Warning: Keeping it real in this post!
Summer after summer, I found myself pulling my hair out trying to keep my kids entertained and – let’s be honest – refereeing the daily fighting and bickering. Yes, summer usually kicks off on a fun note. Everyone is excited to be out of school and living a relaxed lifestyle / schedule. But around here, that chill vibe only lasts the first couple days. By the end of August last summer, I vowed we would never again have a summer so relaxed there was too much room for fighting (and mom yelling at them to stop fighting). And most importantly – a summer that was fun for everyone!
Not sure about you but my kids are the type who beg to do a camp, but when camp day arrives – all I hear is complaints they don’t want to go. Yet I already paid – and camps aren’t cheap. So I’m pulling them out of the house in tears…and at the end of the day I’m in tears feeling badly about making them do something or having yelled at them. Kids definitely need the downtime, I agree. But my kids are too active to not be involved in something. Otherwise, they scale the walls – literally. And end up fighting….and I end up doing more time-outs than I’m comfortable with.
Last summer I was blindsided by the fact so many people wanted to hire me for projects. In summer’s past, business had been quiet. But during summer 2016 I traveled to LA for a big project and handled several moves – packing and unpacking. I had to find a last minute babysitter too and that didn’t work out very well. Because I had to find someone quickly, she wasn’t a good fit for the kids – they were miserable and I heard it. I felt awful about it all and vowed to have a much better summer in 2017. (By the way, I also started my summer sitter search early and found an awesome sitter!)
Keeping in mind that promise I made to myself, in March I started hunting down ALL the camps, activities and fun summer events going on in our area. Around here camps fill up quickly so that was another reason I wanted to jump on it. With my long list of ideas in hand, I ran a few by the kids for their choices / approval. Some they had a choice, some they didn’t – like the mandatory tutoring my 12 year old needs this summer (he has 2 books to read this summer and will need to write a report for each). But before I knew it we had a calendar full of activities and camps…with wiggle room for playdates, weekend / day trips and time to relax by the pool.
But the next issue was getting it all organized and on paper. To do this, I tweaked my weekly school planner to create a summer activity calendar…
I am so in love with this simple calendar. There’s plenty of room in the grid for each of the kids and love that it’s organized week by week. An entire month-long calendar would be too much to focus on at one glance. This helps the kids as well to know what they are doing one week at a time.
These are my favorite colored pens…
They are from Erin Condren and have a fine point on one end, a medium point on the other…
Yesterday, I wrote out each and every week of the summer – all 11 weeks! Can’t begin to explain how relieved I felt to look at each week knowing everything was accounted for. And as additional activities or dates pop up, I can easily add them to the calendar. For example, I’m waiting on my son’s tutor to e-mail the entire summer schedule. He will see her 2x per week. Once I have those dates, I’ll plug em in…
This schedule is going to be a huge help for my sitter as well. Week to week I can send her a photo of the calendar and we’ll work out a schedule when I could use her help…
What I feel beyond excited about is that everything they are doing is something they chose, is active and they are trying new activities – like golf and tennis. They’ve never tried those sports and I’ve always encouraged them to try something new. You never know, there may be a Tiger Woods or Serena Williams in my midst. #earlyretirementformom And most importantly, there is still plenty of down time. You can see a few camps are out even before lunch time. They’ll have the entire afternoon to swim, see friends, relax, go to the movies or read.
In addition to this calendar, I asked them each to write a summer bucket list. Nothing too crazy. Little things like going for frozen yogurt, walking in the city one day, going to a sporting event, meeting friends at the trampoline park, etc. We can plug those in as time permits…and as rewards for good behavior.
Even if your summer has already begun (ours won’t begin until this coming Friday), it’s not too late to get your calendar organized. So, I’m sharing this printable with you for free! Grab your own right here…
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Happy summer organizing, everyone!
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