Last week of summer schedule

It's our final week of summer camp. Bobby starts kindergarten next Tuesday. By "starts" I mean goes there for two hours with me present, then the real schedule starts on Wednesday. I also found out that camp ends for Theo but then his morning preschool (that he's not even signed up for yet) doesn't start until the following week. So it's going to be a tricky week all around. No care for anyone next Monday so I am going to take us to the beach as a celebratory "last hurrah", and then just two hours Tuesday with me there, too, so basically with the weekend I have four days of full child care in a row, right when I need to be working the most. Ugh.

I so wish I could expend more mental energy on this huge, emotional transition to kindergarten. I don't feel like I'm giving this moment the weight it deserves. But I'm doing the best I can. I'll be there for him, I promised I'd whip up a lemon meringue pie for him that day, and buy him a new backpack. This is where I suddenly become a working mother. I just can't get a good balance right now. Work has to take precedence. It just does - if we want to keep this roof over our heads. 

A woman in my neighborhood moms Facebook group posted last week that she had toured our summer camp and was horrified by what she saw and "so sad for the kids there" (which included my two kids). Several of us, alarmed, asked for details, which she gave, and which made me go "meh". Let's put it this way - there are two kinds of mothers. There are the protective mothers who think hands-off mothers are horrible, neglectful abusers; then there's hands-off mothers who think the protective mothers are hovering, smothering enablers. I fall mostly into the hands-off category (surprise, surprise); if my kids aren't being actively engaged and included in things, hugged and kissed by minimum wage earning caretakers who have other shit to do, and occasionally barked at for not listening...ummm...I'm kind of ok with that. If my kids were sad or not wanting to go there, I would absolutely listen to them and remove them. But they both say they like it, are sad it's ending, and want to go back next summer. So I really think it's ok. It's not for every style of parent, and that's ok, too. But boy did everyone get all up and defensive in that thread! Hoo boy! I declined to comment. Opinions are very polarized about this place - I can only go with how my kids are doing there. And they are happy. So I'm happy.

Yesterday we had a family beach trip to Malibu. Mostly it was a giant pain in the ass. However, like most pain in the ass outings with small children, everyone had a good time overall and came home exhausted and happy. In a rare moment when the Pacific wasn't freezing cold, I had a lovely swim, thanks to having another adult there to watch the kids. That one swim was enough to make me feel like no matter how stressful this summer has been and will continue to be, it at least has had its moments.