Summer Planning, Summer Schedules, Summer Thoughts, and a giant tent.

Trying out our borrowed tent

On Saturday I had a 4 hour block of Rachel time in the morning (although I used 30 minutes of it sleeping because prom celebrating kids lit fireworks at 1am and I am not always a great return-to-sleeper).  I decided to do a bit of summer planning.

Our summer doesn't start until 17th July.  It lasts basically 7 weeks, with school starting again on a Thursday (WHYYY).

I realized I have sort of been dreading summer.  I fear that all the small pockets of Rachel time are going to disappear - my Friday morning twins at nursery time will be gone, and instead of nap time being downtime it will be big kids at home time.  Andy is taking off Mondays with the big kids all summer, which means more people potentially at home.  All the playgroups are off for summer, so there is a chance more of twin childcare will be home-based as well.

I started with a week by week view:

Week 1: 3 day workweek, brother visit, mom here, Mom and brother big kid childcare for 2 days, Thursday off with everyone
Week 2: Family Camping Trip (this may be a terrible idea)
Week 3: 4 days Work/Local Camp (Friday all kids)
Week 4: 4 days Work/Local Camp (Friday all kids)
Week 5: 4 days Work/More expensive camp (Friday all kids)
Week 6: 3 days work, Dad visit, Thursday big kids, (Friday all kids+Dad)
Week 7: Bank Holiday Monday, watch big kids tuesday, Lily's Birthday Wednesday (Andy off), Rachel Day(School starts) on Thursday, watch twins Friday, fly to New York by myself Saturday.

I know could be excited to funmom all of this but I see a lot of packed lunches and suncream in the days above, and a lot of rachel driving (more expensive camp is 15 minutes away).

Also, I am pretty good at the 4 day workweek, but taking a day off means it's a 3 day workweek and that feels so short.  I didn't realize that I'm taking 2 short weeks and 2 full weeks off over the 7 week period, and I probably need to adjust my work expectations accordingly.  There are only 18 working days for me between July 17th and September 9th.  I'll need to be pretty clear on how I'm going to use those days, otherwise I'm going to spend most of summer feeling very behind or like I'm failing in work.  

I am excited that the summer ends with a Rachel Day and then I also am going to New York for a wedding which felt a million years away but is actually not that far away at all.  I need to get something to wear.

Since I now recently learned I am a human person who needs downtime, I've decided Saturdays from 6am to 10am will be my time every week.  At least that means I have one four hour block of life.

I also have the option of sending big kids to more expensive camp on a Fridays if they want to go and if I need it easier.  They usually love more expensive camp, but it is more expensive (about £100 a day for the two of them, in case you're curious!).  It doesn't open up much Rachel time but maybe it will make a Friday more calm.

After my planning session I'm feeling slightly less terrified of summer.  We'll have to see if this translates to having a better summer.  

I guess it does mean I'm making progress on the Rachel Goal of "Build a better planning system for my life" so that's good?

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Summer planning is interesting as a working (non teacher) parent.  I realize that from a childcare standpoint, being a teacher means you don't have to do summer camp for kids, but from a general flexibility standpoint being a teacher seems far less family friendly than being middleing corporate person.  On Wednesday during the heatwave our assistant headteachers kid's school was closed, and she said "it's ok, a friend is watching the kids" while when our school closed I just left work early. 

Our friend has two young kids and is a high school math teacher.  He has a term time contract with nursery, so when school ends, he pivots immediately into childcare.  If someone told me I could have 6 more week of holiday a year but I could only spend it watching toddlers during school holidays and couldn't take midweek days off for me or for sick kids I would probably say "no thanks" and stick with my current set up.  Which I guess makes sense because that' the set up I chose.  

How long is your summer?  Do you take a lot of time off over summer? Do you always have a lot of "time off" and then kids are home so you end up with more "time on"?  On a scale from 1 to asleep, how tired would you be watching two year old twins and a five and seven year old all day?