Summer vacation rules

It’s kinda funny but sorta sad at the same time that all the house rules seem to totally disappear during the summer. I work hard for 9 months out of the year to set up routines and structure and then as soon as June hits, poof! All gone! Obviously, my routine is the same, get up, go to work, come home, take care of the family, and whatever that all entails. Hubby is pretty much the same as me. However, the kids are “officially” on a vacation. A vacation from rules apparently.

Like the 10-year-old has this new obsession with drinking pop. She rarely drinks pop but all of the sudden, there’s half drank pop cans everywhere. Last week I came home after work and there sat a Mountain Dew, half drank on the coffee table. Great…… And I knew it was hers because of the three cheese stick wrappers beside it. Of course, she wasn’t still plunked on the couch because that dang Mountain Dew caffeine had kicked in and I saw her outside playing an energetic game of solo tetherball. Today her sisters caught her crack open a new can of Coke at 10:30 in the morning and stroll past them as if it was no big deal! Luckily they tattled on her. I cringe at the thought of how many days has she been substituting a banana with an ice cold Coke? She’ll be lucky if she still has teeth by September!

And along those lines, all three of the girls think the food in the cabinets will spoil if it’s in there more than two days. The brand new package of Oreos lasted 3 whole days. I got one! The chips are like popcorn, why eat one kernel when you can eat the whole bag while you camp out watching Netflix. I’ve certainly learned, also, that I can’t buy snacks and drinks for the upcoming weekend softball tournaments until the day before we leave or I take a huge chance of them being cleaned out. Bought a giant bag of grapes on Thursday and there were 8 left on the stem by Friday night. Those stinkin’ grapes were sposed to go in the softball cooler! Man!

Speaking of Netflix, our tv’s have to know its vacation time too, because they’re on 24/7. Doesn’t mean someone is always present but they’re on. Every room too! And it’s possible for one of my vacationing children, on one of their rare days off, to start a Netflix series in the morning and be on the last season by midnight. Then they text me the next day, “What new show should I start watching?” Oh, I got one! How about the show where the kids suddenly remember that their mom ISN’T on summer vacation and would love to have her house cleaned and beds made and laundry done?

Remember that show? Probably not …

I’m sure even my poor house realizes its vacation time. It had to notice a month ago that its floors were starting to become more cluttered than usual and its rooms were constantly messy because of the three young, vacationing humans that saunter from space to space, leaving little mementos in each space. A sweatshirt here, a gym bag there. A couple pairs of flip flops here and some charger cords there. I’m sure the house enjoys the company, which is a change from the quiet school days but I wonder if it would like some upkeep to go along with all that attention. I’m sure it asks what happened to all the rules, just like I’m asking myself.

Oh well, couple more months and everything will get back to normal. I will try to work on my pop drinking rebel and I may suggest some other duties for the Netflix groupies and the rest I’ll just ride out. Heck, maybe I’ll even join in and relax a little. Summer vacation has to have some perks I guess! Where’s that bag of Doritos??