Some time on Tuesday afternoon, about 3 p.m. I realized that summer is over.
It was several hours after a work meeting about back-to-school events, 30 minutes after the realization that Mallory needed to sign up for high school orientation, and about 10 seconds after I realized that “fall” soccer for Casey starts on Aug. 5.
A mild panic set in. And since my response to panic is to make lists and look at calendars, I have now plotted out all of the kids’ activities, added in all of the school closings, big work events, and all of Michigan’s football games (priorities, people). There are Outlook calendars, Excel spreadsheets and Google calendars.
I even bought an old-school hard copy planner because having this all electronically isn’t enough somehow. Thanks to this nifty planner, I learned that Casey has soccer practice on Root Beer Float Day, and I’m wondering if that’s a valid excuse to skip practice because I hate driving across town in rush-hour traffic to that soccer field almost as much as I hate dark chocolate.
The dreams I had for summer and the summer bucket list that Mallory made are mostly unrealized. Based on Mallory’s list alone, in the next five weeks, we need to go boating (we don’t even own a boat), go to a Knights game, the zoo and Carowinds, have a camp out on the trampoline, go zip lining and have a lemonade stand. And that’s not even half of her list.
My own list also included visiting a few more minor league baseball stadiums, going to the beach, and seeing a drive-in movie. It looks like I’m going to be busy between now and Aug. 26 when school starts.
Unless I just throw in the proverbial beach towel and recognize that it’s futile.
Or maybe I start working on my fall list now. I wonder if Mallory would let me carve pumpkins at her lemonade stand or go on a hayride instead of a day on Lake Norman. Better yet, we can skip the fall list and head right to Christmas. It’s only 159 days until Dec. 25, and those cheesy Netflix Christmas movies aren’t going to watch themselves (“A Christmas Prince: Royal Baby,” I’m looking at you.)