt like a Summer Superhero.
my mom refused to ever buy lucky charms, so I never had them until I was in college. My house is never, ever without them now.
About once or twice a year my mom used to get those sample packs of sugary cereals and we’d get to try them all. I still love Smores pop tarts the best! Good summer suggestions. I like how your kids roll.
I’ve still never bought Lucky Charms, though I may have experimented with Pop Tarts in university. But who doesn’t experiment in university, right? Besides, that was a long time ago, when I was young and foolish.
If you and your kids really want the sugar overload, I think Lucky Charms make better Rice Krispie Treat-type treats than any other cereal. And they’re much prettier that way too. Maybe as a surprise St. Patrick’s Day treat next year? :)
I bought Pop Tarts for my kids recently. I guess I only do it in the summer. However a box of 8 pop tarts does not divide equally between 3 children, ending in a big argument. I don’t think I will be buying pop tarts again.
Egads! They’ve never had Lucky Charms?! I still buy Lucky Charms for myself sometimes, I can’t help it.
I love that you are keeping the journal I part it’ll defend yourself against your children’s future selves.
I only ever had sugar cereal in those little boxes that came in variety packs, and only when we were camping. I’ve still never had a pop tart. I like your notebook idea, and I LOVE the “of dubious general interest'” part of your post title. I just wrote a post that was basically part journal entry, party effort to force myself to post something and, now that you mention it, part record to be used in my future defense in the “we did fun stuff in summer argument” also. For Eve – for Angus it’s easy – all he did every goddamned summer was play goddamned baseball, usually quite successfully. :)
Lucky Charms AND Pop-Tarts?!? That’s my husband’s ideal breakfast — your kids would make him so proud!
I’m wondering if you would be willing to do a post about your family journal and how it works – i.e., what types of things you put in it, how often you update it, how long do you spend? I’m feeling terrible that I have so little record of my oldest’s life so far (she’s almost four), but I gave up keeping a journal for myself when I realized it was all FEELINGS and no one but me would care about my FEELINGS years from now, but I didn’t want my FEELINGS ending up in a landfill for the hyper-evolved rats to read, either. On the flip side, my mom keeps a diary of every day that is literally just “we did x, went y, and ate z,” and that just seems tedious and time-consuming. I’m looking for a middle ground, and a “family journal” sounds very intriguing.