The stream of back to school photos on Facebook has me in a bit of a panic. Can summer really be over? My kids don’t go back until August 26th but what happened to summer?

When I was a kid the summer was three months of lazy days at the beach and even after I was old enough to have a summer job I had enough time to fit in 4 weeks of music camp, during a few of those summers I even went for 8 weeks. This summer my kids got out of school on June 13th and we headed east the very next day (I work at the music camp in Maine that I went to as a kid!). We arrived back home 8 weeks later and have been enjoying lazy mornings and fun days at the beach.  Behind the scenes I’m filtering emails about registration and fall sports. The kicker is that my middle guy’s football season started 3 weeks ago so every evening since we arrived home from camp he’s been busting his butt to get in his 10 hours of conditioning so that he can join the team’s regular practices. They’ve had a great summer so I’m not complaining but I’m doing my best to protect them from the chaos leading up to the first day of school. I’m certainly not dragging them around clothes shopping when they’ll be wearing shorts and t-shirts for the next two months anyway.  I miss the days when you could look to labor day as the end of summer and the beginning of a new school year. It feels wrong to be buying school supplies and fall clothes in early August.

In the camp world we’ve felt the pinch over time as the school year gets longer and the summer break gets shorter. Some schools go year round but I’d move or run away before I’d let that happen to my kids. Downtime is important, I wouldn’t trade lazy mornings and days at the beach with my kids for anything. I’ll be ready to get back into a routine by the time next Tuesday arrives but for now I’m savoring every minute!