Your plans are so lovely, please keep us posted on how your summer/home exchange would lay out :) I am working on a grant for the NIH with the deadline on June 6th, so May is very busy. It is also (luckily) a last month of school, so the kids are entertained! Our school break is about 10 weeks, so i do a full-time camp at the local fitness club for my two boys. I keep playing lottery to get into the school camp every year, but can't get it. The spots there are guaranteed only if you pay $3,000 per kid for aftercare during the school year, which we don't. So hence comes the fitness club camp. The boys love it, and last summer the take-away message that they learned was that you need to eat healthy and exercise in order to be a big kid (both of my boys wants to get BIG :)) ! So yay, the money well spent!
For fun, we usually get a membership in the outdoor pool for summer $600 per family for three months of fun (not included in the regular fitness club membership) and use it on the weekends and Wednesday nights :). The things i am most looking forward are the farmers markets and bike rides, and being on a water with my kayak group :)
O dear, I feel so lucky reading this. I plan to work some less hours during the six week school holidays, we’re on a family vacation for two of them. The other four there is our au pair, we do low key activities (hiking, biking, museums) and the kids have summer school for one they per week. No cancellations so far, and never before so high hopes! Generally we also sleep in a little Bit and stay out longer at night, and my boys will bike around the neighbourhood and have play dates as well. Lots of icecream and a backyard pool complete the Summer vibe!
I was feeling pretty good about summer plans until this morning, when our school announced the summer program I had been banking on was cancelled because of staff availability. It was only 6 weeks, from 8-12, but still! So now on to the back ups.
Last summer, we cobbled together a babysitter at home 2 days a week on the days I WFH, grandparent care 2 days a week, and DH off and on point on Fridays. Our last week of summer break was our beach trip. Camps didn't work out because I couldn't find a camp that would take both the younger and older kid at the same time at the same location. Also because oldest is a sensitive soul and needs to be with either her sister or a friend, and friends either had nannies or stay-at-home family care and weren't doing camps.
Kids are 5.5 and 7.5. This summer, we need coverage from mid-June to mid-August, as our beach trip will once again be the last week of vacation. I'm eyeing a doll STEAM camp for both kids for one week and a Christmas in July themed art camp for one week, and then same routine of babysitter 2 days, grandparents 2 days, Daddy one day. I have Juneteenth and 4th of July off, so I will try to take an extra day or two around those holidays.
Quit my job and hang by the pool is so tempting. Now that my kids are old enough to entertain themselves for small chunks of time and are fun people, it is so, so tempting.
Nooooo.... that’s terrible re the school camp! I’m a little nervous that the sea camp T LOVED and asks to go back to regularly won’t run. I’ve heard rumours about the perilous state of their finances. They are running in February half term (but I’d already booked something else for 2 days by the time they had announced), and we will see for Easter (2 weeks!)
Ugh. Summer seems to last forever in terms of childcare. Now that both kids are well into elementary school (and my daughter has started middle school) it is more complicated.
I work from home and one of my university contracts scales back significantly, so I work around the kids time at home, but it's not fun! I also find it hard to plan in advance because camps and early-bird specials are all set in the winter, but because of my flexible working schedule, I want to be able to make those choices later in the year.
At this point, the kids do a series of day camps and then spend a lot of very flexible days just playing around our neighbourhood. But I wish I had a better system...
It’s so, so tricky. Like I can be pretty available during the summer (academic) but no one else in our town seems concerned so I feel like a weirdo. Most folks seem to have a parent at least partly at home or local grandparents. So I feel weird being like “so the week before school starts, shall we go halves...” As this is our first summer, I’m just booking things in and then will reevaluate next summer.
At what point can I send him to his grandparents for a few weeks?
Your plans are so lovely, please keep us posted on how your summer/home exchange would lay out :) I am working on a grant for the NIH with the deadline on June 6th, so May is very busy. It is also (luckily) a last month of school, so the kids are entertained! Our school break is about 10 weeks, so i do a full-time camp at the local fitness club for my two boys. I keep playing lottery to get into the school camp every year, but can't get it. The spots there are guaranteed only if you pay $3,000 per kid for aftercare during the school year, which we don't. So hence comes the fitness club camp. The boys love it, and last summer the take-away message that they learned was that you need to eat healthy and exercise in order to be a big kid (both of my boys wants to get BIG :)) ! So yay, the money well spent!
For fun, we usually get a membership in the outdoor pool for summer $600 per family for three months of fun (not included in the regular fitness club membership) and use it on the weekends and Wednesday nights :). The things i am most looking forward are the farmers markets and bike rides, and being on a water with my kayak group :)
O dear, I feel so lucky reading this. I plan to work some less hours during the six week school holidays, we’re on a family vacation for two of them. The other four there is our au pair, we do low key activities (hiking, biking, museums) and the kids have summer school for one they per week. No cancellations so far, and never before so high hopes! Generally we also sleep in a little Bit and stay out longer at night, and my boys will bike around the neighbourhood and have play dates as well. Lots of icecream and a backyard pool complete the Summer vibe!
I was feeling pretty good about summer plans until this morning, when our school announced the summer program I had been banking on was cancelled because of staff availability. It was only 6 weeks, from 8-12, but still! So now on to the back ups.
Last summer, we cobbled together a babysitter at home 2 days a week on the days I WFH, grandparent care 2 days a week, and DH off and on point on Fridays. Our last week of summer break was our beach trip. Camps didn't work out because I couldn't find a camp that would take both the younger and older kid at the same time at the same location. Also because oldest is a sensitive soul and needs to be with either her sister or a friend, and friends either had nannies or stay-at-home family care and weren't doing camps.
Kids are 5.5 and 7.5. This summer, we need coverage from mid-June to mid-August, as our beach trip will once again be the last week of vacation. I'm eyeing a doll STEAM camp for both kids for one week and a Christmas in July themed art camp for one week, and then same routine of babysitter 2 days, grandparents 2 days, Daddy one day. I have Juneteenth and 4th of July off, so I will try to take an extra day or two around those holidays.
Quit my job and hang by the pool is so tempting. Now that my kids are old enough to entertain themselves for small chunks of time and are fun people, it is so, so tempting.
Nooooo.... that’s terrible re the school camp! I’m a little nervous that the sea camp T LOVED and asks to go back to regularly won’t run. I’ve heard rumours about the perilous state of their finances. They are running in February half term (but I’d already booked something else for 2 days by the time they had announced), and we will see for Easter (2 weeks!)
Ugh. Summer seems to last forever in terms of childcare. Now that both kids are well into elementary school (and my daughter has started middle school) it is more complicated.
I work from home and one of my university contracts scales back significantly, so I work around the kids time at home, but it's not fun! I also find it hard to plan in advance because camps and early-bird specials are all set in the winter, but because of my flexible working schedule, I want to be able to make those choices later in the year.
At this point, the kids do a series of day camps and then spend a lot of very flexible days just playing around our neighbourhood. But I wish I had a better system...
It’s so, so tricky. Like I can be pretty available during the summer (academic) but no one else in our town seems concerned so I feel like a weirdo. Most folks seem to have a parent at least partly at home or local grandparents. So I feel weird being like “so the week before school starts, shall we go halves...” As this is our first summer, I’m just booking things in and then will reevaluate next summer.
At what point can I send him to his grandparents for a few weeks?