Stop trying so hard, Mom

It hit me over the weekend: TWO WEEKS left until the start of the school year. TWO WEEKS until I put my babies (all three of them) on a bus. Don't get me wrong, there are some definite perks to that. But OH.MY.HEART I am going to miss them.

So I put together a list of the things I still want to do (or want to do again) with them before the end of the summer. I wanted to capture every memory I could, plan as many fun things as I could. The List is longer than the 14 days into which it needed to fit, but at least it gave us options. And here is how it has gone so far:
Day 1 - Finish school shopping

Day 2 - Go to the park (Scratch that, since my kiddos couldn't keep their ever-loving minds for 20 minutes in the grocery store) Play at home, do crafts, and be outside

Day 3 - Go to the zoo with our BFFs

Day 4 - Me: "What do you guys want to do today? Go to the park? Have friends over? Go swimming?"
Lamb and Monkey: "Mommy, we went to the zoo yesterday. Can't we just stay home and play?"
Absolutely. Good reminder, kids. Not only did we stay home all day, we never even set foot outside. I'm glad we could just relax and hang out, but I was feeling the pressure of The List staring at me from the refrigerator.

Day 5 (today) - Me: "OK, so what are we going to do TODAY? How about the park, since we didn't get to do that on Tuesday?"
Lamb and Monkey: "Oh, Mommy, you are the best mommy EVER! What would we do without you? Of COURSE we want to go to the park! We have been DYING to go to the park! Thank you for knowing exactly what we want before we even say it!" Nope, that's not what happened. This is...
"PLEASE can't we just stay home, Mommy? We really just want to play at home and make something with the Easy-Bake Oven. We can go do something fun tomorrow if you really want to."

So you know what? I'm throwing The List away. (It had a pretty creepy stare anyway.) I don't need to fill every last minute of our summer with "fun." I need to let them HAVE FUN. And from the sounds I hear behind me, they are doing that just fine, piled on our couch.

(But we are definitely going outside today. Or at least I am. Mama needs some sunshine.)