Skip to main content

A Santa Barbara Summer

Since lazy and carefree aren't working out according to my pie-in-the-sky summer fantasy, and since I can't find any month long sleep away camps willing to take a 3-year-old, the kids and I sat down to brainstorm some old-fashioned summer fun to keep our minds and bodies occupied this summer.

Video games and texting did not make the list. What did make the list are the simple pleasures of summers past; imaginative activities that don't require special equipment or a lot of money. They will require the kids to change the default position from lounge lizards on the couch, and will also require, for the most part, that they wear more than underpants. Which may mean that, without physical intervention, the following list may be politely ignored. And also that I may be setting myself up for a month of nudging and nagging. Or it just may mean that I get my summer of bonding after all.

Wish me luck.

SANTA BARBARA SUMMER EXPERIMENT 2012
  • Hike Cold Springs Trail
  • Go camping at Ocean Mesa
  • See a movie at the drive-in
  • Host a lemonade stand
  • Go to the zoo
  • Go to Lake Casitas water park
  • Get Blenders in the Grass
  • Have friends over for a sleepover
  • Attend an outdoor movie party
  • See a Forester baseball game
  • Have a water balloon fight
  • Eat snow cones
  • Go roller skating
  • Play in the sprinklers
  • Decorate our bikes and have a parade
  • Build a fort
  • Eat watermelon for dinner
  • Go swimming at night
  • Go miniature golfing
  • Make homemade ice cream
  • Host an Uno tournament
  • Make homemade play dough
  • Make root beer floats
  • Go to the Warner Sea Center
  • Make and complete a timed obstacle course
  • Write letters
  • Blow bubbles
  • Perform a puppet show
  • Go geocaching
  • Paint rock animals

Comments

Anne said…
Yay!! I want to come along for all those things. Luck is wished your way - especially for the bonding. Love you!

Popular posts from this blog

Lucie and the Problem of Evil

Lucie has suddenly started questioning things. And by things, I mean eternal things. It all started when she asked if I would read her a bedtime story from the Bible storybook. The book opens innocently enough with the story of creation. There are lions and tigers and bears, and naked people being created from dust. (At this point in the story you’d think questions would arise, but no, kids just seem to go along with it at face value. Which is exactly the reason I've had to work so hard to convince Lucie that turtleneck shirts are not actually made from the necks of turtles.) Anyways ... "Do you know why Adam and Eve are sad?" I asked, pointing at the picture of them sorrowfully leaving the garden. "I sure do, " Lucie assured me. "They are sad because they don't have any parents."  Impressive, huh? Clearly, she’d been processing and following along. "Well there is that," I prodded her, "and also they have to leave the

Motherhood - Not for the faint of heart

My picture of hell: one soggy rainy day, two healthy energetic children, three solid days of DVDs, one dog that needs to pee but refuses to get wet, and me. Alone with the carnage and contracted to get 4 hours of work done. And just to frost the cake, Lucie can take off her pooy diaper now, which delights us all, but especially the dog, to no end. These days it is sort of a toss up for who has left the pile on the carpet. Lucie? Dog? The fact that it landed on top of a princess high heel is good indication the culprit was of the two-legged, shoe-loving, Oreo-eating variety, which makes it only slightly less disgusting to remove behind a 28-ply Kleenex. Pray for sunshine.

Say This!

Picture by Grayson (our 9 year-old) Last week we reached another one of those parenting milestones. At 27+ months of age, Violet said her first real words: "Mama! Me go!"  Three little words so beautiful, so stunning and unexpected, they stopped me in my tracks. Even the other kids dropped their activities and ran out to verify that, yes, Violet had spoken. We hugged and touch-down-danced and, of course, Violet got to "go." When you have a child who is the tiniest bit developmentally delayed, small accomplishments are met with big celebration. Lucie insists on accompanying me on simple errands? I need to figure out a way to sneak out the door more efficiently; Violet suddenly says that she wants to go? Hot dog! Get the video camera and your shoes on kiddo! Therapists have been coming to the house since the first week of January, evaluating Violet's delays. At her last check in, she had about 15 simple words in her vocabulary -- about 100 words u