*Every post these days has “postpartum depression” in the title. I don’t care. Some people have postpartum depression and don’t feel comfortable sharing about it. Some people think they may not survive another day. Hey you, with the brain meltdown and the life-sucking baby—it’s not okay. But you’re not alone. I have really great days and I have bad days with good moments and I have horrendous days with hard cider and 85% dark chocolate.
*
Summer is an interesting beast. Many things that I loved as a child I hate as an adult. Bath time. Birthday parties. Bubbles.
But summer. It has retained its exhausted, warm-skinned glow. If summer were my neighbor’s wife, I would covet it.
I started thinking about summer back in March, when I realized my amorphous plan of being outside for June, July, and August needed a backbone.
You know K-Pants—he’s intense like Roquefort with royal jelly. Nature is the Allen wrench that fits perfectly into the hexagonal hole of his soul.
People kept asking me what camps we were doing for the summer. “K-Pants doesn’t like camps, and he does really well out in nature, so we’re going on day trips.” As I filled my piggy bank with this sentence, I realized that the no-camps, out-in-nature plan was also for me. Maybe mostly for me.
Nature, adventure, exploration…these are my magic. Camp would destroy it all. Camp would tell us when to wake up and leave the house and when I should wake up the baby from her nap so we could get in the car to get the gremlins from f*cking camp.
NO CAMP.
So when K-Pants uttered the magic words, “I don’t want to go to any camps this summer,” I turned on the disco lamp and danced. All of our summer money would be allocated to nature, and hiring summer nannies to join us. God bless you, summer money.
I was tempted when K-Pants’s friends’ parents asked about a few camps that The Pants might have loved if he could have warmed up part-way through. But no. I want every week for me, and the beach.
And now when I’m home exhausted at the end of the day, I don’t feel like I’m waiting for anything. We’ve been out somewhere with sand and water. I feel like we’re here.
momsicle 
That’s great! Making good and crazy memories!
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Keep on it, it’s hard out there sometimes! Best to keep in the sunshine and keep a smile on your face 🙂
❤
Mommies make the planet go around ❤
When my kids were your they never went to summer camp…endless days spent outside at our public pool just showing up and knowing someone you knew would be there. and then a night with some star gazing and lazy morning wakeups….now my daughter an adult does what she wants my teenage sun is keeping me busy back and forth to drivers ed and then his job …okay now m exhausted and summer is so not what is use to be. So enjoy.
This is Great 🙂 Thank you for sharing (I think my last comment was deleted) But either way was here again this morning, great read
No, your last sunshine-of-a-comment wasn’t deleted, I just hadn’t gotten back over to approve it. I love comments–they are very validating (someone is reading my blog!). But I can be sporadic about turnaround. My apologies. ❤ 🙂
I love this. Good idea. I don’t want to do camps either. I want to do nature!
Yes. Let’s make a bumper sticker: “I want to do nature!”
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I love it. Good for you for doing something that you enjoy. Love the beach and the sand. They are very beneficial for kids 🙂
I’ve never tried summer camps. I love your photos. Great idea! You’re doing an awesome job! We all have bad days. We do our best, that’s why there’s no one else on this planet that could do what we Mom’s do.
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