Here’s our list of activities that we did I had lined up for the past 10 days:
Swim Play Date ~ Check! How I made it fun for the grown-ups, too? Wine & cheese for the mommies! When the kids got sick of the pool, they ran around in the little sprinkler I put on the lawn & painted the cement and rocks with water. I also had chalk, a water table, and our swing.
Library Day ~ No check … We had it on our schedule, and The Boy was gung-ho when we put it on the schedule, but vetoed it twice on the day-of, despite my telling him we were going to search for Dragon Books. Maybe he was having flashbacks to the previous two times we had visited (he was 2-ish) and was yelled at by a very stern Librarian who apparently didn’t realize that you can’t “shush” a 2 year old Aspie! Oh well – I will get us there, but the truth is that we pretty much have a library here at our house … If only people would keep it organized! Hmmm … that gives me an idea 😉
Beach Day ~ Check & Check! This is always so much fun … I love the beach, he loves the beach. This time we went with friends, but I love going just the two of us also. Pro-Tip: Get a wagon & load all of your gear into the wagon for easy hauling down to the beach. If you live in the LA area, I highly recommend the Annenberg Beach House! The boardwalk makes it easy to drag that wagon to the shore. We spent all day there (on two separate playdates) chasing the waves & the seagulls, looking for dolphins & building sand castles ~ This one sure does wear him (and ME!) out!!
Hike ~ Check & Phew … We actually just got back from a 1-hour hike in our local mountain range. It’s an easy enough hike for The Boy, but has a few steep hills scattered throughout to get our blood pumping. When you get to the top of the rocky peaks, there’s a great view of the city below. This morning was an all-out battle to get him to actually come along, though. He had a melt-down because he wanted to play with his toys, (he’s once again obsessed with Toy Story,) but once we got there, he apologized and said he was glad I forced him to hike! I’m such a mean mom making him have adventures & go outside – sheesh!
Park Play Date ~ Check! Have to say, we’re super lucky to live 10-minutes walking distance from one of the coolest parks in town! (My wagon comes in handy here too!) They recently re-vamped the entire playground to be a shane’s
inspiration park that kids with all abilities can access, and they added a splash pad. The trouble is getting him to leave here – haha … he would live at the park if he could, he told me as much!
Movie Day ~ Check! When it gets too hot outside & I need to take a break, we high-tail it to the movies. We’ve been to the movies twice! Saw How To Train Your Dragon Pt. 2 and Earth To Echo. I thought they were both good, but thought that How to Train Your Dragon 2 was out-of-this world-amazing!! The story was great, the animation was so great – 100 times better than #1. And I left the theatre wanting my own dragon, (I actually ended up getting a pack of dragons that had 2 Toothless dragons in there and The Boy let me have one! Ha!) Earth to Echo was a cute story – kind of trying to be the E.T. of this generation, and it fell short of that. Better for kids that are a little older – like 7-12 maybe.
All in all, I’d say I’m doing pretty well with this summer thing … The Boy even told me that our camp is way more fun than the other one he was at — score!!
the fairly good mother 