Dumont Summer 2015
What can I say? It's summer. We've been busy. I have tried my very best to be the fun mom for at least month. I've had no updates for the last couple of months because I've been trying to stay away from anything remotely emotionally or mentally difficult. Since that was a real life impossibility, I at least refused to write about it. Some people would call this putting up a front. I choose to call it keeping everything below the surface of my life private. =)
So what have we been up to for the last month and a half ? I'm so glad you asked. We have gone to the pool a lot. So much that the kids don't even get that excited about the pool anymore. They're spoiled. We've gone to the waterpark. We've had friends over. We've kept a friend at our house for nearly 3 weeks while said friend's parents went on an envy-worthy European river cruise. We've had a lot of ice cream in various forms: homemade by me, homemade by other people, milkshakes, ice cream cones, with chocolate chips, from the store (which reminds me that I haven't had any Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake bars in weeks. I need to remedy that). We've had too many desserts in general. The kids played lots of video games. Seriously. An obscene amount of video games and netflix. Most of you would judge me if you knew how much I let them get away with. We also signed up for summer reading programs to balance it out. We went to a few movies. Jurassic World was AMAAAAZING.
How does one follow up weeks of Charleston fun?!? By sending the kids away, of course! Tommy went to his friend's house in Greenville for the week. He probably doesn't want to come home. Charlotte and Matthew went to our other friends' house in Raleigh. I'll stop right here. I know a lot of people don't do the sleepover thing and are probably aghast that we would send our kids to other people's houses. And to that, I say my husband and I had the most fantastic few days alone. ALONE. We did whatever we wanted. We were people, not mom and dad. It was quiet. We didn't even turn on the radio in the car. The silence was glorious. The kids were happy and safe with people that are like our second family. These kids of ours will only be here a short time, but Jon is stuck with me for life so it's a relationship worth investing in. And that's all I'll say about that.
Finally, the only other thing going on is very boring and has generally cramped my style. We've switched to using all cash. No debit cards. It hurts. We've tried this many times before, but I'd still use my debit card for gas because my kids were too small to leave in the car. And it's a hassle (a first world hassle). It ruined me every time. I'd lose track with how much I'd spent on gas and after a couple of weeks it was too easy to pull that magical card out and swipe it for other things too. But now my kids are big. My youngest is 5 and my oldest is almost 13. So I've switched to paying cash at the gas station too. I have a love/hate relationship with this all cash concept. I love that I feel like I have more control over what I'm spending. I wasn't a frivolous spender before in most things, but it's certainly been an eye opening experience. We've had to say no to things that we would not have said no to before. We've totally blown it a few times because we both underestimated how much certain things would cost. Still, it's a good change.
So that's it. It's only July, but our summer of fun is already about to come to an end. This week I will finally let myself think about school starting back. I will start planning, and I'll finish buying the books we need. I will watch hours of dvds on writing and logic. I'll start studying Latin so that I'm ready for the fall. Sigh. It was fun while it lasted.
So what have we been up to for the last month and a half ? I'm so glad you asked. We have gone to the pool a lot. So much that the kids don't even get that excited about the pool anymore. They're spoiled. We've gone to the waterpark. We've had friends over. We've kept a friend at our house for nearly 3 weeks while said friend's parents went on an envy-worthy European river cruise. We've had a lot of ice cream in various forms: homemade by me, homemade by other people, milkshakes, ice cream cones, with chocolate chips, from the store (which reminds me that I haven't had any Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake bars in weeks. I need to remedy that). We've had too many desserts in general. The kids played lots of video games. Seriously. An obscene amount of video games and netflix. Most of you would judge me if you knew how much I let them get away with. We also signed up for summer reading programs to balance it out. We went to a few movies. Jurassic World was AMAAAAZING.
How does one follow up weeks of Charleston fun?!? By sending the kids away, of course! Tommy went to his friend's house in Greenville for the week. He probably doesn't want to come home. Charlotte and Matthew went to our other friends' house in Raleigh. I'll stop right here. I know a lot of people don't do the sleepover thing and are probably aghast that we would send our kids to other people's houses. And to that, I say my husband and I had the most fantastic few days alone. ALONE. We did whatever we wanted. We were people, not mom and dad. It was quiet. We didn't even turn on the radio in the car. The silence was glorious. The kids were happy and safe with people that are like our second family. These kids of ours will only be here a short time, but Jon is stuck with me for life so it's a relationship worth investing in. And that's all I'll say about that.
Finally, the only other thing going on is very boring and has generally cramped my style. We've switched to using all cash. No debit cards. It hurts. We've tried this many times before, but I'd still use my debit card for gas because my kids were too small to leave in the car. And it's a hassle (a first world hassle). It ruined me every time. I'd lose track with how much I'd spent on gas and after a couple of weeks it was too easy to pull that magical card out and swipe it for other things too. But now my kids are big. My youngest is 5 and my oldest is almost 13. So I've switched to paying cash at the gas station too. I have a love/hate relationship with this all cash concept. I love that I feel like I have more control over what I'm spending. I wasn't a frivolous spender before in most things, but it's certainly been an eye opening experience. We've had to say no to things that we would not have said no to before. We've totally blown it a few times because we both underestimated how much certain things would cost. Still, it's a good change.
So that's it. It's only July, but our summer of fun is already about to come to an end. This week I will finally let myself think about school starting back. I will start planning, and I'll finish buying the books we need. I will watch hours of dvds on writing and logic. I'll start studying Latin so that I'm ready for the fall. Sigh. It was fun while it lasted.
Comments
Post a Comment