I was on the phone with my friend Gretchen when I heard screaming in the background. Her daughter had gotten pushed into a door knob by her feisty brother. Gretchen multi-tasked well, soothing her child without missing a step in our conversation. The second time her daughter came in screaming I heard thumping and dead silence. Gretchen saw her daughter coming and ran out the door escaping into the yard so that we could finish our conversation. We shared stories of having to shut ourselves in the bathroom to enjoy an adult conversation with a friend and agreed that it was time for the kids to go back to school.

The boys change so much from one summer to the next and I am enjoying that my role as a mother is changing. I am able to play with them more and cater to them less. The only caveat is the closer we become the more they begin to take ownership over me. My time becomes less my own and time with Wade gets more and more monopolized. To share intimate moments together is almost impossible. If we do manage to slip away we will often hear little gremlins trying to pick the lock on the bedroom door to steal their mommy back.

As Americans we tend to over indulge our children. After a summer playing Camp Director, I have decided that next summer will be different. I have done my boys a disservice by mapping out their days. Next summer I will encourage them to explore our neighborhood more and find the frogs and other treasures in the surrounding countryside, just as I did with my sister’s when I was their age. No longer will I take the responsibility of entertaining them every day and no longer will I be following them around the house cleaning up after them. I will establish a routine now that will hopefully help them with the transition back to school.

We will resort back to our chore list, which I never should have let go over the summer. The list helps the children to better understand their responsibilities as members of the family.

Good habits are not easy to establish, but without them children can feel lost. According to Dr. Laura Markham, a clinical psychologist, specializing in relationship-based parenting, routines help children feel safe and ready to take on new challenges and developmental tasks.

Dr. Markham says that kids who come from chaotic homes, where belongings are not put away, never learn that life can run more smoothly if things are organized a little.  In homes where there is no set time or space to do homework, kids never learn how to sit themselves down to accomplish an unpleasant task.  Kids who don’t develop basic self-care routines, from grooming to food, may find it hard to take care of themselves as young adults.  Structure allows us to internalize constructive habits. Structure and routines teach kids how to constructively control themselves and their environments. http://parentstoolkit.squarespace.com/structure-routines-kids/

I heard on NPR that the routine of sitting down to dinner every night as a family is more important than reading books to your children. It gives children a sense of security and belonging to know that they will have a time every day where they can be listened to by their parents and where their stories can be shared.

According to the Raising Children Network, research has shown that routines have health benefits: children living in families who maintain regular family routines have fewer respiratory infections, and those they have tend to be shorter. There is still some conjecture about why. It might be that the routines contribute to healthy habits like washing hands which prevent transmission of germs that can cause illness, or that they help protect children against the kind of stress that suppress the immune system.

For those of you who are having a difficult time adjusting to the change, try not to lament that the endless days of summer are coming to an end. Embrace the new school year with open arms knowing that the children are getting the education and structure they need to help guide them through life.  Enjoy your new free time and indulge yourself! I know that I will.

About This Post

It’s back-to-school time, and this year Sprite and TwitterMoms have partnered with bloggers like me to share back-to-school tips and tricks, advice, stories and more! Visit Sprite’s back-to-school channel on TwitterMoms to get helpful ideas, learn how to survive the back to school rush, seek out advice from other TwitterMoms and join the conversation. You can learn more about donating your My Coke Rewards Points to support your local school, how to enter for a chance to win some Back to School cash, check out recipes, or even play some fun games. Here’s to a successful and stress-free back to school season from Sprite and TwitterMoms!

Yesterday, in my miserable, sorry assed state, I reflected upon how I had been running my life lately. My biggest struggle in all of our financial adjustments has been cutting out extra-curricular activities for the boys. What I realized is that I have to develop my new role as mom/camp counselor or it is going to be a very long summer.

I picked up the boys from school and on our way home I screeched to a halt, parked the van and took the boys on a hike. I was surprised that they were actually excited to go exploring with me. I have been met with such resistance lately. They have not been enthusiastic about doing anything unless they have their friends with them. We hiked up to a scree field and they had a blast climbing all over the rocks, getting filthy. They engaged in the activity of splitting rocks to see if they could find any jewels inside. Axel has always had the keen ability to find very cool treasures in the wilderness. We were once playing in a creek by our house and he found a brown polished stone that we recognized as being a gizzard stone from a vegetarian dinosaur http://wyomingdinosaurs.com/blog/?p=23. We were in awe to think that dinosaurs treaded right where we were standing millions of years ago.

When they asked me why there was volcanic rock everywhere in the scree field I took an educated guess and talked about how the volcanic rock from deep in the earth had been disturbed by the slide. I ended by telling them what I always tell them, “let’s look it up online when we get home”. If only I had an Iphone to give them accurate answers to all of their questions. Than again, I prefer to be disconnected from the electronic world when I am with my children.

When Brevitt scared himself by thinking he found a hibernating bear in a little cave, he came running toward me tripping over his wet, untied, high top sneakers, with fear in his face.  He was certain that he saw something breathing and wanted to leave before we got attacked. Axel, not so easily convinced, crept up and looked in. “It’s just a rock”, he stated reassuringly.

After our hike we went to the market. Last time we were in the market Brevitt had a really hard time. The first thing he managed to do was to accidently fall against a pyramid display and end up with a heap of cans in his lap. Next he picked up a six pack of glass Orangina sodas and the cardboard broke. As the bottles went crashing to the floor  we heard over the loud speaker, “Clean up in aisle 13″. At that point he looked at me and started to cry. He was so frustrated that he was doing everything wrong and told me that he needed to get out of there. I couldn’t really blame him. I looked up and saw a friend of mine in a fit of giggles. She told me that she had witnessed everything and was getting a real kick out of spying on me and my boys. I was glad that we had been such a source of amusement for her in such a mundane place.

This time at the market things went a lot smoother, apart from when they lost all of my quarters in a candy vending machine. It is so annoying that markets strategically place vending machines in the front of their facilities to tempt our children. I looked at my three dirty, shaggy boys in their tattered clothes and unkempt hair and demanded that they get their money back. I refuse to do their dirty work for them anymore. The sooner they learn how to function on their own in the real world the better. They shyly approached the customer desk and asked for their money back. The woman was horrible to them but gave them what they asked for. Another lesson learned on how not to waste money.

In the market I had a real awakening. My children were growing up and I was no longer enduring frustration and anxiety when entering a large public place. No more lost children, tantrums or bathroom visits. They took care of themselves and each other now. When I forgot my environmental bags they ran to the car to get them for me consciously avoiding cars. I recognized that my hard earned efforts were coming to fruition as I observed my big, responsible, charming, albeit shaggy, boys help me out in the market, without being asked.

At the end of the day I happily collapsed into sleep at a reasonable hour. This morning I  pounced out of bed like Catwoman. Sometimes a melancholy day can truly work wonders on your constitution.