Whoever tied the words 'summer' and 'lazy' together was obviously not a stay-at-home-mom.

Today marked the first official day of the sweaty season in the Maven household. Meaning Gutsy survived - or, rather, Gutsy's teacher survived - kindergarten, and Intrepid officially 'graduated' from elementary school and is now on his way to the big leagues: Junior high. Grade 7.

But we're not going to talk about that right now. At the moment, he's still my little boy. Puberty hasn't hit its full stride just yet, so I can remain blissfully in denial about him ever becoming the 'T' word. You know that word, don't you? Starts with 'teen' and ends with 'ager'? But we're not going to say it because it makes my heart do anxious little flips. The doctor tells me those are bad. For the next two months we're just going to go along thinking he'll stay young forever, being my sweet boy with a clear face, no body odor and only a passing interest in the opposite gender.





Thank you for your cooperation.

At any rate, today has been anything but lazy. I woke up at 6:30AM and decided that, instead of going to bed, I would go for a run while it was still cool outside. Some would call me an idiot. I would say I'm rather kick ass, actually. I ran hard and fast. I think I even managed four whole minutes without stopping! Four minutes!

And then I remembered that I used to be able to run 20 minutes non-stop. Stupid memories.

God bless my addictive personality and those lovely endorphins. There's no way I could torture myself like that if it weren't for the great high to carry my through the rest of my day.

After feeding the gremlins a healthy breakfast of leftover popcorn and grapes - excuse me for a moment while I shine my Nutritionally Savvy Parent award - we swarmed the local water park with a couple of other mommies and our platoon of ankle biters. Nothing says 'Time to go home for snack, Timmy!' like two minivans and a station wagon pulling into the parking lot. Going out in a herd-like fashion is a lot like being a VIP, but less expensive. Free, actually. So maybe it's more like bullying. Whatever.

After the gremlins were done sitting on the water jets and pretending they were peeing eight feet into the air, it was time to bring them home, dry off and make lunch.

Except that we ate all the popcorn and grapes in the house, so I had to do some grocery shopping.

By myself, because Intrepid is home and can watch the other two.

Have I mentioned I like summer? I mean, even if it isn't lazy, there's still an exciting element of freedom that can't be ignored.

I fed the kids a healthy lunch of boxed macaroni and cheese. It has all the important post-water park nutrients, such as saturated fat and food colouring; everything a body needs to pick itself up and shake off that healthy glow.

Then I cleaned my house, yelled at the bank (I won), played with my new iPhone, did four loads of laundry, made dinner out of another box (this one actually had vegetables in it somewhere), played fetch with the gremlins outside, and scrubbed Gutsy down in the shower because he ran through poison ivy.



(... What? The iPhone? Oh. That. Yeah, um... The thing is, I hated my other new phone because it didn't do what I wanted it to do. So, as pretty as it is, and even though I invested in a handy traveling case and matching cup, I decided I needed to get what I actually wanted and thus force myself into writing for actual money to justify the exorbitant cost of looking even cooler every month. It's the price I have to pay to up my street cred, you understand. It was the best worst decision I ever made. And, although I'll suffer through several lectures from my mother, I can tune most of them out by checking to see if her the pictures on her walls are level using the funky leveling tool I just downloaded. These phones really do have everything!)

Anyway, the long and short of this story is that I'm awesome.

Wait. No. That was a sub-plot. The main reason I wrote this post was to say that whoever decided that summer is lazy should be left in a dark alley with Gutsy. Maybe he can knock some sense into them.


I know. That's the best. Picture. Ever. I totally agree.

And now I trudge bravely forward into summer.