It's Been a Good Weekend (and ten other random facts)

Fact #1: My kids are officially out of school for the summer. Since school ended and then we headed right into a holiday weekend, I'm not mentally considering it "summer break" until Tuesday.

I'm scared.

Fact #2: On Saturday morning, my kids were all awake by 6:02. Scotty was gone for a while in the morning, and by 9:00 a.m. I felt as if it should be dinner time. I've got some long days ahead of me.

Fact #3: Last week, Daisy and Eva had two nights of dance concerts. Nicky always comes along (by choice) for both nights. You've heard of "Dance Moms." I want to start a reality show called "Dance Brothers." Nicky has a lot to say. A lot. I spent most of the concert telling him to shush. No commentary. No singing. Just shush!

Fact #4: It's pretty hard to convince my 11-year-old son to shush during a dance concert when there's an old dude behind us drumming on the bottom of his metal auditorium seat through every song.

"Why can't I sing? How come that guy gets to make noise?"

"Because his mother isn't here to offer him loving guidance. Look how lucky you are to have me!"

(Seriously, though, that was incredibly annoying).

Fact #5: I've realized in recent months that I eat like a dude. I can't help it, I like manly food. I often look around my food places and realize it's me and a bunch of male construction workers. Then I smile and take a bite of my philly cheese steak sandwich.

Fact #6: As I head into summer break with my kids, I feel like I need to create some sort of structure for them. But I can't. I don't have it in me. I just have to take it day by day. I know I'm going to make mistakes this summer. I might yell too often or let my kids watch too much TV. We might fail to read, We'll probably eat too many potato chips, and we'll very likely get sunburned.

I don't want to spend the whole summer beating myself up over my failures, so I'm trying to find a way to celebrate the successes - however few and far between they are.

Fact #7: For the entire school year, Nicky has worn Hawaiian shirts and gym shorts. He made sure to wear the same Hawaiian shirt on the last day of school that he wore on the first day of school. Unfortunately, it got torn the week before school ended, so I'm going to make him get rid of it. He doesn't know it yet, but we are going camping soon, and I'm going to make him retire it in the fire. He's going to be so mad.

Fact #8: Nicky has been begging me to let him have a "bald haircut." He's been very persistent about it, and the last time I cut his hair, he sobbed and sobbed because I didn't buzz it. We finally compromised, and I told him he could shave off all his hair for the summer. Our neighbor offered to give him a free buzz for the summer because he complained to her about how I wouldn't let him be bald. He's redeeming his free haircut this week.

Hold me.

Fact #9: For the summer, I wanted to drastically reduce my use of social media to help with my depression. I deleted Instagram from my phone and won't be using it at all this summer, and for Facebook, I decided to do a "No Scroll Summer." I will still use Facebook for a few things such as sharing my blog posts and communicating with some select groups, but I will not scroll!

(If I announce it here, I have to stick to it, right?)

Fact #10: I need to go to bed, but I've reached that point where going to bed is too much work, so I just stay awake.