Hearts at Home

If you experience a trip to the swimming pool, the park, or the neighborhood playground as just another exercise in precision planning, you may be trying to do too much.  

And if you think the best thing Detroit could design is a van with a built-in microwave so your family doesn't have to eat so much fast food, you may be trying to do too much.

If you find yourself frazzled, frantic, one of the many moms trying to do too much, you may be wondering whatever happened to those lazy, hazy days of summer.  For that matter, whatever happened to rest, relaxation, and spontaneous fun?

There is nothing wrong with learning opportunities or precise planning.  It's just that a non-stop routine of such things gets wearisome.  Is there anything as sad as the end of a vacation that wasn't a vacation from anything?

As moms, we need a break from our work and our regular routines.  We need to be refreshed and renewed.  We need to laugh and play just as much as our children do.

Maybe more.

But play is one thing we sometimes sacrifice to maturity.

Give yourself permission to enjoy the simple pleasures of summer.  Don't feel obligated to use every minute of free time to improve yourself, your children, or your home.  Don't feel compelled to enroll your children in non-stop classes, lessons, or events, or to spend each and every day as a learning opportunity.

Instead, slow down.  Allow serendipity and spontaneity to set your schedule, at least some of the time.  And try these ideas for every-day summer rest and relaxation for yourself and your family:

• Eat breakfast in the back yard or on the porch.
• Encourage your kids to play outside, at least in the morning before it gets too hot.  They need the exercise.  You need the peace and quiet, as well as the chance to get necessary household chores done early in the day.
• Don't even turn on the radio, the television, the computer.  Open the windows of your house, and listen to the sounds of summer.
• Just sit down.  Don't do anything for at least 15 minutes.
• Savor a good book and a glass of lemonade on the porch, while the kids nap or have quiet time in their bedrooms after lunch.
• Promise yourself a car-free day.  Don't go anywhere you cannot get to by walking.
• Surprise your kids with water balloons.  Play water balloon tag with them.
• Give the dog a bath.  Or let the kids give the dog a bath while you stand by with a camera.
• Tell silly jokes.  Laugh at them.  Teach your kids how to speak pig-Latin.  Smile more.
• Invite a friend over just to visit.  Serve tea.  Or popsicles.
• Enjoy a long afternoon of Monopoly with your kids.  Teach them to play something new, like canasta.  Be sure to have a good supply of popcorn and ice cream on hand, and don't plan a big dinner.
• If you have a garden, walk in it.  Barefoot.
• Read together.  Choose something the whole family will enjoy.  If it's a long book, read just one chapter a night until you finish the book.
• Jump rope.  Play jacks.  Draw a hopscotch court on the front walk.  Blow bubbles.  Let your kids or your husband play with you.
• Create a chalk mural on the front walk.  Let it stay there until the next time it rains.
• Wash the car.  Splash as much water on the kids as you do on the car.
• Have an all vegetable supper:  corn on the cob, fresh tomatoes, and steamed green beans with a little dill, with watermelon for dessert.
• Pick at least one outside game you can play with your kids:  badminton, croquet, softball.  Play in the back yard.  Invite the neighbors over to play with you.
• Have dessert outside after dinner.  Watch the sun go down.  Make small talk with family and friends you invite over just to relax.
• Open the windows after a summer shower.  Listen to the thunder fading into the distance.  Enjoy the fresh smell of your yard after the rain.
• Catch fireflies in a jar.  Let them go, and watch them fly away.
• Take a blanket outside.  Lay in the grass and watch the stars come out, with or without the kids.

This summer, don't waste time trying to do too much.  Enjoy the gift of long hours with nothing to do.  Use your imaginations and creativity to fill up those hours.  Teach your children, by your own example, the importance of rest, relaxation, and renewal.

And don't forget to have some fun while you're at it.

Holly Schurter is wife to John and mom of eight, grandma of nine, and a volunteer with Hearts at Home on the publications team as well as the radio team. She works as a free-lance writer, and in her spare time likes to read, bake, and play in the garden.

"A Mother's Play Is Never Done"  was originally published on June 30, 2001 in The Pantagraph.