Teen Summer

My notifications tell me I haven’t written in a while.

Adding a new teenager into your home will do that.   It’s also the end of the year so we have been jam packed with graduations, proms, award ceremonies, recitals, end of year parties for sports and school, buying all the necessities for summer and birthdays.  I bet all you parents with more than one child feel the same stress of the pre-summer calendar.  Add in a food drive, a trip to Great Wolf Lodge and illness and there you go…..my excuse for not writing in a few weeks!

Today feels like the calm before the storm.   I actually got to take a short bath and read a chapter of a book!  Our kids are done school next week.   Then we will be very busy at home and on vacations.   The only thing I dread is seeing all the complaining posts during the first weeks of summer from parents wishing school would start again.  I love having my kids home for summer.   It’s only a few weeks of the whole year!   We pack it full of fun and then they go back.   My small fry will be full time in SK and the rest range from grade 1 – 11.   The oldest 2 girls will be moved out and gone to their post-secondary schools.   My granddaughter will start JK!   And I’ll be left with my baby at home.   My one year old tornado.   I will enjoy these last days with my girls and enjoy the few vacations and explorations we have planned.

This summer we also look forward to renovating our kitchen.   Not the full plan we have but the ancient ceiling came down and we will be putting in nice lights and a new ceiling, new counters and a back splash.   It’s tricky to renovate with 8 kids.    We have to do the bulk of it during the summers so I can take the kids camping while most of the dusty work gets done.   Our two kids with Cystic Fibrosis can’t be around drywall dust or ancient dirt so we have to live outdoors while we renovate.   We have a pretty great back deck which is almost a full kitchen so we can cook and eat outdoors.   I’m excited for the update and clean bright area which I spend much of my days.

We will go up North to the trees and the lakes to visit our good friends and get eaten alive by bugs for a week.  We also have plans to camp with friends.  5 foster moms and about 35 kids!   It’s so much fun and all the kids get along well.

The trickiest part of summer is the tween years.   What do you do with kids age 10-15 who are not old enough to work?    All we have so far is volunteering at a thrift store one morning a week and volunteering at a VBS for a week.   This is always the age I do find difficult to be at home all summer.   If you don’t keep them busy, they whine and complain how bored they are.  Here is a list I have compiled from my searching.

If you have tweens or teens without a job, I wish you luck in surviving summer without whining.   Managing to keep them off of video games 24/7 and from fighting with siblings.

If you think of any fabulous ideas for keeping non-working teens busy I would love to hear them!   Comment below and help other moms who struggle to keep their tweens busy and happy all summer.

SDG