Our summer vacation officially began on Thursday morning. By Friday, I was ready to declare it over.
It didn't help that Thursday's rain fell in biblical proportions, flooding out the summer's first event, a post-school picnic. It also didn't help that the rain overflowed our clogged gutters and dripped steadily through skylights that have leaked since we bought the house.
And it really didn't help that when I steadied myself against the kitchen wall while climbing down from a skylight inspection, I was shocked so hard that my arm hurt for hours.
The afternoon, a prototype for my fantasy Supermom summer, was supposed to be a delightful juggling of one-on-one reading time with each child, age-appropriate craft projects, laundry, two individualized piano lessons and a guitar coaching session, phone interviews and a newspaper column produced a day ahead of deadline.
In my saner moments, I realize there was no way all of those activities were going to occur anyway, but thanks to the aforementioned and accursed rain, none of them did. Instead, I learned how to secure string to a slanted ceiling with thumbtacks, thereby guiding multiple leaks into strategically placed pitchers and buckets.
I also learned to turn off lights controlled from a dangerously wet switchplate by poking at it with a wooden broom handle.
And I learned how to figure out which unlabeled breaker controls the rain-sodden electrical box by turning off every breaker in the house one by one and listening for my kids to yell down the basement stairs, "Not that one, Mom."
Other than that pivotal assistance, the kids spent the rest of the soggy afternoon beating one another over the head with videogame controllers, while I went around the house reprogramming dozens of digital clocks.
Midway through Friday, I realized that I would not be able to sustain my home-based job if my kids remain home-based as well. This is when I made three pivotal decisions.
First, I decided to follow the example set by Ron Carter. Carter is the visionary who's devoted himself to turning Zelienople's Strand Theater into a performing arts center for the northern suburbs. He left a successful career in corporate marketing to work for himself and promptly took on this daunting volunteer task.
When I met him a couple of weeks ago for a tour of the Strand, he had his 3-year-old son Alex with him. Alex clutched a toy and followed us uncomplainingly through the theater, a building so decrepit that only a visionary like his dad could envision its future.
Now that school's out, Ron tells me, both of his children will be going to work with dad.
I was trying to envision a future where one or more of my children might cooperate with my agenda for, oh, 15 minutes. I could not. But even if I'm not much of a visionary, perhaps I could settle for "optimist." Maybe if I took a cue from Ron and observed regular "Take Your Offspring to Work" days, mine might learn to grin and bear it. (Oh happy day, oh necessary day.)
Thank God video games are portable. So are books, come to think of it.
The second decision I made on the first full day of summer vacation was to sign my children up for every camp possible. Art camp, soccer camp, swim team, basketball camp, vacation Bible school -- whatever was still open. All these registrations will extend my role as chauffeur into a year-round gig, but those of us thrust into that role live for the hours of quiet between shuttles. Give me my cell phone, an ancient laptop, and a temporary membership in the health club near the kids' basketball camp and I just might keep both sanity and job.
The third decision I made was to hire a babysitter. A former regular called that same afternoon to offer her services two days a week. Coincidence, or divine intervention on my kids' behalf?
Long ago, when I decided to be a stay-at-home mom and free-lance writer instead of a full-time reporter and guilt-ridden mom, I repeatedly told myself, "No one will do for money what a parent will do for love."
Thirteen years later and considerably less idealistic, I now know, "Someone without a criminal record will do for enough money what I'm too frustrated to do out of love."
My kids are grateful that my thinking has evolved. Now if I could just manage the weather.
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