We are all having that summer. The one that marked the summer between the before and the afters. We’re just all having it in different ways. For one pool / PTO friend, it’s her Hot Dog Summer — the one where all her children can swim safely without her constant hands-on supervision. She can be poolside watching them, but not in the pool *with* them. We call it the "hot dog summer" after the year my brother was almost 4 in the summer of '82, and my mom could hand him a hot dog at the 4th of July Pool Party and he could wander off on his merry way with the other kids, and she could go back to her own conversation about the season finale of Falcon Crest. For another, it’s her Last Kid Summer —
Summer survival, I’m learning, is all about lowering expectations. Here’s a quick guide on how to do that: Step One: Adopt these three simple mantras. 1. I can’t care about everything. 2. Done is better than perfect. 3. That’s not MP (my problem), that’s YP (your problem). Step Two: Apply one mantra to every.single.situation that presents itself. That’s it. Nutella for lunch again? $22 in video downloads? 6 kids for lunch and only 4 hot dog buns? I can’t care about everything. Laundry clean but not folded? Towels *almost* dry for swim team? Health form filled in literally as you’re walking in to camp? Done is better than perfect. Can’t find your goggles? Your sunglasses? Your lax stick? Your
Whoa. As parents, we make hard choices every.single.day. It’s the job, it’s what we signed up for. We name them at birth, we choose a pediatrician and a childcare setting and decide on religious influence and we choose their clothing and whether they ever get fast food and before long the choices we make for them seem so routine that we don’t even realize we are making them. These days, the choices seem harder. Masks, and where and when and how (OMG over the nose too is how, that’s not a choice, c’mon people). Restaurants? Beach vacation? Decisions we made without a second thought in the past are now weighing heavily on us all. And we are just getting started. Next up, the biggest one of all
… at how lucky we are to be alive right now. Truly, we are lucky. Because half a million people around the world have died from COVID, and the end is nowhere in sight. Because most of us reading this and definitely the person writing this lives in a house with air conditioning and Disney+, more devices than people, and a second fridge in the garage (it sometimes freezes things if you put them in the wrong spot) with plenty of food and, more importantly, wine. Because Delaware is letting us all vote by mail this election season, which means there should be no barriers to making our voices heard. Because this week we celebrated yet another year of our uniquely American Independence, warts and
