People talk a lot about societal expectations, or peer pressure, but what I find stresses me out the most is self expectations. I am constantly balancing what I think would be fun for the family to do, what would be a great summer activity or memory, versus what my family can actually handle.

The other day our neighbors invited the kids to have a picnic lunch. It was getting pretty close to nap time, but the kids were all playing together nicely and I want my kids to have nice summer activities, so I agreed… knowing I was likely setting myself up for disaster. Sure enough, when I got them inside they were over tired and crabby and neither of them napped. Ugh. We got invited to a kids movie this week with a few other kids, which would have been fun, but it was at 2pm and I know would have screwed up naps and the rest of the day. The past few days have been HOT (98° today!) and I keep thinking I should get the kids outside or to a lake or something, but they have been so happy playing inside. We’ve stayed inside because they were happy and I am lazy, but that nagging part of me keeps saying “summer fun, they are missing summer fun, lasting memories, get out and do something!” Last night, after a busy day, the ice cream truck came to our neighborhood. Can you believe it?! The funniest part was my friend and I were talking about ice cream trucks that morning and how cute and antiquated the idea is… then sure enough there’s an ice cream truck! It was on the street behind my house and the kids and I watched through the window. In my mind I was debating about how to respond when it came to our street and the kids asked for ice cream. Do I say “yes” because it’s a fun summer experience and we might not get the chance again (this is the first time I’ve seen a truck come here in the three years I’ve lived here!), or do I say “no” because it’s 7:30pm, bedtime, and the kids have already been sugared up for the day. It was Lex’s birthday after all! I had decided to be the bad guy and say no because otherwise our already potentially risky bedtime would completely fall to shambles, but then I got lucky, in two ways. First, for some reason, the truck never came to our street. We had just gotten home so perhaps it came to our street first, I’m not sure. Second, the kids didn’t seem to get it anyway. They didn’t look out the front window, patiently waiting, wondering why it wasn’t coming. They didn’t ask for ice cream. They didn’t get upset.  After the excitement of seeing it wore off the only other comment I heard was sweet Lex saying, “Wouldn’t it be fun if some other day, on a hot summer day, after naptime, the ice cream truck came to our house?” :) I said “yes!”

Anyway, now they are both sleeping and I’m sitting here with my own pressures. I really want to watch the season finale of FlashForward on Hulu. A show Alan doesn’t like, so I rarely get the chance to watch it. However, it’s a beautiful day (HOT!), the garden needs planting, the house needs tidying, I have a to-do list a mile long… sigh. I’ll probably waste all of naptime on the computer anyway.