I Hate Summer

There’s really no other way to put it: I legit may die before Labor Day. Summer break is straight-up trying to kill me. All day, every day with five average kids is tough. All day, every day is with four average kids plus Pook is downright lethal. It’s gonna be either my brain (lack of sleep, zillions of to-do tasks, all the fricking laundry) or my heart (Maybe… I mean, is overcaffeination a real thing?) but summer’s gonna get me somehow.

When Bean was born, I remember saying that I’d been to the doctor more in her first six months of life than in the last six years of mine. Oh, how little I knew. Pook has an entire team of people – physical therapist, speech therapist, GI surgeon, nutritionist, geneticist, pediatrician and occupational therapist- and we see most of those folks at least monthly. We also get home visits from Early Intervention therapists and from the folks at WIC. There are, occasionally, three consecutive days in a week without a doctors appointment, but rarely more than that. We had a total of two weeks in 2018 during which we did not see a doctor. One week was in August and the other in December. So far in 2019, there has not been a single week without a doctor visit, although we’ve cancelled/rescheduled a few when kids were sick, etc. (To put it in perspective, our HSA account has $2000 for the year and our copays are $20. There’s under $800 left in the account and it’s only July.) All of that means my typical day with Pook and Boogie during the school year involves a lot of planning ahead and a lot of running around. I’m in a fairly committed relationship with my Erin Condren planner. She completes me.

Then comes summer. Good gravy, y’all. Suddenly I’m cooking three meals a day for seven instead of eating cold toast while the babies nap. There are so many dishes! Setting up a daily routine is somehow my job, a task about which I feel markedly unenthusiastic. Leaving the house requires a whole new level of preparation and heaven forfend I consider doing so without a duffel bag of snacks. Worst of all, my afternoon hour of calm while the babies nap is just… gone. Poof. I haven’t used the bathroom alone since June 15.

We had an appointment this morning with the GI surgeon to change out Pook’s feeding tube. Our hospital has a drop-in daycare which is, quite literally, the only reason my children survived last summer – if I’d had to cram all five of those kids into an exam room thrice weekly I’d have handed them all weapons and made them duel it out Hunger Games-style. (May the odds be ever in your favor, Bean. It ain’t lookin’ good for you.) I had just finished outlining the plan for the day, put the babies down for an early nap and hopped into the shower when Bean came to tell me there was someone at the door. It turned out we also had a home visit this morning that I had completely forgotten. So I met our caseworker in whatever clothes I grabbed off the hamper, wet-headed and with zero makeup. Toot toot… All aboard the Hot Mess Express.

Erin Condren and I are going to have a serious discussion about this later, believe you me.

Pook’s appointment went as well as it could have, but it was painful for her and we were both pretty sad. It’s been a crappy day, but I’m trying hard to be grateful for something. There’s always something worthy of gratitude, even if it’s only a small something. So today I was grateful for the hospital’s daycare that allowed me to take a moment to cry, then put myself together before facing the big kids. And grateful that my Pook is such a strong and determined girl. Man, that kid is tough.

As I write this, the babies are upstairs trying not to nap and the big kids are outside trying to race. Bean’s on her bike, Roo’s got his scooter and, I kid you not, Noodle is scooting up and down the road on a five-wheeled office chair. This is the most peaceful moment of my day thus far, despite someone screaming that someone else is a cheater who got a headstart and the clatter-scrape of that damn office chair. I guess this is summer break. Don’t expect me to be happy about it. Just help me survive til September.

Pook, post-visit today.