39 Ways You Know It’s Still Summer

1. Your brain’s mush.
2. Your bank account is, too.
3. Your kid’s spent the last 20 days begging you for a bigger, better water gun.
4. When you give in and buy him a Super Soaker, it lasts about 5 minutes, until he notices that his friend has a bigger, better Super Soaker.
5. You spend the next 28 hours trying to ignore your kid’s request for the bigger, better Super Soaker before someone you thought was a friend gives your kid a Target gift card for his birthday.
6. You take your post-birthday-melt-down kid to Target to buy the better, bigger Super Soaker only to find that they’re out of the one goddamn model he wants.
7. They do, however, have 6 other pricey, high-tech Super Soakers, most of which should be outlawed.
8. See #2.
9. When he sees his older brother using his gift card to buy himself the AK-47 Deluxe Grande Super Soaker, your younger son melts into a screaming and crying fit over why he doesn’t get to buy a new toy, too.
10. See #2.
11. By the time you and your spouse have recovered from The Super Soaker Incident, you’ve both turned completely gray.
12. After coming to terms with your new “mature” look, you decide it’s time to get back to work. Except that it’s also time to start looking for a new sitter, now that your current sitter is moving to a different city and you’ll have no one to watch the kids in another week and a half.
13. Place an ad on Craigslist and watch the responses start to trickle in.
14. Mention your sitter search to a mom friend who interviewed a woman from Craigslist, then watched her face splash across the news the next week for selling crystal meth.
15. Drink heavily.
16. See #2.
17. Find a new online nanny-search service.
18. See #2.
19. Start interviewing sitters/obsessing over who’s the right match for you.
20. Wonder why you’re not getting any work done.
21. Wonder how your child’s able to ask/beg for ice cream every 30 seconds for eight hours straight without getting tired.
22. Decide that his stamina, his fortitude, his hanging-in-there-ness comes from your side of the family, damn it.
23.  Which doesn’t really help, now does it.
24. Wonder how it’s possible for your child to wake up with the sun every day at 5:30 a.m., no matter what time he goes to sleep.
25. Wonder how many Little League games it’s possible to attend before you snap and tell that obnoxious parent that it’s just a game!
26. Wonder how many Little League games you need to attend before someone grants you a reprieve.
27. Wonder how many days in a row it’s possible for your older son to wear the same camouflage shirt.
    

    Uh-oh. I’ve been detected.

28. Don’t ask.
29. Wonder what the hell the big draw is with boys and war, anyway.
30. Wonder if you really shouldn’t be getting back to work some time soon, you know.
31. Except that it’s summer and your kids sure have a lot of energy. Maybe you can get something done after they go to sleep. Except that they don’t ever seem to go to sleep anymore, and by the time they’re finally passed out, you are, too.
32. Wonder how long this phase is going to last.
33. Wonder why every outing you take your kids on is so expensive. Like last week, when you spent $20 to take them to the Butterfly Pavillion and they got bored after 14 minutes.
34. Wonder how long until your child asks for more sugar.
35. (12 seconds)
36. Wonder how much longer until school starts.
37. Wonder how long until you lose your mind.
38. Wonder how long until your child starts asking for the latest, greatest Super Soaker….
39. See #4.  And the cycle continues….

Hope you’re having a good summer, folks!