Pajamas all Day!

I love summer.

I love it even more after 7 years of homeschooling my kids. It's a time of freedom. Of relaxation. Of staying in pajamas all day.

Waking up and thinking, "I don't HAVE to do anything today" is delicious. Laying in bed for an extra half hour because I can spare the time is luxurious. Drinking my Peets at leisure while checking email and blogs....mmmmmm....

To be honest, it is the absence of the normal "school" things that makes summer so nice. Yes, warm weather is great. But we live on the Northern CA coast, so we don't get too much of that. Long days are super too - more time to go for walks at night after the littlest one is in bed.

But it is the lack of urgency and pressure that I often feel during "school" that I enjoy. Some homeschool moms may be laid-back. And I am more now than I was in the beginning. But the sad truth is that I need to coax, urge, encourage, push and threaten (just kidding!) my kids from 9am to 2pm most weekdays.

I exaggerate of course. Reading together snuggled on the couch is lovely. But we still do that during summer. It's the other stuff that I dislike:

"OK, do your math!"
"Have you finished your Spanish?"
"You've got to practice violin before you go play."

Then there is the mental, emotional and psychic energy it takes to "inspire" my kids to think outside the box, stretch beyond their limits, try something new or just plain work hard. I can't always push learning on them, I have to lead them to it so they can learn it themselves. And that is MUCH harder than handing out a worksheet. Believe me.

So, summertime is major vacation-time for me. Every summer I read one Dicken's novel. To me, Dickens is like literary icec ream. I've just started Bleakhouse; hoping the book is more fun than the title. The first few chapters were a bit more dense and roundabout than his other novels...so we'll see. But it is lovely to have a date with him at some point every day.

Summertime is also a time for games. My kids and I have re-discovered Scrabble. Though we bicker and argue about what is acceptable, we laugh a lot and generally have fun. Does anyone know if abbreviations that have made it into the language as commonly used words are acceptable? Biz? Pro? Ex? Those z's and x's matter!

I've actually spent only one day in my pajamas. It was pretty nice though.