Summer Gripes...

The last day of school is the 20th. This leaves us just 6 days until the children of the Valley run amock in every corner, hill, dale and road.

This post is about all the things that I don't like about children being out of school for the summer....(by children, I mean in general, not mine, that post will have to wait, it's too long)

The kids up the road will get honked at, I guarentee it. The other day, on the way out, I drove up the road to find three little boys riding their bikes in the road. No biggie, it's a rural road, and where else do you ride a bike? Well, I slowed down even further (speed limit is 20), and waited for them to get off the road to let me pass. Two of them did, the other looked at me, and proceeded to ride in circles in the middle of the road. He finally moved, and I wen ton my fuming way....after I told my kids that if I ever caught them acting stupid like that in the road I'd do all sorts of un-lovely things...top of the list would be taking bikes away.

They all swore, and I admitted they are all very well-behaved when it comes to giving vehicles their space to pass. They all get OFF the road and STOP until the vehicle is past. Hurray! I taught them something right!

On the other hand, they aren't getting themselves ready for school.

The other thing I'm not ready to handle during the summer....the loads of kids coming into the store buying all the candy and engery drinks (OMG, parents do you know your kids are getting energy drinks at the age of 10?), and paying with all their hard-earned (or found) change.

Okay that shouldn't be as bad for me this year, since I'm at the grocery store, and not the gas station like last year. Hopefully.

But the change doesn't bug me as much as the energy drinks does. Seriously, does an average 10 to 15 year old NEED energy drinks? I don't think so! I've even had parents in my checkout, actually buying cases of these things for their kids! Makes me really want to refuse to let them get the darn things. Am I allowed to do that? Can I seriously ask the customer if they are buying the drinks for themselves (also not a great choice of beverage for an adult), or the kids? Can I follow them home and make sure they aren't allowing Jr. to drink mass quanities of sugar, caffiene and "herbs" so they can stay up all night and keep everyone who has to work in the morning awake?

Living here it isnt' quite so bad. But when we used to live "in town", there would be children up and in the road, or near-by yards playing loudly until all hours of the night. There was even one family that apparently let their children just pass out whenever they felt like it, since the kids were routinly awake at 2 am.

My children will be awoken no later than 8 am during the summer (if they aren't already up), and will be sent to bed no later than 10 pm-but most likely closer to 8:30 or 9:00. A slight change in the schedule, to allow for more playing in the wonderful Alaska Sun.

How does your summertime schedule differ from your school-time schedule? I'll share ours in the next post! Until then....the countdown is on!