It’s summertime!
My favorite part of year, because I get to have everyone at home all the hours of all the days, fighting over who gets the one red LEGO pieces out of the 14 billions that exist in our house.
I love my boys fiercely. But man are they hard on a house (and a sanity) in the summertime.
Here are 13 pictures to show how much havoc boys can wreak on summertime.
This happened about half an hour after they got out of school. The first place they went was their bedroom, to pull out all their stuffed animals so they could celebrate with them. We’ve been finding stuffed animals all over the house.
You see? This stuffed animal is doing me a favor, though. She’s guarding those writing notebooks, because everyone knows what happens when you leave a notebook with a pen stuck in it within reach of two 4-year-old twins. (No, your notebooks won’t get ruined, don’t worry. Your walls will.)
This is all the junk they brought home from school. I still haven’t had the energy to sort through it all, because every time I try to, I look at the counter to see that someone else had the sorting idea except they were much less competent than I am.
These are all the workbooks they brought home. I mean, I’m really grateful to have something to do with my boys, to make sure they don’t lose all the learning they did this year. The problem is, they seem to always forget how to put things away. So I guess I’ll just have to get used to staring at a pile like this.
Or sitting on something like this. Hey, at least they love workbooks, right?
This was a perfectly organized craft table once upon a time. We set it up, because we believe in free expression, and the boys really, really love doing crafts. But they really, really hate cleaning up crafts, and so do I. Which means this craft table might not last very long.
There’s another rogue stuffed animal, next to the cup with the crazy straw that I just picked off the floor, where the 16-month-old was headed straight for it. Disaster averted. (Ten minutes later, someone knocked over an open gallon of milk, so, honestly, I would have taken the cup over the gallon, but, hey, boys don’t do anything half-heartedly.)
Swimsuits are the staple of summertime. The problem is, they wear them so much I don’t even get to wash them. They put their swimsuits on as soon as they get up, and they don’t take them off until after we’re done at the pool, and then they do it all over again the next day. I asked this boy why his pants were crackling as he walked. He said it’s because he toots too much in them. Which is also probably true.
When they’re not wearing their swimsuits, they’re wearing regular clothes out in the rain, (1) because the only time they wear regular clothes is when it’s raining and (2) because I’m so desperate to get them outside, yes, I let them dance in the rain. It’s been raining a lot here in Texas, and I’ll do anything to save my sanity.
Toys everywhere. I should just get used to this one, but you know what? I never do. Every year I want to throw all of our toys away and just start over from scratch. But look how precious he is, standing with his wooden blocks.
You think stepping on LEGOs is bad? You should try stepping on this guy, which I did a few minutes ago. I think my foot is about to fall off. (And, yes, those are popcorn kernels smashed into the floor. We had popcorn last night and someone was too lazy to vacuum the carpet.)
The biggest problem in the summertime is attention span. This photo was taken exactly five minutes after he asked to play with the LEGOs. I guess he decided reading was more fun.
This is, hands down, my favorite part of summer. Not the LEGOs, the masterpieces. My boys are so incredibly creative, and I just love stumbling upon creations like this from the 9-year-old who wanted to be a robotics creator for half a second before he decided, nah, he’d rather design video games (he’s got a writing notebook filled with set designs already, so it’s too much work to change careers now).
While summertime presents some challenges in the way of a clean house and working from home, it also presents some great opportunities to rest and be a family and marvel in the amazing ingenuity of kids.
I guess I’ll take the latter for today. At least until they start fighting over who gets to sit on the couch for silent reading time, even though there’s room enough for five.
