This morning I am grateful for the slight delay on summer we get. While I am looking forward to taking the kids to Busch Gardens and the zoo, and all the other places we love to go as a family. I am not looking forward to losing the time and freedom I enjoyed while they were in school. This promises to be a busy couple of months, and I am not looking forward to the sacrifices I am going to have to make.
Children are worth sacrificing for. Don’t get me wrong. I love my family and would do anything for them. They just happen to be a pain to deal with at times. Take, for instance, Roland, the last few days. He has been getting at everybody because he hasn’t felt well. It is likely the result of low-pressure systems that have moved through the area, causing him mild discomfort, but he has taken it out on everyone in the family, especially his sister.
It is frustrating, and I am not looking forward to the next two months of it. Today, though, we get to drop them off at their first vacation bible school of the summer. What are they going to learn? I don’t know. It is a United Methodist Church, so they can be trusted to not brainwash my children. You can’t be too careful with churches these days. You send your kids to learn empathy and kindness, and not all Christian churches are about that these days.
We sent our kids to this vacation bible school last summer, and they had a lot of fun. We ended up rescheduling our annual June trip to a month later to make this bible school more palatable for us. Last year, we sat in the auditorium waiting for it to end so we could get on the road to Gettysburg, and they let out so late we ran into rush hour traffic from Richmond to Fredrick.
Putting a delay on summer activities has been a bit of a downer. I wanted to go to Kings Dominion sometime around Father’s Day. Between the last week of school, last week, and vacation bible school, this week, that is delayed as well, and I don’t know when it will happen, as we also have to get the kids to the Richmond Science Museum to see their dinosaur exhibit.
Lots of things are happening, and all of it is fun, but it’s going to be a balancing act, because I now have two businesses to manage and two households to keep straight, all while still trying to be a good parent and have fun with my children. Perhaps the first order of business next week should be to go sit on the beach for a couple of hours and read a book.
David Huzzard Writes 