We forgot about this when we were wishing for summer

We’re almost a week into summer vacation now and I’m already bent over and gasping for breath. This sucker is the marathon of school vacations and I’m going to have to start pacing myself. I seem to have forgotten exactly how this works and maybe you have too.

1. The kids are home all the time! Unless they’re in camp in which case summer vacation becomes the single biggest financial drain of your year. Hurray! No, but seriously. There’s a two-year-old clinging to my back as I type this, a five-year-old whining about popcicles and an eight-year-old who seems to be in some sort of mind meld-like trance with a video game. In order to get them out of here, I have to go with them.

 Image credit: Getty Images.

2. They eat constantly. It’s a constant stream of breakfast, snacks, more snacks, lunch, lunch dessert (wtf?!), triple the snacks, dinner, treats, more snacks, late-night treats. I don’t even get cleaned up after one meal before they’re back and mooching for more. We’re going through groceries like it’s the last time they’ll get to eat for the rest of the summer (to which I say, don’t tempt me) and that’s great because there’s nothing more fun than shopping with three children. I’m sure my fellow shoppers agree.

 Image credit: Getty Images

3.  Sunscreen, hats, bathing suits, towels, water bottles and sandals will give hats, mitts and boots a run for their money any day.  How do we always forget about this? We must suppress all memory of the endless scramble for sunhats and the toddler’s other flip flop and spending a small fortune on natural sunscreen that barely even works because otherwise they’ll break out in rashes. There’s wet towels and swim suits draped all over the place and we seem to have brought half the beach home and deposited it on the kitchen floor yesterday. What was so bad about winter again?

 Image source: Getty Images

4. The sun is a burning ball of doom. Okay, so many of you like sun and heat. In fact, you can’t seem to get through the winter without flying to parts of the world just to bask in their sun. I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to those of you who don’t enjoy sweating in crevices of your body you didn’t even know existed. There are other people who manage to score their first sunburn in April and then proceed to burn over and over without ever actually tanning, right? And the sluggishness! I mean, even when I’m not fully bent over and retching from heat stroke (which happens every year), I have a nagging headache and become utterly incapacitated. An afternoon in the sun? Honestly, I might as well just chug a bottle of Jack Daniels and lie down on the bathroom floor for all that I’ll be able to accomplish after that.

5. Bugs! Those little suckers do their utmost to ruin every attempt at summer fun. Camping? Cottage? Evening walks along the shore? Sitting outside after dark with a cold drink and good company? They will find you and they will make you pay. I’m currently suffering from an inch-long bite with a strange scabby middle bit that’s so sore and itchy I’ve nearly forgotten about the dozen other bites that are scattered across my body like so many pus-filled freckles. And we haven’t even gone anywhere yet!

I write this with a tip of the hat to lazy mornings, sand castles, ice cream cones and family adventures. Those things will see us through.