Bubble Baths at Midnight

I often find myself wondering what summer means in our lives these days. As a child, I spent summers watching game shows and family sitcom reruns (I probably saw every Brady Bunch at least three times). I went to the library for story hour and to get books to fill my summer reading list. There were summers with swimming lessons and summers with day camp, and when I was older, summers with summer school (for getting courses out of the way so I could take others). But out of all it, what I remember most fondly are the hours at home with game shows and board games (and game show board games!)
 
These days, the race to fill the summer with scheduled activities starts in January or February. After all, it's a lot of hours to fill, both in terms of boredom avoidance and in terms of child care coverage. And these days, not many people would come out and say watching TV for hours was the "right" way to spend the summer.
 
Yet, through a series of uncertain circumstances, this summer has ended up, for at least one of my kids, not so different from my childhood summers. And while I have worked hard to rev up the days with interesting, and sometimes even educational, activities, there has been a great deal of the unscheduled time I had as a kid, the kind of time that made you mourn its absence on the first day of school (and likely, the kind of time that left you with plenty of energy to restart on the first day of school).
 
So, while there have not really been bubble baths at midnight, there have been the kind of laid back hours and days that might have led to that. Soon enough, there will be homework and early bedtimes for early wake up times, and all those things that remind us why we like summer. For now, I am happy to report that my kids are getting just a little glimpse of what summer used to be. And if I turned out fine, I imagine they will too.