The last day of summer. The very last day of sleeping in, hanging out at the beach, swimming in the pool, and just getting ready for the first day of school.
Oh, I had such plans for Sunday.
And you know me and plans, we go WAY back. We're t-i-g-h-t.
So, in order to get a kick start on the Last Day of Summer - duh duh, duh - we went to church the night before. And while my mom took my kids to a birthday party, my husband and I planned to go walking at the beach. It was ECSC weekend - the big, huge enormous surfing championship, which occurred down at one end of the beach. The plan was to walk AWAY from it, walk to the other end, get a metric butt ton of exercise and go home.
Yeah, well, my husband doesn't like plans. And HE wanted to watch the surfing. So that's what we did. We walked just a small distance, stood among 7 quadrillion young girls in bikinis - oh, yeah, tell me HE didn't have a plan - and two hours later, we went home.
(For those of you that have never been to the East Coast Surfing Championship, I played Betty Tourist and took a 30 second 360 view of the beach. Take special note of the bands, the cornhole games, the stacks and stacks of trash cans - and, oddly enough, the Hummer perched on the manmade dune, surrounded by non native Palm Trees. This was at the very end of the ECSC, past the crowds and the people and the spray paint tattoos that the teenage girls coveted. For those of you that live here, sorry - it's a fairly boring video. And it's at the bottom of this post.)
When we finally recovered, we took the kids swimming. Where everyone was grumpy, most people were irritable, and there was enough arguing and frustration to make the beacon of beginning school shine extra bright. People sat on the sides for "time outs", threats were made, OUTDOOR voices may have been used and both of the adults present began to devoutly wish for bed time. Even at 5 p.m.
As a last hurrah, I really, really wanted to take the kids out for frozen yogurt. I had such plans. It was going to be a nice evening - I might even have taken cute video of them, or pictures of their creations. This place is my favorite - if you follow them on Facebook, you can see the daily flavors on their wall and once you arrive, you can sample to your hearts content. Once you pick your selection, you can top it with one of a myriad of toppings. I'd told my kids that they could each pick two, and things went south as soon as we walked in the door. Because me and plans, man, we are TIGHT.
The door closed on someone's foot. So that person shrieked and the entire establishment turned as a unit to observe our entrance. One of the anticipated flavors was considerably less tasty than anticipated. And, as I tried SO HARD to make a good memory, to be patient and help each child create their desired sundae on this, the last night of summer vacation - I sent Riley over to have an older child help her with the toppings - and that big kid accidentally put a maraschino cherry in the bowl.
You could hear the shriek from outside the restaurant. And any attempts I made to take off the cherry, and wipe off the juice, Make it better - well, that didn't work and I just threw it away and we started over. Then another child, who was told to Stop with the toppings already, looked me square in the face and added one, two, three more gummy worms. And I had to force myself not to throw away the entire bowl of fro yo - I REALLY wanted to have a nice, last hurrah - but, instead, I calmly walked over and paid - and then went to the trash can and tossed all but three of the gummies in the trash. And by the time we got to the van, 2 more were pushing each other, one was sobbing over her foot, one was pouting, hubby was irritable, and I wanted to hurt someone BAD.
But. School starts in about 9 hours. In fact, by the time many of you read this, my house may be on the road to recovery - my house, and my body, need a stiff detox from the summer.
We did have fun. We did, as our incredibly full fun poster can illustrate. But now, it's time for us to get back to school.
I had a similar day, we left our beach earlier then expected do to "back talk". I'm not back to school for 1wk but I want to!
Posted by: kyooty | August 29, 2010 at 11:17 PM
I have five kids and this so oddly familiar . . .
Posted by: Carrie | August 29, 2010 at 11:55 PM
I'm no stranger to failed "great last days" or fallen-apart plans either: I feel your pain!
Enjoy the peace and quiet when they are finally back at school, and marvel that probably sometime you will miss them!!
Posted by: UKCraftySal | August 30, 2010 at 04:32 AM
Mine has been in school for a week now but since I work I'm not getting any more "free time" than I did before. We didn't have much fun time this summer sadly. I had all sorts of plans (sensing the same theme here)that I failed to follow through on for the summer. Never made it to the beach, museum, or any of the touristy fun things. *sigh*
Posted by: Elizabeth | August 30, 2010 at 04:53 AM
I hear ya. I'm ready for school to start....but we still have 1 1/2 weeks left. They're all on my last nerve and I've decided that there IS such a thing as too much togetherness.
Anyway...I "borrowed" your fun poster idea. Ours is neon pink and filled to the brim with every single fun thing we did this summer.
Posted by: MamaCas | August 30, 2010 at 07:44 AM
THANK YOU SO MUCH for sending the younger four to Bella's birthday party....they were very, very well behaved and my kids were SO PSYCHED to meet them.
Posted by: Angela | August 30, 2010 at 09:30 AM
I laugh. Not to be mean, but because 2 weeks ago, the night before school started, we had a VERY similar experience. Rest assured they will remember the fun and eventually they will forget the outside voices used, the time outs, the marachino cherry and the gummies...eventually.
Posted by: Wendy | August 30, 2010 at 09:57 AM
Girlfriennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd
This is why I read you every day. Days like that make me wonder if I'm just a big mothering FAIL. And our day yesterday, the last "big day" of summer before today's start of school=FAIL.
Planned on taking the kids to their favorite restaurant I think we haven't been to in MONTHS. They all turned their noses up at it & wanted to order pizza in. You know, because we haven't already done that 67176176357653 times this summer!
Much fighting, screaming, crying and tantrumming in the pool. Ahhh yes, I went from oh soooo sad (truly!) that it was the last day of summer to WOOOHOOOOO only 14 more hours!!!
AND the morning's scheduled back to school photo session was canceled due to baby waking up feverish & proceeding to pr0j3ctile vomit all over. JOYOUS morning indeed :)
Posted by: KG | August 30, 2010 at 11:44 AM
Sorry to hear your plans were crashed. It's the same way here. If I make plans, something is going to go wrong.
We started school this morning, too. But, I homeschool, so no free time or away from the kids time for me. And my teenager? Was an hour late getting up this morning. *sigh* But, I'm still hopeful. *g*
Posted by: Brandy | August 30, 2010 at 12:39 PM
Cool video! My cousins both placed at ECSC... one was women's pro second and one was women's pro 8th - they are twins... I wish I could have gone to see them. You are braver than I, trying to find parking in all that!
Posted by: Katherine | August 30, 2010 at 07:38 PM
When things go wrong, they go horribly wrong. Around here, when they go that wrong, it usually means that my mom is with us so she can repeatedly remind me for years to come about how my kids acted that day.
And that's why we don't take my kids school shopping. Even a lunch bribe didn't help that day along.
Posted by: kimmie | August 30, 2010 at 09:13 PM